The Sensory Nature of Our Hospitality Business - By John Hendrie

My, do we spend a great deal of time on our various Brands.  We want the Experience to be memorable, and we try so very hard to make ourselves distinctive, yet different from the rest.  We start with the skeleton of our message and add the meat.  With our Brand now full–bodied, we dress it up with our marketing expertise.  Everything we do should support, complement and clearly state and represent our Brand promises.  Sometimes, we may miss a step.

A Brand Experience should be unique and sensory.  Does what we have to offer have a distinct taste, touch, smell, sound and/or look?  If you slice and dice our Brands, they should have aspects of the above.  An easy example is a restaurant, let’s say a high-end steak house.  The aroma of beef is usually a given, just like the taste of a fine T-Bone.  But, there is just as much an opportunity to detract.  It could be the lighting, the ambiance, the recorded music, the table set-up, the air-conditioning and of course, the service.  The goal is to marry all the elements into the Experience.

I just spoke with youngest son in Singapore, who is in the entertainment business.  He related a story where he had visited a well-known, traditional clothier (hint - think swamp critter logo) who had Rap Music playing with really offensive language.  The two – the Brand and selected music – collided.  The Brand had not measured the impact of the music played to their customer; they were at odds.  Interestingly, they might have also been playing the music illegally, as the Rapper, by law, in Singapore and I bet elsewhere, must give permission to use his works, commercially.  So, we have two things going on here – distasteful music and potential legal ramifications.  Just waiting for the third strike – perhaps lost customers, with childeren or not, who were offended.

A very good exercise for any Management Team is to assess that their Brand is fully representative across the business.  This means a hands-on review of all aspects, from the FF&E, to your collateral materials, to the sights and smells of the operation, to even the music you wish to play.  Does the sensory lead to the full Brand Experience you have designed?  You be the judge!

LRA Worldwide is a leading research and consulting company in the emerging discipline of Customer Experience Management (CEM). We work with our clients to help them design and deliver consistently exceptional customer experiences in order to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, and company growth and profitability. We have built a range of quality assurance, mystery shopping, research, training and consulting solutions to help them do so.

Today, we are a growing company operating in more than 120 countries throughout the world, servicing our clients from offices and resources in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific regions and helping clients such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the National Football League, Avis Budget Group, Madison Square Garden, the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group deliver exceptional customer experiences. Every touch. Every time. For more information, visit us at www.LRAworldwide.com.


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