Meet Mandy: The Heartbeat of Splash Kingdom
Mandy isn't your typical COO. At Splash Kingdom, she keeps the parks thriving by diving headfirst into daily operations. One moment she's side-by-side with her staff, the next she's planning ways to make the park run better. Her waterpark story began when she was just 16, taking a job simply because it was close to home. Soon enough, a summer job turned into a career. Over the years, Mandy mastered everything from guest services and ticketing to managing retail and daily park activities.
Why does Mandy love Splash Kingdom so much? It's the impact they have on young staff members. Splash Kingdom isn’t just a workplace; it’s a safe haven where young people can thrive in a fun, supportive environment. Mandy says it best: “Watching their growth and their development is probably my favorite part.”
Facing the Waves of Challenges
But as the waterpark started to grow, technology got in the way. Mandy and her team had to build workarounds on top of workarounds, putting the team in a difficult position:
- Disconnected Experiences: Managing multiple parks was tricky. “We have multiple parks, and we had a lot of workarounds going on to make sure the customers had the same experience at each park” recalls Mandy recalls. Season pass holders wanting to switch parks had to wait while staff manually verified their info over the phone. It was cumbersome and not very friendly.
- Slow and Painful Support: High turnover at their previous software provider meant help was slow, unreliable, and deeply frustrating. “When you are only open 90 to 100 days, every second literally counts,” Mandy explained.
- Frequent System Outages: Updates would often crash their ticketing systems. “If my ticket window is down because an update causes the tickets to not work. That’s really horrible. We had a lot of outages” says Mandy.
The frustration grew until Mandy and her team had enough: “Our whole team was frustrated. Having unanimous feedback from 20 people was what really pushed us to change.”
Turning Things Around with Connect&GO
From day one, Mandy felt supported in the implementation of Connect&GO. Clear guidelines made everything easy, and the on-site team went beyond just training; they empowered Mandy’s staff to confidently use the new system. She especially appreciated the regular check-ins and friendly reminders, which kept everyone on track without feeling overwhelmed. “The implementation team was kind to us and would send us reminders like, ‘hey, we need to make sure that this is done by this day’. They really made sure we understood what we were doing throughout the whole process,” Mandy recalls.
Once Connect&GO was up and running, the results quickly spoke for themselves. Splash Kingdom found exactly was they needed:
- Cashless Convenience: Guests now easily load money onto their kids' wristbands. “They can put money on their kid’s wristband instead of having to worry about sending them to the water park with $30 or $40, or with my credit card,” says Mandy.
- Boosting Guest Spending: Easy upsells and cross-sells almost doubled guest spending online. “The average money spent per transaction has gone up Connect&GO,” mentions Mandy.
- Remote Flexibility: With cloud replacing on site servers, Mandy no longer spends her days driving between parks just to update a server or pull reports. She manages it all remotely, quickly, and efficiently.
- Stable and Reliable: Connect&GO eliminated outages entirely. Mandy shares, “I don’t think we had any outages last year, which was the first time ever!”
Making Mandy’s Day Easier
Mandy's everyday tasks transformed significantly. Remote access to the Back-Office, easy reporting, and flexibility to serve guests better. These simple changes had a huge impact. “Being able to get into the back office from anywhere and make changes, that’s 1000% what has made my job easier,” Mandy emphasizes.
In addition, new staff adapted quickly, proving Connect&GO was not just effective, but intuitive. Mandy notes, “It was amazing how quickly new hires grasped things. Their integration was so much quicker.”
When asked if Mandy would recommend Connect&GO to other parks, she’s clear: Connect&GO listens, adapts, and constantly improves. “I love the support. I love the communication, and I love the continual improvement we see. It’s really neat to use a service that continues to grow with us,” Mandy concludes.
It’s really neat to use a service that is not just going, ‘Eh, we’re good enough.’ but asking ‘ What can we bring in in the future? How can we make that work for our client base?' I love the support. I love the communication. And I love the continual improvement that we see with Connect&GO.
