Pandemic forces rethink
Leisure businesses must step up and build deeper connections,
Nothing makes the managers of restaurants, malls, theme parks or even vacation resorts smile as much as seeing their businesses bustling with customers.
These businesses have two key drivers of success — traffic (number of visitors) and positive customer experience (CX). Trade-offs always exist between these two drivers — we’ve all experienced compromised experiences due to crowds and long lineups.
Given the ongoing pandemic, and the likelihood of more waves, how can we pandemic-proof businesses that rely on customer traffic and a high-quality CX?
As behavioural scientists who have some experience in the leisure and entertainment industry, we believe that it is time to reimagine CX. In the past, creating outstanding CX was limited to the world of interpersonal interactions with customers and their freedom to make individual choices. We did this by creating an assortment of experiences and by investing in the skills of the employees that create the experiences. In a world of social distancing and increased constraints, both the factors that drive success of these businesses — traffic and CX — are under pressure.
Research in behavioural science suggests that the actual in-person experience is only one of three legs of the overall experience. The second is anticipation — things that happen before the experience. The many days that you spend planning a trip to a shopping centre or your favourite restaurant and the pleasure it brings you creates the anticipation. (Of course, much like the dread we experience knowing that a painful dental visit is around the corner, anticipation could be negative.) The third is remembrance — the joy that you get in sharing slide shows of your vacation pictures, or simply reliving your own experience. Going forward, we believe that businesses need to embrace and co-create the anticipation and remembrance aspects. They will need to take the load off of the actual visit and use additional channels to enhance the overall experience.
Experiences that aren’t too heavily dependent on specific destinations can be reimagined relatively easily. For instance, the Culinary Adventure Company used to lead people on community-based food tours in Toronto. However, since the pandemic imposed constraints, it redesigned the experience into a food tour in a box featuring a delicious curated collection of local foods and artisanal treats. These boxes are delivered to customers’ doorsteps and offer delights from a different neighbourhood each week. This simple redesign let the business maintain the essence of its offering.
How could a location-dependent businesses like a museum, zoo or theme park enhance anticipated utility? It might start by building an image as a socially responsible brand. This enhances trust, emotional connections and alleviates anxiety amongst consumers.
The firm might apply strict sanitization protocols, serve the needs of frontline workers, prioritize employee and guest safety, and provide a striking and vivid demonstration of how it does this. It is important to create this trust previsit, to increase the visit’s likelihood. The African Lion Safari in Cambridge, Ont., changed visit protocols, pre-sold tickets online and minimized contact within the park, clearly signalling their intentions to fight the pandemic.
This approach could then accelerate the use of online platforms for sampling, planning, booking and reservations. It can go beyond traditional marketing content with a heavy focus on call to action, and move more toward storytelling. For example, the AGO created a campaign called #AGOfromHome. It transformed the website to feel like an in-gallery experience, and customers could take a much closer look at the artwork on the digital screen. It also turned talks with artists — an offering that was previously only available on-site — into virtual webinars.
By doing so, AGO made its experience easily accessible. This helps AGO stay at the top of customers’ minds and increases the anticipation utility. In a similar vein, the Toronto Zoo’s #ZooToYou campaign had video content featuring its most prized assets — the animals. In this series, one feeder introduced one animal per time in detail. The video serves both educational and entertaining purposes. Since animals are often the most clicked content on social media, the zoo leveraged this to its advantage and enhanced anticipation.
Some characteristics of offline experiences can never be replaced by technology. However, they could get enhanced by suitable technology. An advance sneak peek into the real experience will entice more desire and increase anticipation.
Good examples include welcome packages with small gifts from the real experience, a handwritten letter, a pop-up store or other mementos.
Likewise, similar interventions could help in creating and preserving remembrance; not only creating positive memories, but good word of mouth.
A socially distant society might be with us for a long time to come, but that does not mean that experience-heavy businesses will necessarily flounder.
By enhancing anticipation and remembrance, and harnessing the entire capability of technology, we believe that the industry cannot only survive and withstand the onslaught of the current pandemic, but might actually completely re-engineer the way in which we think about customer experience.
Some characteristics of offline experiences can never be replaced by technology. However, it could entice more desire and anticipation