On occasion, when work and life don’t seem to have any other
plans for us, my wife and I have the good fortune of catching the train to Île Bizard, QC to visit her parents. Île Bizard is a small island about 35 minutes west of Montreal, and is the home to The Royal Montreal Golf Club, a rather prestigious club; at which my father-in-law just happens to be the General Manager and secretary.
On one such visit, as we enjoyed a delicious lunch, delivered superbly by three different members of The Royal Montreal service team; I contemplated how this type of consumer service experience could translate itself into our experiential event world.
The importance of exceptional service is not a concept lost on me… I put myself though High School and University working at fine dining restaurants where exceptional
service was a steadfast rule, not a “nice to have”. In the restaurant business, it is no secret that if you do “service” well, inevitably you will find success. Fail at the “service” game and that failure will follow you all the way to the bank.
In the same way a restaurant can have exceptional food but if delivered poorly, the customer experience is ruined; a similar truth exists for experiential marketers.
Many great experiential marketing campaigns have found failure, not because the engagement concept was ineffective, but because not enough attention was paid to the mode of delivery.
When designing and developing experiential campaigns, it is important we never lose sight of the fact that we are in the “people” business… We employ “people” and we “service” people; as such it is vital that great attention is given to how these two groups interact.
Experiential agencies need to reevaluate the attention paid to the employee – consumer
relationship. We must learn to consistently empower brand ambassadors to deliver on the concept of exceptional customer service. If we focus on encouraging positive, engaging, service oriented behavior in our Brand Ambassadors, the loyalty and positive reputation earned from these exceptional service experiences will surely pay dividends to brands well into the future.
-R
