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A brand’s reputation is earned through every experience, interaction and impression it makes with consumers. Leisure and hospitality companies have this front and centre of their service delivery every day. This ethos is hardwired both into how space is designed and how staff are selected and then trained to deliver every aspect of noteworthy service. Brands who get it right develop renowned reputations for flawless execution and exceeding expectations. Platforms like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, OpenTable, Yelp, etc. amplify these moments to millions of other consumers.
When Stephanie McCarty, CMO at US home builder Taylor Morrison, treated her 3-year-old daughter to a Disney character helium balloon in Disney’s Magic Kingdom, she was less than pleased to be informed the next day her daughter wasn’t allowed to take it into Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Instead, she was told it could be left with staff at the entrance where it would be looked after, and she and her daughter could later pick it up at Guest Relations.
The news was less than magical, particularly for her disappointed daughter, but she had to accept Disney’s view that the balloons can upset the animals. She trusted a brand like Disney could be trusted to store the balloon and have it ready to collect at the end of the day. But this is Disney, so when McCarty took her daughter to collect her balloon later that day, doing so came with the attention to detail Disney has built its whole brand reputation upon. The balloon was presented back to her daughter with a balloon daycare report, praising it for playing well with other balloons, eating a snack, taking a nap and (of course) singing “Let it Go” with Elsa while watching “Frozen”.
Disney’s balloon daycare report exemplifies why brands that understand the power of defining moments rise to the top. As McCarty pointed out in her LinkedIn post that went viral, “They, more than any other brand I’ve experienced, realize that every touchpoint with a customer is an opportunity to connect on a deeper level… Branding is not about what you say, it’s about what you do.”
Disney recognised a point of friction and saw an opportunity. “They took a situation they knew would be unpleasant (if you’ve ever tried taking a balloon from a toddler, you know exactly what I’m talking about!) and found a way to make it less so,” according to McCarty.
While Chris Hurn, Founder and CEO of specialist commercial real estate lender Fountainhead Commercial Capital, was in California on business in 2012, his wife and two children grabbed a few days away at a Ritz-Carlton resort in Florida. On arriving home they discovered that Joshie, their young son’s beloved stuffed toy giraffe, was missing. Later, contending with his son’s first distraught bedtime without Joshie, Hurn, like countless parents in his position before him, put his moral compass aside and lied. Joshie wasn’t lost! He’s just extending his vacation. His son bought the white lie long enough to fall asleep between sobs.
When a Ritz-Carlton employee phoned later that evening to say Joshie had been found amongst the laundry, Hurn confessed his tall tale and asked the caller if there was any chance one of the team at the hotel could snap a photo of the toy on a poolside sun lounger to help corroborate the story. Luckily, the staff member agreed.
Hurn’s expectations had already been moderately exceeded when the hotel found the toy and phoned to arrange to repatriate it, and then they exceeded his expectations again when they willingly agreed to participate in the toddler trickery. But two days later, expectations were smashed when a parcel arrived at the Hurn household, not just with Joshie and a bunch of child-friendly Ritz-Carlton merchandise, but with an album carefully documenting the giraffe’s extended stay, not only with snapshots of him chilling poolside on a lounger, but also of him getting a massage in the spa, hanging with the resort’s pet parrot, dining with other stuffed toys, driving a golf buggy and even wearing a staff pass while putting in a shift in the security office.
The Ritz-Carlton staff could have packed Joshie in an envelope and mailed him next day delivery. Instead, they saw an opportunity to go further. Blown away by the photo diary, Hurn took to social media to tell the story and applaud the culture of an organisation that sanctions staff stepping outside their prescribed script and daily duties when they see opportunities to exceed everyday expectations. And again, the post went viral, reaffirming Ritz-Carlton hospitality as amongst the best.
The brand value of this seemingly simple gesture was immense, yet the operational cost to perform it was minimal. This is how hospitality brands build loyal fan bases.
Consumers develop loyalty to brands not because of one single product or service but through a wider collection of touchpoints. A business’s products, services and reputation are complexly intertwined, and when any one of those falls short of customer expectations, it changes what people say about the organisation, directly harming brand position, reputation, credibility and underlying market value.
The best hospitality brands work hard to exude warmth and an inviting environment that make them worth paying to visit. Guests expect the basics to be delivered consistently well, building moments that matter into the everyday experience to delight guests and keep them loyal. When these brands succeed, visitors talk about their experience positively, as Hurn and McCarty did, and the brand’s fanbase grows.
These aha! aéto moments and experience design are what bring people back, and we’re using data and evidence to both uncover and maximise them for our clients.