Why did MS take away on-line banking?

[chunkygal]

We also own a Marriott timeshare and there you can book,trade, check availability and everything on the website. the disney one is better than used to be but not as good as it could be.

 

[disneynutz]

Uhh..the time to have "been heard" was before you signed your documents. You agreed to the terms when you purchased, didn't you? We all agreed that we would basically not have a vote, and DVC could set/change most of the "rules" as they see fit. It's right there in the POS. I have no problem with trying to control "commercial renting."

I'm not talken bout renting. I'm talken bout the crappy website.

 

[Chuck S]

I'm not talken bout renting. I'm talken bout the crappy website.

And again, DVC dues pay for that, too. There is no guarantee that there will even be a member website, much less that banking and booking would be live and online. Imagine the expense to design a program that

• tracks home resort priority bookings
• tracks banking and borrowing
• tracks multiple contracts and add-ons per member
• tracks use of those points outside of DVC resorts
• tracks status of points (normal, holding, transferred, etc)
• links cash and point reservations
• adds the DDP as necessary
• tracks all the different room configurations and availability at each resort
• is "idiot proof" enough even for a very novice internet user

Look at the problems DVC Member Services has even with their own internal upgrades, imagine how much more complicated and expensive it is to take that live to people who aren't trained.

 

[Fsued123]

There's way to many programs out on the market that could be tweaked to a DVC online reservation systems...I don't see them recreating the wheel....

 

[rie'smom]

Did y'all receive a DVC website survey? The last time that I logged on-2-3 weeks ago- I was asked to complete a survey. When the question of improving the website came up, I practically wrote a book. Maybe they're not finished reading it yet!

 

[disneynutz]

And again, DVC dues pay for that, too. There is no guarantee that there will even be a member website, much less that banking and booking would be live and on line. Imagine the expense to design a program that

• tracks home resort priority bookings
• tracks banking and borrowing
• tracks multiple contracts and add-ons per member
• tracks use of those points outside of DVC resorts
• tracks status of points (normal, holding, transferred, etc)
• links cash and point reservations
• adds the DDP as necessary
• tracks all the different room configurations and availability at each resort
• is "idiot proof" enough even for a very novice internet user

Look at the problems DVC Member Services has even with their own internal upgrades, imagine how much more complicated and expensive it is to take that live to people who aren't trained.

As always you make a good point, but this time I don't agree. I feel that the DVC website should be supported by Disney. The resorts are built by Disney and the profit from the membership sales are kept by Disney. Some of that money should be used for system upgrades and programming. As other posters have said, other timeshares have websites that allow much more on line functionality. It can be done. In 2007 waiting on hold for MS, hoping that you get a trained CM and calling back to verify that they did their job correctly doesn't make much sense. In 1995 maybe, but not in 2007.

 

[Delaware Mike]

As always you make a good point, but this time I don't agree. I feel that the DVC website should be supported by Disney. The resorts are built by Disney and the profit from the membership sales are kept by Disney. Some of that money should be used for system upgrades and programming. As other posters have said, other timeshares have websites that allow much more on line functionality. It can be done. In 2007 waiting on hold for MS, hoping that you get a trained CM and calling back to verify that they did their job correctly doesn't make much sense. In 1995 maybe, but not in 2007.

I see your point, however the use of a term involving "Disney" is pretty broad. DVC is but one Disney business unit, with its own operating and capital budgets, expense report, revenue statement, and rules of operation. The members website is operated by DVC, and the source of revenue to support things used by members is not Disney ticket sales at the theme parks, nor profits from merchandise (referencing my first sentence of being too broad, or general). The revenue stream supporting them is our annual maintenance fees.

Sorry, no offense, however I'd have to agree with Chuck on this one. If the website were to support expanded features (some of those suggested I fully support) the expense to implement them would come from the membership.

 

[Delaware Mike]

As are the thousands of unnecessary phone calls that are made to MS each day that could be handled by an efficient web site. The lack of a decent web site with reservation capabilities costs us as members. I think we should make reservations on the web be the norm and charge owners $5 for making reservations over the phone... JMHO...

Agreed...there are literally thousands of phone calls, necessary or unnecessary, each day to MS. And a lot of my own phone calls sit in queue (more like age, like a fine Merlot ) after being sorted by a front-end auto-attendant (you know, press one for blah-blah, press two for yadda-yadda, press three if you're calling for <fill in the blank>). But in response, you have to think in terms of system and operational costs.

(I'm not knocking call center personnel here folks, so please, don't anyone take offense with my following comments. This is an honest-to-goodness financial discussion here...) For a call center, how much does a call agent make per hour (really... in Disney dollars...how much do they make)? Then add benefits and some training. How much does the labor cost amount to?

Now, add the cost for a telephone system with an ACD (automatic call distribution), amoritized over, say, seven years..taking into consideration things like advantages for capitol investment. Then add the actual cost for the long distance usage (less than 2 cents per minute with the type of call volume we're speaking of here...), in-bound toll-free service, plus the cost of the circuits (not much with a Minimum Annual Commitment, or a Specific Customer Pricing contract).

Now, let's talk about desk-top stuff.... PCs, software licenses, et cetera.

Okay, on the other hand, let's compare that to the cost of a really good data network to support web-based transactions, taking into consideration circuit costs (say an OC-3 (155 Mbps) or better, or even an Ethernet connection (100 Mbps to a GigB, for this amount of traffic)), plus Detection and Mitigation for Denial of Service attacks, firewalls (which is not only one device but a system of devices), routers, and switches, IOS, maintenance, servers (the big honkin' ones with a lot of memory and high processing speed), software, Network Operations Center equipment and personnel, et cetera.... I know, I'm rambling.....

But the amount of money involved with a really good website supporting the type of transactions we'd all love to see on the member's site is pretty high compared to a good old-fashioned telephone system with a nice call center agent. (WOW! Whatta run-on sentence...)

Yes, (I hear you thinking as you read this stuff...) a lot of the same costs are true for both a good data network and a good telephone-system approach for MS. But I'm sure those having experience in the Communications/IT field would agree with me, the "phone-system with the nice call center agent" approach is cheaper.

And, as Chuck S said before, the money to develop and implement a good DVC website with all the bells and whistles would come from our maintenance fees.

Okay, let the flames and whippin's begin....

 

[jarestel]

It takes money to run a business, and like it or not computers. If DVC (or members looking to save a buck) takes the position that they will never spend another dime to upgrade/improve their IT infrastructure, we will all suffer for it in the long run. As dear old granny used to say, "penny-wise but pound foolish!"

 

[n2mm]

I tried last night to bank points on line, and it said now you have to call MS to bank...darn! I thought that would be so much easier? Is it temporary?

It's back. I just logged on to the membersite and the message telling me when I have to bank and the link is back on my website. You might want to check yours now too. Hopefully they got all of the bugs out.

 

[JimC]

Delaware Mike -- is it possible that the functionality we want and the infrastructure you suggest are a matter of scale? I mean with membership at 100,000 does it start to make sense? Or is the threshold 200,000 members? I am not a tech person (I am the idiot they would ask to test it to see what kind of trouble I could get myself into )

 

[Delaware Mike]

Delaware Mike -- is it possible that the functionality we want and the infrastructure you suggest are a matter of scale? I mean with membership at 100,000 does it start to make sense? Or is the threshold 200,000 members? I am not a tech person (I am the idiot they would ask to test it to see what kind of trouble I could get myself into )

Hi Jim.

First of all, there are those who are better at explaining this kind of stuff than I. My experience is from a WAN (Wide Area Network) viewpoint, and I have experience in voice and data CPE (customer premise equipment).

To a degree, yes, some scale comes into play. But the overall design needs to be looked at from a "systemic" approach. While a web service can be designed to function, traffic is still traffic, and a network of "good" design provides information in a timely fashion.

At a very high level, a lot of factors have to be considered for a high-traffic website. And that website has to respond well to high traffic demands, or someone like you and me ) ) will post on some board like this ) ) about how crappy that website is... ) ).

Looking from a WAN and CPE view, these things come with a cost. Add users and at some point additional bandwidth will be needed. Bandwidth utilization is always a on-going design concern, at some point a bigger pipe is needed. Add users and the number of concurrent data sessions on a router, switch, or server needs to be looked at too. Use too small a pipe to access the internet or a slow "box" to route or switch data and retries occur, data backs up, data gets dropped, users sit at their keyboards...banging on the Enter key or clicking away, and the whole mess might simply start to fall down upon itself.

The number of users is only part of the overall consideration too. How about applications, and how about the presentation of those applications? A "feature-rich" website sends more information downstream over those pipes than one sending only "stick-figures". Sure, a lot of that information can be cached at a user's PC, but not all of it.

Keeping our discuss at a high level, let's say DVC puts a lot of features on their website. Aside from the circuits and code to make the website function, there has to be sufficient interconnection between the web server and say, the server where my point banking takes place. Same thing for the connection to the server controlling my reservations (and it's not necessarily the same server). How about managing my ADRs for that DDP I got through DVC? Then there's the other stuff I might want to do on the website. And it all goes back to the user at the other end of that internet session. And that's for one user...now add 100,000 members, or 200,000. Pretty soon, we've had to increase the size of everything...circuits, CPE, servers, the number of servers, and so on.

Yes, there is a point when the basics are in place, but equipment will always need upgrading or replacement, circuits will need to be increase is either size or number, utilization techniques will need to be updated (like using WAN Accelerators), et cetera. The complexity will increase, meaning surveillance and maintenance will increase, and so will those costs.

I know this is a long winded answer to your question, but unfortunately the answer isn't a simple black-and-white one. Sorry to bore everyone, and sorrier still that I can't provide all the correct answers. This stuff is complex, and I only know a part of the overall picture. Hey, I only sell this stuff to the people who really know their stuff. But since I sell this stuff, I have a good idea of the costs.

I wish everyone a good day.

 

[dwelty]

And again, DVC dues pay for that, too. There is no guarantee that there will even be a member website, much less that banking and booking would be live and online. Imagine the expense to design a program that

• tracks home resort priority bookings
• tracks banking and borrowing
• tracks multiple contracts and add-ons per member
• tracks use of those points outside of DVC resorts
• tracks status of points (normal, holding, transferred, etc)
• links cash and point reservations
• adds the DDP as necessary
• tracks all the different room configurations and availability at each resort
• is "idiot proof" enough even for a very novice internet user

Look at the problems DVC Member Services has even with their own internal upgrades, imagine how much more complicated and expensive it is to take that live to people who aren't trained.

When spread over 100,000 members, the cost would be quite small.

All of those features would be great, however, I would just like the site to work reliably in it's current form!

 

[disneynutz]

When spread over 100,000 members, the cost would be quite small.

All of those features would be great, however, I would just like the site to work reliably in it's current form!

180,000 was the last member count that I got.

 

[Delaware Mike]

When spread over 100,000 members, the cost would be quite small.

All of those features would be great, however, I would just like the site to work reliably in it's current form!

After this post, I think I'll back out so it doesn't appear I'm trying to hijack the thread. Sorry if anyone got offended by me leaving such long responses.

But I really don't think the costs can be spread out enough across the entire DVC Member family to make them very small. Not to say the costs will be enormous per member, just that the current call center arrangement is the cheaper solution right now. The website network could get even more complex as members are added, applications are added, and even as technology advances. This would further increase costs, IMHO.

With my customers, they don't buy fewer pieces of gear each year. Their trend is to buy more to replace "dated" technology and make additional purchases as their networks increase in size/complexity.

Last point, I agree with your post in that I'd like the website and its features to be available each time I try to logon.

Okay, sorry again, folks. I'll leave this discussion alone now so others can enjoy it too.

 

[brandedguy]

We all know that caskbill could do it in a week! And it would be better than anything they have. Disney IT stinks. Really, simply, sadly.

Dean did you know that MS-Advisors log onto the same online system that we do? Yup, they get to hear the AKV music at logon, etc.

Of course their passwords have more access than do ours, and I don't know what IP address security there is (otherwise what would stop a hacker from having fun with all of our accounts?)

But they do have basic highspeed internet/server access to their workstations (wide & high pipes). They just need better software. AKV points and null strings are a recent example of a Disney IT Fiasco, as was last summer's total shut down affecting everything.

If Disney can annimate a President or a Pirate via an animatronic system, surely they could (if they choose to) fix a software system.

For a one-time charge of $100.00 bucks, for on-line booking, *SPECIFIC* room selecting, dining plan & DME, I'd pay. If 25% of Owners would we'd have 2.5 Million or more for fixes.

Anyone else willing to pay to fix it once and for all?

The savings on MS-Advisors Salaries and the 800 number alone, would provide a significant ROI, probably 1-2 years max.

Seems simple to me, but then again, many people state I seem simple to them.

Brand

 

[jarestel]

Whether or not the DVC website will continue to add features and improve has pretty much already been answered. There was a time when many of our DIS board financial experts claimed just having a website that allowed people to view personal information would be prohibitively costly and of course as we all now know, we have such a site and dues haven't skyrocketed because of it.

Five years ago the DVC site looked much different than it does today and offered very little except points charts, room descriptions and sales information. Today we can bank online, pay dues, view our reservations, and our DVC booking history. And five years from now we will be able to do much more than we do today. Granted, they may not be moving as quickly as some of us would like, but they ARE moving. I like to tweak the technological nose of DVC as much as anyone but at the end of the day, they are making progress and moving in the right direction.

So listen DVC, I hope I wasn't out of line with that crack about pencils & paper...

 

[kiingor]

bump...

looks like online banking is back... i checked yesterday and it worked.