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If hotel owners want to survive in strong competition, they have to constantly work on customer experience, because it is a powerful advantage in the hotel business.
There is scarcely a company in the world that is not, in one way or another, concerned about the quality of the customer experience it delivers. Many of these companies state their ambition as being to deliver, “memorable customer experiences”.
A number of these know what it takes to create a memorable experience. But only a small, elite group understands the craftsmanship required to engineer memories that will influence a customer’s future behaviour. This small group is recognised as global leaders.
Looking across the globe at best practice, Ritz Carlton has pioneered the art of memory making, offering guests the opportunity to:
- Let us make you the captain of your own ship for a day
- Let us show you the view from the 110th floor
- Let us invent a drink in your honour
These are ‘big’ memories, but the staff are charged with creating great memories at every touch point.
At Ritz Carlton, this means a 40,000 strong army of memory makers are working every day to create those special touches that customers will not just remember, but will return to enjoy again.
Customers are invited to share these memories on social media. Behind the scenes, every single day, the 40,000 memory makers share new ideas and insights about how they can make the Ritz Carlton experience memorable.
How to create memorable experiences
Companies realise that the possibilities for creating special touches that imprint on the memory are endless. They are concerned as to whether the experience is positively memorable overall, as well as which specific parts of the experience are particularly memorable and why.
They realise that if the promise of advocacy through great experiences is to be realised, then the customer “We are in the business of creating indelible memories that last a lifetime. There is a significant amount of dedicated care and craftsmanship that goes into making memories for the discerning world traveller.”
Ritz Carlton may need a little help when it comes to becoming an advocate – and, in essence, they follow a similar process to smooth the way:
- Co-create An experience that is memorable and anchored around an emotion, change or novelty.
- Capture and Curate Enable the customer to capture and manage the memory.
- Share Make it easy for that memory to be shared with others through conversation and social media.
Army of memory makers
The key elements of organisational change are well understood: create and articulate a compelling vision, define the behaviours necessary to deliver that vision and then adjust the levers of cultural change, (performance management, reward and recognition and leadership role modelling) to reinforce the behaviours required.
Creating an army of memory makers requires a firm to not just undertake the above but also to provide the tools and empowerment necessary for employees to achieve this objective. Memory making is a spontaneous, in-themoment exercise and firms need to both set their memory making expectations and then enable staff to deliver.
Communications is a critical facilitator, not just top-down communication but also peer to peer, team to team, harnessing employee feedback and input so that sharing great ideas and best practice creates an environment of “customer surround sound.”
13 tips how to create a viable employee base:
- We recruit empathetic people who care about customers, customer service and have a passion for our sector
- We are clear on our expectation that our people create memorable moments for customers
- We encourage staff to show they care, extend small kindnesses and to continually look for opportunities to improve the customer’s day
- We help our people understand the types of memorable moments they should be looking for
- We encourage our people to share their experiences of creating memorable moments and what works and doesn’t work, and to work together at creating memories
- We practice ‘heroic’ recovery when things go wrong
- We empower staff to make good judgements about how and when to wow the customer
- We recognise and reward staff who deliver great experiences for customers
- We celebrate great ideas and great customer stories
- We enable staff by removing petty rules, bureaucracy and other hindrances
- We encourage our leaders to role model the behaviours necessary to wow customers
- We focus on creating passionate, enabled and empowered staff
- We equip our people with the tools they need to deliver an outstanding experience
Should you wish more information on how we can help your business or to arrange a meeting for personal presentation of our services, please contact us.
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