I don’t believe in customer service, it’s a waste of time – Talk Marketing 069 – John Formica

Today’s guest started work way back in 1981 as a hotel manager with the Hyatt Hotels Group before running some of Disney’s leading resorts and opening some of Disney’s leading resorts. Today’s guest is known as America’s Customer Experience Coach and leading authority on business growth and team culture. He is the author of Making the Customer Experience Magical Now! All the way from Charlotte in North Carolina is John Formica.

This is the link of John’s book, Making the Customer Experience Magical Now! https://johnformica.com/products/

00:00 Introductions.
13:14 How are you qualified to talk about customer experience?
43:02 Who do you work with and how do you add value to their lives?
54:10 Why don’t businesses value their customers?
1:10:20 How much of sales and marketing is actually performative?
1:13:43 What’s your recommendation for people who want to get better at customer experience?
1:16:56 What should people read?
1:21:47 Who might enjoy to be a part of the Talk Marketing series?

Martin Henley
How are you qualified to talk about customer experience?

John Formica
You know, customer experience, and customer service is about serving others. So I’ve always had that mentality ever since I was a child, been raised by two loving parents, who would give their shirts off their back for anybody. So it was always that hospitality type environment in our home, welcoming people taking good care of people and that sort of thing. But when I started to go through school and get into the hotel industry, the hotel industry is all about hospitality and you have to have a passion to serve others. I tell people all the time, if you don’t have a passion to serve others, you need to find another job. Because in the hospitality industry, you’re going to work with other people play.

John Formica
You’re going to work holidays, weekends, your birthday, Christmas, it doesn’t end, right? They don’t close hotels, because it’s Christmas Day. So when I had the opportunity to work for Disney, it really, I saw how they created the emotional experience in the customer experience because Disney brand is all about emotions. I mean, you walk around in the parks, and you see people crying, happy crying, they’re just, it affects them. You take a picture of Mickey and it’s like you won the lottery. I mean, it is just the whole brand is so emotional. That’s what the experience is all about. I’m known as America’s and Australia’s best customer experience coach. I also have a nickname, Martin, I’m the anti customer service guy.

John Formica
That’s because I don’t believe in customer service, customer service is a waste of time. I tell any business owner, anybody, if you just provide service, you’ll be boring. You’ll be out of business in years, because how many other people in your industry can provide the same service cheaper, more convenient, or whatever it might be, now you become a commodity. But if you can provide an experience, that creates an emotional attachment to them, that’s how you create loyalty. That’s how you create stickiness. That’s how Martin, you can charge whatever you want to charge. And not discount, and not worry about using coupons. Don’t do all these marketing discounts. You charge whatever you want, but you give me value by giving me an experience, and 86% of people will spend more for a better customer experience.

John Formica
So what I preach is, it’s all about the customer experience. So I lived it at Disney building hotels, that we have to start our customer experience from scratch, map, journey, mapping it, figuring out what what we wanted the emotions to be when they arrived, when they entered the building, when they ate, when they went out to the pool. All of those, what were the emotions we were going to affect. That became the experience and Disney’s brand is based on you know, you just say Disney, and people already met it, they’re already imagining how great it’s going to be right? Because of the experiences not because they’re brides, not because they have food. Right? It’s because of the experience you and I get that you can’t get anywhere else.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?