Customer Experience

A few days ago, I went to a top-notch restaurant in Dubai called Ossiano, for an impeccable twelve-course dinner menu.?The entire experience, which took around four hours, was amazing, from the kind receptionist to the waiter and sommelier’s attention.?

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Their engagement in explaining the menu and its phases and guiding me through each course, telling all the details from the chef's travel to Brittany and his memories, which were captured in those incredible dishes, was astounding.

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So, when I thought there wouldn't be any more surprises, the waiter brought the dish in the picture with four beautiful olives. The first thought in my mind was that it was a beautiful dish, but a little bit simple if compared to the others presented before.

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And then I gave the first bite, and the surprise … what appeared, at first sight, to be just simple olives was, in fact, the first dish from the dessert section. I was not eating olives, but a sheep yogurt milk dessert that exploded in my mouth with such a lighter flavor.?

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At that point in the evening, they didn't need to do anything else to impress, but they still managed to surprise me as a client and take the experience to another level. This is one of the many reasons why the place is considered a top-notch Michelin-star restaurant.

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And during the dinner, I was sitting there and thinking about customer experience, known as CX, which is basically the customer’s perceptions and feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier's employees, systems, channels, services, or products. It is the customers' holistic perception of their experience with the business or brand.

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This thought reminded me about a book I read a few years ago called “Nos Bastidores da Disney” (“Behind the Scenes on Disney”), written by Tom Connellan. In this book, the author explains the secrets of Disney to success and teaches us how to transform the Customer Experience into something magic.

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?The book listed some lessons that teach us to reinforce or pay attention to the Customer, such as:

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1. Competitor is any company with which the customer likes it, regardless of if it is from the same sector or not;

2. Fantastic attention to detail: Disney takes the details very seriously. For example, the use of native vegetation in the theme parks, the hiring of native chefs to work in the restaurants of the eleven (11) countries represented in the pavilion of Epcot Park, or even the paint team responsible for checking the park every night and retouching the necessary points.

3. Everyone shows enthusiasm: everyone in the company, regardless of their position or assignment, should be aggressively kind. Have empathy.

4. Everything shows enthusiasm: the cast members, the attractions, the toys, the food, everything should show enthusiasm. Everyone needs to focus on offering the customer what they need.

5. Multiple listening posts: listen to the customer always and for all possible listening posts, which are nothing more than all employees of your company and not just those who are part of the customer service department.

Ossiano nailed all the five (5) rules I have listed above. The attention to detail, the staff’s enthusiasm during the dinner, and their constant attention to understanding if I was enjoying the experience. They took the dinner experience to another level.

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We always need to put the Customer first and understand their needs and what suits them, what will make their experience unforgettable, and what we can do to make them feel like the only customer. All this is aimed at transforming the customer experience, making it unforgettable.

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To end this article, as an inspiration, I would like to share a link from a lecture from James Lloyd regarding an episode with a Nordstrom Manager the rescued him on an important day. As he mentioned: “When your service is phenomenal, price is less than an issue”.?