I'm at the session done by Joseph A. Michelli, author of "The Starbucks Experience". He's talking about how associations can leverage experiences to better position themselves. He cites research saying 8 out of 10 leaders are saying that differentiating products and services alone are not cutting it and experience is the next battleground. As a speaker, he's quite down-to-earth and self-effacing, which seems to make the audience trust him.
Customer experience under a production-based manager: customer often feels like an afterthought, or, as if the company feels they are stupid.
Full experience-based association: fully committed to the experience of the member. Adds sensory experiences and theatricality to contact with the audience. Next book is on Ritz-Carlton, he's talking about how they are, with their marketing, pushing the experience--what they can do for you--rather than sumptuous digs.
What did Starbucks do and what can your association do to improve its experience? Five things.
Make it your own. Allow the members to feel that they own your association by encouraging ownership--show them how you perform for them and what you do for them and do it emotionally.
Claiming and creating. Story of Los Angeles Starbucks manager who whipped up a cool coffee treat that became a hit in warm-weather markets. Moral is create an environment where you can create process improvement and new products and approaches can be tried.
5 Ways of Being. Be Welcoming, Be Genuine, Be Considerate, Be Knowledgeable, Be Involved. Who are we being? Are we being attentive, or are we doing attentive? Infusing personality within guidelines.
Everything matters. Retail is detail, all human interaction is caught in the details. Are you delivering on the brand promise? Everything creates the staging for the customer experience. Story of toilet paper. Starbucks promises affordable luxury. They wanted to have single-ply, but if you're at the end of your visit, the last point of contact you'd have would be with scratchy paper. So they do double-ply.
Surprise and delight. Do something that consistently says, I'm always going to have this experience, it'll be predictable. Crackerjack takes over the market, why? The prize inside--everyone is looking for the prize.
