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Walt
Disney had it right: the customer experience is a "stage," where customers
are "guests" and service employees are "cast members." Armed
with this critical insight into the customer relationship, Disney and other service
leaders avoid the commodity death spiral by recognizing that they're in the business
of creating rich, compelling experiences. And the theater is the perfect metaphor
for managing these customer experiences. Computer retailer Best Buy brings this
concept to its stores with its "Geek Squad," a team of in-home technical
support service reps who dress for the role in special agent uniforms, complete
with badges and sunglasses. With titles like "Double Agent," "Special
Agent" or "Inspector," they drive around in black-and-white Volkswagen
Beetles called "Geekmobiles." On
a grander scale, Steve Wynn brought Disney to Las Vegas with his adult theme parks:
the Mirage, with its giant erupting volcano; Treasure Island, with its swashbuckling
pirates; and the dancing fountains at Bellagio. He faced the ultimate challenge
in planning a new resort in the capital of experience marketing. How do you top
the experience charts in a city where every property on the strip is designed
as a themed experience? By approaching the experience like a director approaches
filmmaking. "When
a director makes a movie, he pays attention to each scene. Each scene is what
gives this place its vitality and its truth," Says Steve Wynn about his newest
creation, Wynn Las Vegas, which just opened its doors. The resort's three-acre,
man-made lake changes colors seamlessly and its veritable forest of flowers and
lush vegetation is changed out on a seasonal basis to ensure the experience is
fresh every time customers come back. Almost 100,000 people have applied for the
8,000 open positions, all hoping to work for the boulevard's most charismatic
CEO, a legendary entrepreneur who has built his reputation on empowering employees
to create first rate customer experiences. Meanwhile,
organizations like the merging K-Mart and Sears are locked in a commodity death
spiral that's driving down differentiation and price. While they see margin evaporate
and sales dwindle, Wynn Las Vegas sells ice cream for $7 and Ferraris for half
a million dollars. While no two challenges are exactly alike, we don't think it's
a stretch to say that companies in any industry can avoid the death spiral of
commoditization by staging and charging for experiences. The
success of any customer experience starts with the "casting," the act
of selecting the right people for the right roles. Companies need to create environments
for applicants to "audition" for their roles. It would be unthinkable
for a director to hire actors based on their résumés and job interviews
alone. Likewise, experience marketing organizations put candidates through a staged
audition where they can observe "customer service actors" performing
their roles in front of guests. Fortunately, modern simulations can dramatically
improve the efficiency of the process by letting managers make the first cut online.
For an example of what an online audition can look like, check out the
Car
Sales Simulator that the Gronstedt Group developed for the
automotive retail industry. Having
selected the best cast possible, successful experience marketing companies put
their new performers through exhaustive "rehearsals." Before the actors
step out on the stage, they rehearse in sales and service simulators. Smart experience
marketers understand that customers aren't guinea pigs. Rehearsal
simulators are similar conceptually to the flight simulators pilots use for training.
Pilots are brought in regularly for flight simulation training where any number
of unusual circumstances, ranging from wind shear or ice accumulation to engine
fires or failures, can be recreated. The ability to simulate emergencies, as well
as more mundane events, helps explain the extremely low accident rates among airlines.
Would you trust your pilot to fly the airplane if he or she had only learned these
skills by listening to lectures, reading manuals or shadowing a more experienced
pilot? Or would you feel more secure knowing that the crew had actually practiced
in the most extreme of circumstances? There's
no substitute for learning by doing, but the lecture/read/shadow model is exactly
how commodity companies train their employees. Experience marketing companies,
on the other hand, make hands-on training part of their modus operandi. They bring
their cast back on a regular basis for reinforcement training with live and online
sales and service simulators that challenge them to handle a range of client-defined
scenarios that's as varied and complex as the actual service world in which they
work. Good service and selling skills might not be a matter of life and death
the way piloting skills are, but they can represent a matter of life or death
for businesses trying to make their way in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Technology is
making the business of "auditioning" for roles and "rehearsal"
for the performance more cost effective for companies that are serious about breaking
the commoditization trap and creating differentiated customer experiences.
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