Lessons from a hotel mogul

This new wave of customer-centered innovation isn’t occurring only in the packaged-goods arena.  In my own field of hospitality, Marriott, a longtime pioneer and industry leader, has developed new design concepts for the lobbies of its Marriott and Renaissance Hotels with input from a team developed by IDEO, Inc., the well-known design consulting organization.  IDEO sent seven consultants—one an anthropologist—on a 6-week, 12-city tour to watch travelers interact with public hotel spaces, from lobbies to cafes to bars.  They noted what was good about the customer experience and what was not so good; for example, few lobby spaces were comfortable for conversations, reading, small meetings, or private work sessions.  As a result, the new lobby areas that Marriott is creating will include “social zones” for informal meetings and semiprivate work areas with plenty of room for laptops, papers, and coffee cups.[iv]

You don’t have to employ an anthropologist in order to develop meaningful insights into the customer experience.  It helps if you are a customer yourself.  As a hotelier, I approach every travel experience in the spirit of research.  When I stay in one of our Loews Hotels (or when I visit a city where no Loews Hotel is currently available), I take detailed mental and written notes about the quality of the experience, from my interaction with Loews coworkers at check-in or meals right down to such details as the water pressure in the shower, soundproofing in the bedroom, and colors in the living room that are conducive to a relaxing evening.  The other executives from Loews’ home office also act as customer surrogates; in fact, we have a checklist they use for rating every element of each hotel they visit.  They offer the results to the general manager and operations manager of the hotel for them to consider and learn from.  These notes often become the basis for our next hotel restyling or, perhaps, for a simple upgrade of the amenities available in a single room or suite.

I also encourage everyone who works at Loews to take seriously any input we receive from customers about their experiences with us.  You don’t have to be an anthropologist (or a CEO) to have powerful insights about the customer experience, you just need to be human. 

Creating great customer experiences is a challenge that hospitality industry leaders have long understood.  Now it is one that leaders in every arena need to focus on.  It is the only real solution to the crisis of change that is battering almost every kind of organization in our fast-paced world—and the only way to reestablish and maintain powerful connections with the customers who make our work possible, meaningful, and profitable.

[i]  Bruce Nussbaum with Robert Berner and Diane Brady “Get Creative!,” Business Week Online, August 1, 2005

[ii] “Welcome To Procter & Gadget: The consumer giant is leading the way in building brands with mechanical gizmos,” by Robert Berner.  Business Week, February 7, 2005, page 76.

[iii]  David Kiley, “Shoot the Focus Group,” Business Week Online, November 14^th, 2005

[iv]  “The Science of Desire,” by Spencer E. Ante.  Business Week, June 5, 2006, page 98.

Excerpted from “"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough: Reinventing the Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch with Karl Weber. Copyright ©2007.  Excerpted by permission of John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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