Kicking off the blog book tour with Jonathan Tisch, CEO of Loews Hotels and author of Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience. Mr. Tisch will be touring blogs all week, so be sure to click here for the full schedule. In addition to blog postings, look for several podcasts and we may even do some live blogging from a presentation this week! And now, without further adieu, here's our interview with Mr. Tisch!
1. The biggest challenge we face when discussing “experience” is getting companies to understand it’s about business, not art. With this in mind, how does the Loews Hotels customer experience translate against your bottom line?
With intense competition, and with products being somewhat similar in nature, it becomes incumbent upon us to use one of our most important assets to help differentiate our product from others – at Loews Hotels it’s our co-workers.
Accordingly, we put in an enormous amount of time and resources in to training and educating our co-workers, and we give them open access to senior management. This investment in our people has translated in to experiences for our guests that really do differentiate us from the competition.
Creating positive experiences for our guests may be an art form, but it’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity that drives our bottom line.
2. How does a business measure the value of a great experience?
Great customer service and great customer experiences are ultimately responsible for whether or not people chose your product or chose another product. We place such a high value on great customer service – because it’s so vital to our business – that we actually use it as a metric in determining senior management compensation. Customers drive our profits. It’s only fitting that their experiences help drive our compensation.
3. One of the great things about the book is that it’s so timely. Several of the brands that you wrote about in the book as examples have experienced recent difficulties that have made national headlines. Comments?
JetBlue, which obviously went through an entire organizational meltdown on Valentine’s Day, quickly realized the size of its problem and, in my mind, moved very efficiently to try to diffuse the horrendous customer feedback that was permeating its entire system. By senior management going before the media to acknowledge the meltdown, taking steps to financially remunerate the dissatisfied customers, and then introducing the first passengers’ bill of rights, JetBlue showed just how committed they truly are to their customers.
4. I had the SF Hilton tell me that they didn’t do room service after 11 PM because “it wasn’t convenient for them.” When did the hospitality industry stop being hospitable?
Like most businesses – especially when it’s a public company – there’s always a laser-like focus on the bottom line. Even though there may be rules in place, good hoteliers will find ways to ensure that customers’ needs and desires are met and that great service is always offered.
At Loews Hotels we go to great lengths to accommodate all our guests, no matter what the request. We have even designed specialty programs like “Loews Loves Kids” and “Loews Loves Pets” to service all of our constituencies.
5. We describe the brand experience as “everything you do.” Is there one activity that you think makes or breaks an experience?
The human touch is tantamount to customer experiences. While that concept is increasingly challenged in today’s world as more and more transactions happen over the web, we never miss opportunities to interact, in person, with our guests – thanking them for their business and soliciting their feedback.
One of my frustrations – and I know that I speak for millions of others – is when you get caught in an automated system of a company that you are trying to do business with, and never have the opportunity to opt-out and interact with a person.
That same frustration translates on the Web. Even when you are making purchases online, sites that are easy to navigate are the ones that you’ll continue to do business with. The companies that anticipate the consumers’ needs, and make transactions as easy and experiential as possible, are the companies that are doing well.
6. Another topic of ours is the idea of authenticity. How do brands remain authentic today?
Successful brands are the ones that always revert back to the initial core values that made them successful in the first place; that’s what keeps them authentic. Names that we find synonymous with great service have often times evolved over time, but ultimately consumers know what the company stands for.
7. In the pre-internet days, when you had a complaint, you maybe would share it with a handful of friends. Now you create a web site to tell the whole world. What impact does that level of accountability have on companies today?
The explosion of the Internet as a communications channel is a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that we now have so many opportunities to create a dialogue with our customers. The bad news is that the medium is so viral and that if you don’t mitigate a bad experience immediately, damaging information can spread quickly. That’s why it’s so important to maintain great customer service and respond immediately to any problems.
8. How does creating a better experience change the pricing formula?
In most businesses, especially in lodging, there is the notion of creating a value proposition. What we as owners of brands have to do is ensure that our products are perceived to offer value. As value is ultimately determined by the person who is paying the bill, a great experience truly tips the scale. Customers are willing to pay some premium for a great experience.
At Loews Hotels we spend a lot of time and energy trying to understanding our customers, and value propositions are at the forefront of our thinking as it relates to pricing. Whether you’re offering budget accommodations or high-end luxury, if the consumer feels like there isn’t value for the dollar, they will check out and take their business elsewhere.
9. How can companies better leverage “true communities” to create a better experience?
Having written two books now in the last three years, and in comparing media outreach with the last book versus with this book, I have seen a great evolution in “old media” versus “new media.” I’ve been amazed by the influence and reach of these new media channels. Our marketing team now spends a great deal of time looking at how we can become more relevant in terms of new media exposure. The difficulty for us, especially because we are a much smaller company than many of our competitors, is how to stay current with marketing trends in light of more limited budgets.
10. How do you incorporate customer comments that you receive to create a better experience for your guests? How important is that feedback loop in the experience process?
We’ve spent a fair amount of time and money upgrading the customer feedback process at Loews Hotels. So much that it can now be done electronically. Comments that we receive – both positive reviews about services customers have enjoyed as well as areas in which, perhaps, we could improve -- are valued, evaluated and acted upon. Today’s travelers are very vocal about their opinions. Rather than risk losing customers, we listen to what they have to say and make adjustments accordingly.
ADDITIONAL QUESTION – You learned the hotel business from your father, Robert Tisch, and your uncle, Larry Tisch, who founded Loews Corp. during a much different time. How do you think they would perceive the “new media” and this new way of interacting with consumers?
My cousins and I had the opportunity to learn from one of the great partnerships in American business – the one between my father, Bob Tisch, and my uncle, Larry Tisch. They had the great insight to know what they knew, and know what they didn’t know. As things in our world are now changing so rapidly, they would have had the wisdom to engage those who are more current in terms of trends to help guide the company.
This concept is one that I wrote about in my first book, The Power of We. You cannot be all things to all people, and you must surround yourself with people who complement you in order to help your company reach its full potential.
ADDITIONAL QUESTION – What was the greatest customer service lesson that you learned from your father and uncle?
Treat all people with respect, especially if they are the people you work with or the people you count on as customers.
