The Experience Strategy Podcast: Lessons From a Guest Experience Evangelist

April 26, 2022

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In today’s episode, we are joined by Josh Liebman, the Guest Experience Evangelist for ROLLER Software. Josh has worked for some of the top tourism destinations in the world, from Walt Disney World and Universal Studios to Ritz Carlton, The Four Seasons, and Coca-Cola. With nearly 17 years of designing experiences in this industry, Josh specializes in service standards, complaint resolution, and guest feedback. Tune in as we look at how customer needs and expectations have changed and what we can do to help them feel cared for, supported, inspired, and connected in a post-pandemic world. 

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts experienced nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas. Savis

Aransas: welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm Miranda Savvis, and I am Dave Norton.

And today we are joined by Josh Lee men. He's the guest experience of Angeles for roller software right now, but he spent 17 years of his career in hospitality, tourism, and attractions, and specializes in guest experience. Josh has worked. Some of the top tourism destinations in the world from Walt Disney world and universal to Ritz Carlton four seasons.

And Coca-Cola, he's also the host of two podcasts that we love the guest experience show and attraction pros. And today we're going to talk to Josh [00:01:00] about what matters now the whole world has changed in the last couple of years and. It's been a rough time to be an experienced provider and frankly, a customer.

And so, as we talked to Josh today, we're going to pull out some really concrete ideas and advice that you can use. You're running, you know, a theme park or I don't know, a taco stand and some ways that you can really help your customers feel cared for and supported as a part of that experience. And hopefully even beyond that, help them feel inspired and connected.

Let's get into it. Josh, thank you so much for joining us today

Josh: and it's my pleasure or ANSYS, Dave. Great to be here. Really looking forward to our current.

Aransas: You're already winning in my book. You said my name, [00:02:00] correct. You know, you know, the way, I mean, you must be an experienced evangelist. Now, your, your actual title right now, and your role is guest experience evangelists.

So I feel like we have to start by talking about what that means and entails.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. It definitely is a great starting point. And one of the most unique job titles I've ever had. So yeah, it's, uh, it comes up a lot in conversation. I guest experience evangelist for a company called roller, which is a software company based in Australia, focusing in the leisure and attraction space.

So we work with businesses like amusement parks and family entertainment centers. And. Waterparks and trampoline parks and really everything fun, anything that you would buy a ticket to. So that's the software that we provide that helps with booking, buying tickets and being able to get guests to make that purchase.

Uh, the reason for the title guest experience evangelist is because. We really [00:03:00] want to show that the guest experience is it should be very much top of mind for operations and achieving the highest levels of success. So everything that we do from a technology standpoint is with the intention of improving the guest experience, taking away a lot of friction from the experience that people might have with buying tickets or booking or making reservations.

Which ultimately can lead to a guest, being more satisfied and really sets up the employees. Those who are on the frontline, who are delivering the experience day in and day out, uh, with a lot more success, to be able to do what they do best, which is providing those phenomenal experiences that make for fantastic memories when visiting those locations.

Aransas: Incredible. And you have been with the companies that are known for guest experience. You really are the industry leaders in creating meaningful and memorable experiences. I'm realizing, as I say this, that this may be the only episode of this podcast ever, that my twin daughters will actually want to listen [00:04:00] to.

So, um, but I I'm so curious. I imagine not all attractions are Disney and universal and Ritz Carlton. W what goes wrong? What, what are people being led by when they're not being led by guest experiences? Because those are brands that, that really have always led with that mission in the end.

Josh: Yeah. No, absolutely.

And I, I'm thankful that in my career background, I've been in the hospitality tourism attraction space for close to 17 years. So yeah, I've, I've worked for Disney. I've worked for universal, just some of the best of the best. And then from a consulting standpoint, working with a lot of, a lot of luxury and premium brands like Ritz Carlton, four seasons, Waldorf, Astoria, things like that.

And I think. A lot of them have a strong intention behind them, kind of those who, those who maybe are not those very well-known brands. Uh, but I think sometimes [00:05:00] it can be difficult of kind of bridging that intention with what the actual reality is of the experience. And with that said, there are so many small venues who do it phenomenal.

Some of them. People might say that it's an even better experience because it's more boutique gets more personalized, things like that. Uh, but what has happened over the years is that technology has very much accelerated at a pace that, uh, much of the industry perhaps hasn't necessarily. Caught up to, so that's one of the things, you know, roller in particular is, is trying to, I would say, alleviate that and kind of get a lot of these venues up to speed from the ticketing and booking standpoint.

I, and from the guest experience standpoint, a lot of it really goes into their entire operating model with how they recruit and hire employees to the way that. Uh, they are training those employees and keeping those employees trained, uh, and refreshed, I would say, throughout the lifetime [00:06:00] of their employment with the business, uh, to make sure that there's this full understanding of the purpose of guest experience.

And, you know, one of the things that I like to say all the time is I, when you are getting up and doing it every single day, if let's say, if let's say you work in an amusement park and you get up and you're a ride operator, and it's part of your job to see people having an amazing time that. Very routine.

It becomes very normal and sometimes it takes that extra reminder to say, Hey, the people that we're interacting with on a daily basis, Aren't doing this on a daily basis like we are. So I often see that that is sometimes where the service or the experience tends to slip is when it's gotten to the point where it feels very routine almost to the point of redundancy.

So it's kind of pulling back and saying, well, why are these people here? What do they expect? And I think that that type of mentality can really. Be, uh, moved across various [00:07:00] industries, regardless of what type of business that you're in, uh, to say, why are my customers doing business with me? What do they expect?

What do I need to be doing to make sure that I'm meeting their expectations and then exceeding them and keeping their level of excitement up regardless of what the product or service or experience is that gets them to walk away to say this. A phenomenal experience that leaves them with a fantastic memory that ultimately makes them want to do it again and wants to tell others.

So that's a lot of, a lot of what I look at it from the, you know, from the guest experience I cycle in the mentality there. Can I ask

Dave: a question? I mean, roller software, it sounds like your focus. On making the ticketing and booking experience better. And I'm interested in, in how, first of all, what is the legacy experience, uh, that most of these venues have around ticketing [00:08:00] and booking and how are you making it better?

And. How does that translate to the rest of the experience? Can you talk a little bit about that for

Josh: a second? Sure. Yeah. Awesome question. And I'll start with what the legacy experience is. And if you think of, if you wanted to visit whether it's, it's a full gated amusement park, or maybe it's even a smaller family entertainment center with an arcade and go-karts and mini golf, whatever that is, you decide the day that.

You maybe mark it on your calendar and then, uh, you get up that day. You get in the car, you drive there, you wait in line to buy. And then you get your tickets and then you go in and maybe that, uh, maybe that ticket was on a kind of a perforated tear off, then, you know, if it's torn off, you know, that it's, uh, you know, it's been used and can no longer be used again.

Or, you know, in, in recent years, obviously it's become even more and more sophisticated with barcodes and scanners and then, uh, uh, biometric scans to actually [00:09:00] associate it with an individual eye. So from the legacy standpoint, There's a lot of friction in it that was very much accepted because if you don't know how it could be better, if you can't envision how it could be better than you accept the fact that I'm going to stand in line to buy tickets, and then I'm going to stand in line again for that ticket to be scanned and torn off just to actually get into the facility.

So about 20 to 25 years ago or so is when kind of the. The e-commerce really came into play within the industry of being able to offer tickets online. And there are some venues today that, that still aren't it's a small percentage. Most places are selling some form of admission online. If you, if you aren't selling tickets online, you can't really get people to commit to their visit until they actually show up at your venue.

Because if you wake up that morning and say, you know what, uh, eh, the weather doesn't look too great, or, you know, not really feeling up for it today. You know, you haven't bought anything, you haven't committed to anything. So there's [00:10:00] no, there's no. Real incentive to go aside from, hopefully the experience itself is, is drawing you in.

Uh, and it should obviously, so as that has very much moved towards the future. If we flash forward to today, if you look at businesses like Netflix and Amazon and Uber, and if we look at just the behemoths of their industry, regardless of what industry they're in. You can see how they very much reset the expectation.

So Netflix, you know, no longer are we getting into our car on late Friday afternoon, early evening and perusing aisles and aisles of new releases, just to find that, you know, the movie we want has been checked out, right? We now have that available at our fingertips, Amazon. Now, if I want to order something, I don't need to get in the car.

I don't need to go to the store. I don't need to pay for shipping. Sometimes I can have things that day. Uh, so the, the process of buying things online has completely changed Uber, you know, the way of just getting a [00:11:00] cab, if I need to go to the airport. You know, if I don't live in a major Metro area where cabs are regularly driving around, that's not a problem anymore.

That's not a friction point. So if we look at regardless of the industry, so for those who are out there listening, you might be thinking, well, I don't compete with those businesses, but you really do because as people are doing business with you. They are comparing their experience to the last great experience that they had.

So if we look at it from a service standpoint, they're comparing you to Ritz-Carlton, they're comparing you to Chick-fil-A or Southwest airlines or Disney world, regardless of what it is that you provide, that you offer. Yeah, expectation is based on who's doing it best. So now kind of tying it back into, you know, to complete the question, as far as, you know, how does roller really make that better?

Uh, while looking at those types of businesses to say, Hey, you know what, the majority of. Ticket sales right now are being done online. And the majority of online ticket sales are being done from mobile. [00:12:00] So what does, what does it look like if you're buying tickets on mobile? Is it clunky? Is it very difficult?

Is there a lot of scrolling? Is there a lot of texts or very image heavy when you're just trying to complete that transaction? Or are you able to do it as easy as you're buying dinner from. And you can do the buying tickets. You could do that with getting a membership or an annual pass or booking a birthday party from your phone while you're sitting on the couch.

Not doing anything in that five, seven minutes or so. Well now we've really made it easier. So how does that increase guest satisfaction? Well, now the guest is already happier because, uh, you know, they're not, uh, sitting on hold for a long time. They're not waiting in that long line when they get there.

They walk in, they've got the tickets in hand already. That they can now already use it and start having the experience start having fun basically. And what that also does is tie into how does the staff manage this? Well, now you don't need as big of a team selling tickets. Now you can [00:13:00] reallocate that labor or, you know, obviously we're dealing with some major staffing challenges in the industry, but in many industries you can do more with less.

So now the staff can actually focus less on the transaction. And more on talking to you about, well, what are you excited to do today? What information can I provide you? Is there any additional assistance I can do a, Hey, I see it's your birthday happy birthday. And be able to really focus their energy on driving the experience rather than many of the functional.

Yeah,

Aransas: that's the word that kept coming to mind for me. So we talked a lot here about the jobs to be done model, and we, we start with Ms. We talked about the progression of economic value in these that the lowest level is the functional, and certainly you have functional, emotional, social, and all the way up to aspirational jobs to be done at probably most of your clients, uh, attractions.

And so to. To do a good job with emotional social or aspirational [00:14:00] jobs. One has to be great at functional jobs first

Dave: it's, it's, it's ironic in some way that the hospitality industry. Really led out on experiences. They taught the world to talk about customers as a guests and the importance of time well spent and so forth.

And it kind of what I hear you saying, Josh is now the world is kind of leading the, um, hospitality and tourism industry to address some of the technological issues. That have arisen and that in other places of people's lives, it's very easy for them to transact around, to interact around and so forth.

So that's an ironic kind of twist that has

Aransas: happened without losing sight [00:15:00] of the higher order. And I think, I think that's what is so interesting about what Josh is saying here is that they're saying, yeah, you've still got to do a great job with the experience itself with the, the truly meaningful moments, but in order to do so, these functional moments have to meet or exceed industry standards through technology.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. And some of those functional elements aren't necessarily, they don't need to be done the same way they've always been done. For instance, one of the, one of the biggest markets that that roller is in is trampoline parks. And if you go to a trampoline park, you have to sign a waiver.

Well, if you think of signing a waiver, you might think of, okay, well, I'm going to go there. The staff member is going to hand me a clipboard and maybe the pen is on a chain and it's on there. And hopefully the pen still has ink. Well, now that can be done from your phone. You're buying tickets. You can walk [00:16:00] in and say, that's, that's already been done.

And the staff member can glance to say, all right, this is, this is associated with it. So I, something, something that is kind of going back to that word, functional. Or administrative to say, what can we do to clean all that up so that there is more focus on the experience itself? Yeah,

Aransas: I think to it, those moments degrade the suspension of disbelief.

In an experience, right? Cause then I start to think about, oh God, am I going to break my neck? Instead of, am I going to have the time of my life? And I, so it does feel pretty important to distance those as much as possible. And so. It allows for that. If you, if I'm doing that at the moment of sign up and purchase, then I can walk into the experience, all the anticipation and the energy front and center.

That's really smart.

Josh: Yeah. Um, administrative liability and legal components has already taken care of it. Doesn't compromise anything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Dave: So happens. [00:17:00] It reminds me of a trip that our family took to New Zealand. New Zealand is one of those countries where you can actually jump off the. Of a cliff on a bungee with just your feet strapped in and, uh, or actually it's more than just your feet, but, but, uh, and go all the way.

And, and my kids all wanted to do it. And the only thing that I could think to myself is holy crap. What if these kids get hurt? You know, like, uh, that was, that was it. I was scared to death signing all those forms. I know, I know there's no way I was going to do that. I can tell you right now, I, I did not do it.

Uh, but they loved that experience. Talk to us a little bit about the importance of meeting customer expectations. Hi, how are you seeing that today? Uh, some of it has to do with what you already described in terms of, they have expectations around other categories, out of domains of their lives, and they're getting frictionless [00:18:00] experiences there.

So certainly they're going to have expectations, but what else are you seeing, uh, in terms of customer expectations?

Josh: How's it changing? Sure, absolutely. Well, so the idea of meeting expectations. Isn't very sexy, right? Like everyone, they want to exceed. We want to go above and beyond. We want to, you know, take it to the, to the extreme and do so much more than what they expected as, as they should.

Right. As you know, it definitely needs to be a core component of the business model. And I talk about that a lot. Uh, but before we can talk about that, we have to talk about, well, are we actually. That expectation. So I like to say, well, what is it that your guests or customers expect? And we look at all of those functional things, you know, they, they expect it's going to be safe.

You know, when you, when your, when your kids did that, bungee jumping in New Zealand, you have that expectation to say, all right, it's going to be safe. Right. It's going to be. Efficient. It's going to be clean. It's going to be well-maintained. I expect the staff is going to be friendly. I expect an escape, right?

That Aransas, you mentioned that [00:19:00] suspension of disbelief, right? I have some sort of expectation of that. Uh, so whatever your business is, whatever your industry is, what is it that you provide? Really just listing out to say, all right, at its core. What is it that people expect when they come here, when they do business with us, when they partner with us, whatever, whatever that relationship looks like, and really looking at as looking at this as almost like your experience checklist to say these core needs need to be met.

Before we can even think about singing happy birthday, if it's their birthday or going above and beyond, and really kind of doing that. There there's an example I like to share. This is when I used to consult for luxury hotels resorts, and I was checking into this one property and I got there and I see that there's three front desk agents and they each have a guest in front of them who were all checking out.

It was early in the day and there was nobody in line. So the expectation that I have is, oh, I'm going to be waiting here for maybe 20, 30 seconds tops because the functional component of [00:20:00] checking out in a hotel is very quick. It's very simple. And even if you are meeting all the needs of, I don't know, did you enjoy your stadium of questions about your bill?

Do you need a cab to the airport? You know, whatever that is. Can I help you with your luggage? It still is very efficient, even if they are, I would say going a little beyond, but each of these front desk agents. They were going so far above and beyond to the point where beyond those immediate needs and those questions they were saying, well, how was your business meeting while you were here?

What are your kids doing for the summer? When are you going to come back and visiting, uh, visit us again? Did you get to do any sightseeing while you were in town? And I'm standing there and I'm watching this and now there's this queue forming behind me and we're all looking at each other and we're like, well, this would be so much better if we weren't here.

Right. You know, go above and beyond have that conversation. If, if you didn't have to focus on the efficiency. So they were really kind of damaging the efficiency of the operation, which was an expectation of everybody. Because they were going above and [00:21:00] beyond with this friendliness and this hospitality expectation.

So it really is about balancing that to say, Hey, when we do go above and beyond, are we making sure that we're not compromising. Anything that we should be doing at its core. So that's why I say you don't want to put the cart before the horse. Of course, we want to go above and beyond. We want to exceed these expectations.

We want to really wow them. So they walk away with that powerful memory. But if we only talk about that, then they're going to nitpick and they're going to talk about the, maybe the small things that went wrong that really should have been addressed before we look at ways that we can exceed that.

Aransas: That's really smart focusing the teams on what really matters in the moment as opposed to what matters theoretically.

Right. So yes, friendliness is important, but is it wanting. Does it matter to the customer? And I think that's where, um, I think your, your general guidance is so wise there. And I, and I do [00:22:00] think this transcends all industries. And it's funny what you were saying about remembering that this is a special and important moment for the customer, even if it is at every minute of every.

And the first time I ever heard that was the very first customer experience training I ever had over 20 years ago. And, um, the, the educator said. It's like being in the dentist office, that that person cleaning your teeth cleans teeth all day long, but it's a highly emotionally charged moment. Oftentimes for people who are terrified of going to the dentist and who have spent half a year, sometimes years dreading this moment and fretting and losing sleep over it.

And. This, this healthcare provider to just gloss [00:23:00] over, it puts people in such a different place. And so, so much of this is about, I mean, who knows if those people at the front desk being asked, all these questions had time themselves, or if they were trying to get out of town to go back to what really mattered to

Josh: them.

Yeah. And you made a great point of that dentist office example of just kind of there's this very different mindset. Of two people interacting with each other. One person is working and doing the job, but the other one is experiencing it. And on the recipient end, the, in the exact same setting, they could be driving down the road at the same time and lanes right next to each other, rather than maybe they woke up at the same, you know, their day could have begun the same.

Uh, but there is a completely different. Perspective that the guest or the customer has, or the patient or the dentist office has when they're walking in that we need to think about to say, okay, we're, you know, we're cleaning teeth all day long, but are we making sure that we're [00:24:00] making them comfortable rather than checking the box and making sure we, I can still do my job phenomenally and this could be exactly what I need to do, but in a way that.

Uh, what it is that they expect or addresses what it is that they expect, if they have those concerns, if they have, you know, some of it is, is, uh, maybe for the sake of optics. I, you know, there was, I mean, during, throughout the pandemic, I mean, we look at a sanitation theater. I went to the grocery store. I see an employee there.

They're wiping down cards. I know you talked about this in a recent episode on hospitality and safety. So I won't harp on it too much, but to say, Hey, it's okay to do some of those things just for the optics, even if it's going above and beyond, not in place of, but in addition to everything, that's, you know, that of course is, is really addressing the immediate need.

Uh, but in the interest of what is that person going to walk away thinking, what is that going to go on Google reviews on Yelp? Right? It doesn't matter if you're doing [00:25:00] everything perfectly right. If the guest or customer sees it differently because that's what they're taking away. And they're the ones who are going to decide if they're going to visit again.

Or if they're going to tell people to steer clear of view,

Aransas: and those frontline employees are the ones who have the greatest ability to influence that. And I know one of the things you are huge advocate for is empowering customer service teams. So how, what are the best practices around that? How should we be thinking

Josh: about.

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, first I'll say that my least favorite thing to hear is let me get my manager because it just shows a lack of empowerment. Uh, obviously it's necessary and in some cases, but I, one of the. I would say one of the biggest cases against empowerment is about trust, or I guess I should say distrust of your employees of are they going to do the right thing?

And if they don't, did they do it because they screwed up or did they do it [00:26:00] intentionally because they're actually, you know, abusing the system so we can kind of address that head on and maybe get it out of the way to say, if you set up your system correctly, then. You have a system in place to take care of it.

If they do make an error, which is going to happen. And those errors lead to learning moments, which lead to improvement, which lead to, uh, empowerment, being the best thing in the world. Um, and there's ways to minimize or eliminate that abusive power that, uh, or taking advantage of the empowerment that they have.

So there is a huge importance of putting trust in your employees. But when you put trust, you've trained them. Well, you have given them all the resources that they need to do their job properly to deliver an experience, or if it's to resolve a service failure and a, and a customer complaint or a guest complaint, [00:27:00] and really be able to.

Take care of that without seeking additional support or without, uh, not being able to, uh, to resolve that for that person. Who's right in front of that, because if the employee is empowered and they can take care of the customer, the guest, then the guest is going to be more happy because their issue was resolved more quickly.

They didn't have to explain their issue. They weren't transferred to someone who wasn't, you know, told what their issue was. And now they have to explain it again. Cause it's, it's already done. It's already taken care of. Right. So they walk away. The employee is happier because they resolve the issue. It's readily fulfilling to be able to take someone who was having a poor experience and be able to turn it around and then management and leadership, they don't have to deal with it.

I mean, maybe there's, of course there's a verification. Maybe there's, you know, a certain paperwork afterwards, but think of how much time it frees up and how much bandwidth now is back to be able to, uh, focusing on moving the business forward and leading the team towards. I

Aransas: love that. And I think too, when we think [00:28:00] about it, just from a cost perspective, it's so much more efficient and effective.

And to your point, you create. Evangelist out of your customers, as opposed to, and those horror stories getting shared. Right. But issues are going to happen. So how do you recommend that the companies that you work with recover from customers.

Josh: Yeah, that's a, this is one of my favorite topics. Actually. I love the idea of customer complaints and I, and service failure and service recovery.

And, and the first is about, is about running towards the complaint is really about embracing them. Uh, there was a stat, uh, or actually I should say there was a lot of research that was done on this in the nineties. And I think into the early two thousands that looked at, uh, customers across a wide variety of industries who had a poor experience.

And they were able to communicate that. So they complained, uh, or it [00:29:00] was brought up and it was successfully resolved. And their satisfaction after going through that process was higher than customers who had a positive experience without any issues. So I think this is this light bulb right here to say, if we want to increase customer satisfaction.

We resolve their complaints. We take care of their issues and we recover from service failures. Now, naturally I think there's a disclaimer in here that, you know, this does not say you should intentionally inconvenience your customers so you can, you know, be the hero and you know, and correct it when it goes wrong.

But when issues do come up, like you said that yeah, that, yeah, there is no, there is no perfect experience. 100% of the time there are going to be those customers who have some form of service failures. And obviously that's a huge spectrum. It could be very small, it could be very large and everything in between having that process in place.

And of course, a lot of that includes empowerment of the team to be able to resolve that is such a [00:30:00] huge component of driving satisfied. Of being able to intercept those poor experiences before they become a decision not to do business with you again, and the decision to, to share that experience with others, bad news travels a lot faster than good news in the experience space.

And one negative review online. This was a stat I saw a couple of years ago. It can turn away up to 30 prospective visitors or, or customers for your business. And, and I looked at in my space and I say, okay, well people rarely visit and attraction alone. So if we even look at it as, you know, average party of three, well now a negative reviews turning away 90 people, or maybe there was a group offense, maybe that was a wedding at a hotel or a conference, or even if it's a birthday party at a smaller family entertainment center that.

Massive amount of revenue lost that can be salvaged. If we actually seek out those complaints. I had a manager many years ago, this was over a decade [00:31:00] ago, uh, who came to me and said, Hey, we're, you know, we've been getting a couple of complaints. Can you let me know what we're doing to make sure we get absolutely none.

And we talked about it and I said, that's really not how I operate. I want everyone to complain because I want to have that opportunity to be able to resolve that, not to mention the intelligence that I gained. From that we can look at our business all day long and try to figure out all these potential service failures.

But at the end of the day, it is the customer who is looking at it through their lens. And they're seeing it differently because they don't have the knowledge that we have, and we don't have the background and the expectation that they have. And if there is a little bit of a disconnect, even if we disagree with it, we still need to address.

Josh,

Dave: one of the things that you're kind of leading to. And, um, and I think that's one of the key topics, uh, for, um, for companies today is the difference between being customer [00:32:00] centric and experience centric. And I think about what companies have done with customer centricity, I think about being responsive, you know, that's kind of the basic, uh, thing.

How, how do you delineate between. Customer centric if it's like being responsive versus experience centric, or are they in your mind? The same thing? I, I make a delineation, but perhaps w what are your thoughts there?

Josh: Yeah, no, I think that's, that's an interesting topic and really to a good thing to think about.

And there could be a wide variety of, of answers to this. So the answer that I give might be, it might be different from what someone else might give, but I think if. The word customer to me implies transaction. Uh, so it's never talked about the bad intention customer service customer experience. Of course, I think of it very much from a, what is that transaction worth at this moment in time?

If we talk about it being [00:33:00] experienced centric, now we're talking about a relationship. So if we talk about this in the context of service recovery, some might want to avoid service recovery because. It is transactional in a way that to say, if I give this person what I want, well, now I'm losing money. But if you look at it from the experience standpoint, well, now I'm actually investing in this guest or this customer.

And if their experience is going to be improved by it, by, by this whole process of service recovery, this is not just reversing an issue. It's actually making their overall experience better. Well, now we formed a better relationship with them because now they've got a stronger emotional connection with it.

Uh, when I talk about. Kind of the actual steps and processes. And when we get into the nitty-gritty and the granularity of, of the actual, uh, uh, specific ways of doing it, I, I talk about it in being very much intentionally in order we listen, we thank the customer guests. We [00:34:00] apologize, we assault, we solve.

And then, and then thank them again at the end. I, and a lot of people jumped to the solution and. They do that without kind of the experience or the relationship aspects of it leading into it. They say, oh, the guest complained about this. So we give them this. And I say, well, you know, that work. And I said, well, yeah, cause we knew it was the right thing to do, but I don't think they walked away completely happy.

So I say, if you jump to that solution, it makes it transactional. And that's when I say it's like, you're treating service recovery, like it's a vendor. So someone comes in, they put it in their complaint or their issue and out pops out the solution and there they go. And we all know that that's not how that works, uh, that it very much requires the experience or the hospitality elements of it that lead up to saying, all right, this is what I'm actually giving you.

And then that's only a part of the process. So people look at it as being the entire process. So I think that's probably, uh, one of the biggest. [00:35:00] Differentiators between customer centric and experienced centric. I

Aransas: love that. What everything you're saying comes back to one word, which is listen. And I think so many of our frontline employees have had an extraordinarily difficult few years, especially, and there is a lot of dissatisfaction in the industry and a lot of, a lot of.

And it's understandable. We have as a society, as a species, been through a lot. And I think what you're pointing toward is, is bringing greater meaning and probably the easiest way. Which is to simply pay attention to the moment you're in. And, um, I, I really believe that if organizations could align around trusting and empowering their teams to listen [00:36:00] deeply and respond to what they're hearing in the moment, not what they're assuming, not what they think they should say, not what they think they're expected to respond with.

The whole experience at both giving and receiving service could be transformed. So Dave, as we start to, to sort of wrap this all up, what do you hope the listeners experience strategists from, from all different industries will take from this conversation with Josh?

Dave: You know, it's just exactly what you said or ANSYS.

We're in a very difficult time period. I think that, uh, not only are employees exhausted, but customers are kind of exhausted as well. And we as experienced strategists, we need to be really aware that some of the things that maybe we took for granted say, for example, a service recovery, being the hero friendliness, because we [00:37:00] focused on those things in the two thousands or the 2010s, uh, we need to address them again.

In some ways we're starting over. A lot of companies are starting over, but they're starting over in a different place. It's a, it's a place where there's technology that can replace some of those interactions in ways that can be very, very useful to both parties. I think a lot of employees are welcoming of the idea that certain time transactions like booking and ticketing, the canal step away from.

And I think that. A real need for companies to begin to delineate between this idea of what customer centricity has come to be about, which I like Josh, your idea, that it's a bit transactional. And what experience centric is all about, where you're trying to stage the whole thing. You're not just [00:38:00] responding in the moment to the immediate need with some kind of transactional type of response, but you're trying to stage the whole thing.

That's my takeaway from today.

Aransas: Love it. How about you, Josh? What do you hope people will hear in your experience and translate across industries?

Josh: Yeah, no, I think these are a phenomenal points being made here. I think. Uh, one of the biggest things and kind of, you know, we tied this into the pandemic and what so many industries have just gone through the last couple of years is that, uh, one of the things I said, kind of in the middle of the shutdown is when you reopen the first guests to come back are those that are most loyal to you.

And it's about making sure. They know, you know that, and I think that there's a lot of that that can really apply today to say, uh, the people that are doing business with. And whichever capacity that they are, uh, [00:39:00] do they need to be doing business with you and what are the alternatives and in our industry, and in many industry, the, you know, those alternatives are plentiful.

They are limitless. So it is about acknowledging that the guest made a very intentional decision to visit, or that the customer made a very intentional decision to do business with you. And it is about making sure that they know. You're aware of that. And I think that that type of perspective, that type of mentality can completely drive so many decisions at the corporate level all the way down to those in the moment, interactions with the.

Aransas: I love that. Yeah. And to me, that's really the heart of this idea of experience strategy is it's taking a broader view of the end to end experience for the customer and really appreciating the, the moment they're in, where they are, what they want and need and value instead of just making sort of a broad stroke assumptions [00:40:00] and especially.

We risk. We risk these satisfaction in the, with the experience when we make assumptions based on what was, instead of what is things have changed a lot last couple of years, what these theme parks mean to people has changed radically. You know, my, my mother and my daughters had a trip planned to Disney world for April of 2020.

That of course they had to cancel. And my mom with all her extra time. And I'm sort of in, with a real need to have something to dream about. The vast majority of two years planning to take these girls to Disney world and lots and lots and lots of hours of thought and energy and investment went into that.

And there were probably 30 calls with the Walt Disney world team along the way, canceling, booking, rebooking and booking because of other clothes. Right? [00:41:00] Like, and it was, it was a huge part of her experience. Well, beyond that time that they'll ultimately eventually spend in the park was all the moments that they spent getting there.

And so I do think that there there's something just so important to considering. That experience well beyond the moment that people sort of interact live in person with your attractions, um, whether you're a dentist or, uh, running Walt Disney world anyway, uh, so much to learn from you, Josh and I really appreciate you joining us here today.

And, uh, we look forward to continuing to talk to you and learn from you to all of you. Listen. I hope you hear in Josh, no matter what industry you're in, something that you can carry into the supermarket that you run, or the marketing agency that you lead [00:42:00] and really consider the end to end experience that the people that you support.

Josh, thank you for reminding us all to get the functional, right. And then two. Truly delight with expectation to all of you listening. Thank you for listening. Come back next week. We'll have another exciting episode for. And don't forget, check out Josh, on his other shows the guest experience show and attraction pros.

You can find them all the places that you find podcasts and we'll, uh, be sure to post links to those in our show notes. So check them out.

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