Episode #238: EXPERIENCE ECONOMY SERIES PART 4 - MAPPING

Installment number four, of our six-part series, examines customer micro-journeys.

Businesses often create dozens of small, customer experiences during the transaction process. It is in these small segments of the purchase that favorable impressions can be won, or lost. Better yet, these components often carry the weight of success or failure in the mind’s eye of the customer. As an example, this episode covers the 39 Standard Experience Events (S.E.E.) tucked inside a trip to sit-down restaurant. Cheers!  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, thank you for tuning into the fourth installment of our six part series about the experience economy. Now, today's show is gonna go a little bit longer than five minutes. We're gonna be more like eight, nine, or 10. We're talking about mapping, and we're presenting this idea of mapping in a very unique way. So stick around.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Alright , Mr . Simple Biz Sky to show .

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everybody, and thank you for tuning into this Simple Biz 360 podcast. My name is Jeff Mason. I'm your host for episode 2 38. This is the fourth installment of our six part series about the experience economy. So today we're talking about mapping and what we're gonna kind of unveil today, I , I don't know if you've really ever had anything presented to you in , in such a way, but we're gonna try to really bring something home that can honestly change the trajectory of your business in a short period of time. So today we're gonna look at charting transactional micro journeys real , right? When we're in this subjective experience economy, what does that really mean? Well, there's just so much fuzziness to it. You know, it's, it's feeling oriented, it's opinion, it's review based . It's, it's sometimes the way we do things seems to overshadow the product or service that we actually provide. And the customers are in this highly subjective zone where that's the way they're reviewing our companies and our repeat business and referral business hinges on it. So we're gonna compartmentalize the experiences and we're gonna do it today. We're gonna bring this concept home and illustrate it through a restaurant analogy. Now, in looking at a restaurant, it is my opinion, after looking at depth in this, there are 39 micro experiences to most sit down restaurant experiences. I'm gonna fly through 'em here and just think about these, you know, rewind and play it back again. But at the end of this, I want you to really think and question your own companies in the way you do things. Do we have this many micro journeys? Basically, they're like little stops. They're like little , um, you know, experience journeys all in and of themselves that unfortunately go back to what we, we talked about in that first episode, right? It takes 12 positive experiences to erase a negative experience, I believe was the, was the quote. I mean, this is incredible, right? So take a look. So here's the 39 in a sit down restaurant, the entrance presentation, the host and hostess welcome Matt , the hostess and host seating intuition. Hey, you know what? I'm on a business trip. It's four 30 in the afternoon. I go into a place to sit down. There's one table in there. It's got a family of , uh, six kids and parents, and every other table is empty. And you're really gonna sit me next to that table. Why? Because you're company centric. You're making it easier on the wait staff than the customer, right? So that's kind of how this frames up, right? Table preparedness, table cleanliness, utensil, cleanliness, environment, the temperature. Is it too cold or too hot? You know, was a fan blowing on, on super hot right on top of you , right? Is it, is it wait staff centric versus customer centric? What about the comfort of that environment? So many restaurants design that en environment temperature wise and airflow wise to be wait staff centric. So is that really what you want to do? Atmospheric conditions, music, is it on? Is it too loud? Is it too low? You know, seat spacing, cleaners, do you really want cleaners? The smell of them? You know, you know, kind of just , um, going out throughout the restaurant as people are eating. You know, if put the cleaners away, don't let 'em just sit out in front of customers, right? Water, what about water? Well, I look at it as there's three rounds. There's the initial, there's round number two and round number three. Wait, staff demeanor, wait, staff meet and greet , right? Well , how do they go about doing it? Wait, staff q and a, right? You know, it's a pre-order, Q and a, you have any questions, you go over, you know, all that kind of stuff. Order taking, capturing order modifications, order verification. Lemme make sure I understood your order correctly, right? Menu, layout and presentation. Is it user friendly or difficult to read? Do you , how many places do you go into these steakhouses that are dark and you see people with their phone and their flashlight from their phone on the menu? I mean, can you read it right? Is it, is it, is the menu accurate? Is , are the pictures there really what you're gonna end up getting at the end for the meal? Does , does , does the menu actually connect to the, you know, expectation of the or ? Or is the expectation that you're creating in this visual experience, does it connect to the deliverable of the food, right? Uh , menu ingredient information. What about people that have allergies? Are you putting everything in there you need to, to make someone , uh, avoid having an issue? And, you know, maybe that steers 'em into a different entree, right? Menu review the specials , uh, bathroom cleanliness, bathroom item, necessity, stock. You know, do you have paper towels there? Do you have enough of them there? Do you have paper? Do you have toilet paper? Are you equipped? Do you have the backups? Do you have attendance going in there frequently enough to do it? Bathroom hygiene centric exiting. I mean, do you, do you , after everybody washes their hands, do you make 'em grab the door handle again without any garbage can nearby? Because if that's the case, if you're making me grab the door handle, I want a garbage can nearby, I'm gonna take a wet paper towel that , you know, or a paper towel that I've wipe my handle , I'm gonna grab the door handle with that. So again, think about your exits from the bathroom experience, your entree delivery, your entree delivery timing, your entree accuracy, right? Your entree taste. Well, that's really, now we're getting into the meat and potatoes of what you do, right? In a restaurant. Does this taste good? Is the temperature right? Has it been sitting under a light? Has it been sitting to the side for 10 minutes? Is it cold? How many times have we gotten cold meals, right? Is the entree matching that expectation again, that you built in the menu? Um, wait, staff order update. Hey, you know, your order's in, it should be coming out in a couple minutes. Hey, let's do a fly by checkup. Anything , uh, the wait staff can get you as we're , uh, waiting for, you know, wait , staff , ongoing observation skills. Are they seen that, you know, you got your hand up, you need, maybe you dropped your utensils or, or , or , or you dropped a utensil, you need something. You know, are they looking over at you? Are they, are they really understanding that to , to , to , you know, focus on you? Uh, bill delivery, timing bill accuracy, payment processing, timing. Wait, staff, thank you. And then the establishment. Thank you. As you leave. Now, there could be more, but these are 39 micro journeys that have experiences attached to each one of them. And so if you fall on your sword as the restaurant on one or a couple of these, it may be the thing that tilts the scales. And unfortunately that customer goes out and remembers that, you know, micro journey had a bad experience to it. And , and think about it, restaurants, I just, I'm fascinated by it because we in sales , uh, in so many different avenues of, of selling products and services, we have to really work hard to get a customer. Now, you , you do have to advertise, you do have to do things to, to present your restaurant in a positive light, but the customer comes in the door. You , you never see a customer sit down, look at the menu, go through everything, and the wait , the wait staff comes up and says, okay , uh, I'd like to take your order. How many times have you seen people go, you know what? No , I don't think so. I think we're gonna go someplace else. Thanks anyways, you don't see that. So, so the restaurant has a captive audience. Now it's the restaurant's job to create such a good experience overall that that customer comes back for more or they refer that restaurant to somebody else. But there's all these little touch points , there's all these little metrics in the customer mind that create the overall transactional experience. But there are all these chartable micro experiences. So now we really invite you to do that in each one of your businesses. Chart your micro journeys that are indigenous to your business. And then, right, you go into a zone where you teach about the, you teach the staff how to execute on these experience points. You train the staff and then you can track, you know, if these customers come back, maybe you have some kind of loyalty program, whatever, but maybe somehow you can track them. But again, you've gotta teach and train the staff on these and then somehow be able to track it. But, you know, this is really kind of a cool thing, a byproduct outta the experience economy that , um, you probably haven't heard presented in such a way. And we all have whatever we do, we've got these touch points , we've got these little stops that customer has to make with us along the way to finishing the transaction. So we say put it on an Excel report , start charting it, start uh , putting it down in writing and then teaching and training and tracking. So the tune for today that we're gonna kind of have you associate this fourth installment with is Travel and Band by Credence Clearwater, right from Cosmos Factory, 1970. I mean it , you know, we're tra the customer's traveling through all these little micro journeys to get to the big end result, the final transaction, paying the invoice and it's done. Do we, you know , we want them back. We want them referring us. So enjoy the tomb and uh , hey, we will see you for installment number five in 168 hours. Thanks for sticking around.