How the Ritz Carlton leverages its people to deliver 5 x higher revenue than its rivals
This month we’re doing a series on Differentiation through the Marketing Mix. Mix 5 – How can you truly differentiate your organisation through People/Customer service?
What is the marketing mix?
Before that, a recap: The Marketing Mix consists of 7 elements Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, Process, People. All these elements provide customer touch points that deliver a customer experience. They are all powerful ways to differentiate and position your organisation from the competition. Whichever way you decide to differentiate, it is critical that all the other marketing mix elements exude the same customer experience (CX)/positioning.
Differentiating through your people/talent delivers better customer service which should form a key element of an organisational strategy and is a proven differentiator if you look at The Ritz Carlton (owned by Marriott International).
How the Ritz increases revenue through its people
The Ritz-Carlton ensure their staff know how to deliver an outstanding customer experience. Ritz justify their price premium by ensuring it’s customers receive meticulously worthy and personalised service.
A story on Bloomberg shows customer service on the next level: A family who had been staying in the Ritz-Carlton in Bali had brought specialized eggs and milk for their son who had numerous food allergies.
Upon arrival, the eggs had broken, and the milk had soured!
The hotel’s manager and dining staff searched the town to no avail, but the executive chef remembered a store in Singapore that sold them. He asked his mother-in-law to buy the products and fly to Bali to deliver them.
The Ritz-Carlton empowers their employees to deliver an amazing experience: The guests develop such a strong emotional engagement with the hotels’ staff that they would not consider staying anywhere else, even if they have an option.
As of September 2020, Marriott is not the biggest global hotel chain (in terms of size), but its revenue dwarfs the number one position. It has 20% less hotels, yet it makes 5 times the revenue of $21.0 billion.
If you have some element of high customer touchpoints, conducting a strategic exploration will allow you to plot the customer journey and create a people strategy that attracts talent and incentivises employees to control and deliver an impeccable customer experience, and place their priority with customers rather.
Your organisation could be sitting on untapped value to deliver an excellent customer experience more effectively and efficiently.
Let’s chat
If you’d like to discuss how a CX review works, drop me a message or book a complimentary no-obligation meeting and find out how I can help your business.
