"We need to create more value in the encounter with the guests"
Children were allowed to feed the elephants inside the elephant house. They learned that they should hide the food, because it is good for the elephants to have to search for their food, and they became involved in the work of the zoo keeper. This provided a better and more instructive experience than before, when the guests were only allowed to stand and look at the elephants.
The research by teaching associate professor Jens Friis Jensen and associate professor Flemming S?rensen from RUC shows that this is just one of many examples of how experience businesses such as the Zoological Gardens, Tivoli, Flying Tiger, Tivoli Hotel and Magasin can, using relatively simple means, create a better experience for the guest. The project is part of the Capital Region’s innovation project NICE.
Depending on whether the guests are happy or dissatisfied, the amusement controller had developed various actions to respond to the emotional state of the guests. So, instead of looking at a queue, they now looked at the individual person and the opportunities that existed for interacting with the guest's state of mind.
The purpose of their research is to make Copenhagen more competitive by examining how businesses can create value in the encounter between the employees and the guests. An analysis conducted by NICE shows that Copenhagen is performing poorly in comparison with other major cities such as Helsinki, Stockholm, Zurich and Berlin regarding the professional encounter between a guest and the employees of the tourism companies.
?The goal is to create memories that have value for you as a guest, so that you go home and talk about it and share it with others on social media. So, it is not just a competition to perform an efficient check-in and provide a clean room with a good mattress, because Copenhagen cannot really out-compete its competitors in this regard. Businesses have to work with feelings and experiences to create good memories in their encounters with the guest,? explains Jens Friis Jensen.
In collaboration with tt备用网址 Jan Mattsson from RUC and tt备用网址 Stuart Barnes from King's College London, the researchers have developed a measuring instrument, a statistical model that can be used as a tool for measuring e.g. the connection between the emotions and the learning that the guest experiences in the encounter, and how it affects the guest's memories of the encounter.
?An experience has been created in which the guest has been engaged, and it has an experience value because it means something to the guest. And when that happens, the guest will also wish to share it with others. The person will recommend the place and perhaps also return,? says Jens Friis Jensen.
The hotel with a design narrative
The first business that Jens Friis Jensen and Flemming S?rensen collaborated with was the Alexandra Hotel in Copenhagen, a hotel where Danish classical furniture design is paramount. Jens Friis Jensen explains that previously there was a classic service check-in for the guests when they arrived at the hotel.
?The staff were pleasant, but they did not engage the guests in the hotel's passion for Danish design and did not inform them of the history of the place, or why it is special,? says Jens Friis Jensen.
In a research experiment, the staff developed ways in which they could engage the guests in the hotel's design narrative and thereby create a particularly memorable experience together with the guest. For example, they invited the guests to come up and see different rooms furnished with Danish furniture, thereby involving the guests in the hotel's design universe.
?The employee showed them the Verner Panton room, for example, and talked about his design philosophy. The room is named after the famous lamp and furniture designer, and when you enter the room, it feels like a virtual bombardment of the senses, where people just think "Wow - what is this?" It often happened afterwards, that the guest asks if they can switch to the room they have just seen. This happens even though the room may be twice as expensive per night as a standard room,? says Jens Friis Jensen.
Hotel Alexandra could quickly see on their bottom line that the employees' new behaviour made a difference. The hotel had a bigger turnover, additional sales increased, their ratings rose on TripAdvisor and on booking sites, and several guests returned to the hotel again and recommended it to others. Employee satisfaction also increased, because the employees' work had a different content, and this in turn increased the retention of employees.
Working with the emotions of individual guests in Tivoli
In Tivoli, the researchers worked with the staff to improve the guest's experience in the old garden. The employees developed a model in which the guest's emotional state is the centre of attention.
?Depending on whether the guests are happy or dissatisfied, the amusement controller had developed various actions to respond to the emotional state of the guests. So, instead of looking at a queue, they now looked at the individual person and the opportunities that existed for interacting with the guest's state of mind and creating experience value during the short time when they interacted with the individual guest,? explains Jens Friis Jensen.
It is not only hotels and tourist attractions that can use these methods. Jens Friis Jensen has been invited to meetings at the Tivoli Academy on numerous occasions, where courses are conducted so that other businesses can learn from Tivoli's way of improving the customer experience. Here, Jens Friis Jensen presented the research results to 250 businesses from different industries.
?The businesses expressed great interest in our research results, and their feedback shows that the methods can be spread to all types of businesses, where there is a personal meeting in the customer relationship,? says Jens Friis Jensen.
Jens Friis Jensen and Flemming S?rensen have also published the research article 'Tourism Management - Value creation and knowledge development in tourism experience encounters' in the journal 'Tourism Management'.
Jens Friis Jensen is a teaching associate professor and works with tourism projects and employability. He teaches on the course 'Culture Production' at Performance Design.
Facts:
What is NICE?
Tourists are generally satisfied with their stay in Denmark, but compared to other major cities in northern Europe, Denmark scores particularly poorly in terms of satisfaction with the level of service.
At the same time, Denmark is challenged by the fact that tourists do not feel that they receive enough value for money, either in terms of food, shopping or accommodation, and this weakens Denmark's competitiveness.
This is the background for NICE, an innovation project initiated by the Capital Region. The project is being expanded throughout Denmark. The goal is to create a national movement across tourism actors, making Denmark world renowned for good service and memorable experiences.
NICE stands for New Innovative Customer Experiences. Eventually, it should help to increase revenue and improve employee satisfaction and commitment at the businesses.