Exceptional Customer Experiences — Stowe Shoemaker, PhD

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Right?

We're going to address some of that today. There's definitely some industries and parts of our companies that you'll have that our show comes to you every week with something to do with growing and scaling your company. You'll find all our back catalog and more, more than 500 shows now@scalingcoach.com as well as information on our whole range of coaching programs, including the new Growth Navigator program which for 1500amonth gives you coaching, training, accountability, guest speakers, something every week and then quarterly planning, annual strategy sessions. So a whole bunch of stuff and more at the more accessible and affordable than ever before. 1500amonth. So scan coach.com the growth navigator program, all our free downloads and podcasts and all that kind of thing. So I'm joined now by Stowe Shoemaker. Stowe comes to us from UNLV Today, where I went to school and had my first radio show. And I love that personal connection. But I also love this topic about exceptional customer service. And unlv, although I didn't go to school for hospitality, is just one of the leading organizations in the world to teach hospitality. And Stowe is the dean of that. Or are you still the dean or was the dean?

I was a Dean for 10 years.

10 years.

Just stepped down June 30th.

Yeah. So for a long time, the dean of that school, and he knows a little something about hospitality. He's going to share with you all of that. And he's got a new book out now, which is Hospitable Health Care, Just what the Patient Ordered. And, you know, when I think about hospitality, I know what it's like on the airlines and the hotels that I like to stay in and the restaurants I like to eat at. When I feel taken care of, I know what that feels like. You probably know what that feels like. And then there are other places like my doctor's office, the hospital, where I generally don't feel that. Where I feel some mix of cold, distant stuff or bureaucratic, administrative, like not really taken care of at times that I'm really, really need and want it the most. So hospitality is something that really matters, I think, to a lot of us a lot of the time. It certainly matters to our customers, our members, our guests. Uh, so it's a fantastic. I'm glad for the topic and I'm glad to welcome you to show.

Well, it's great to. It's great to be at the show and, and, you know, I'd like everyone to think about the last time they went to a doctor.

Yeah.

And how was that experience compared to thinking about the last time you went out for a meal or stayed in a hotel? And not just a, you know, a Four Seasons type hotel, but even like a La Quinta or a Hampton Inn, all of those depending on the price, you still get a great customer experience. And what we really tried to do, my co author and I, was we realized that, you know, health care needs to be fixed. And we talked to so many people that have negative experiences visiting a doctor, visiting a walk in clinic, that we thought, well, let's actually go out and figure out how to use hospitality principles to solve some of the health care.

Issues, you know, so I'll contrast just personally to start it out. Then you'll. You'll talk about your work and, and this thing. But because you posed the question, and I think our listeners will be Thinking about that now too. So I had to get some blood work and I am spending the summer up in Seattle, but I normally live in California and so. But they have Kaiser here. So I'm like, okay, I'm a Kaiser customer and I'm going to go up to Kai. I'm a Kaiser patient, Kaiser member. I'm going to go to the Kaiser thing. They're like, absolutely, you can come here. But they couldn't get any of their systems to talk to each other. They sent me back and forth to make fun of photocopies and to do things like that. Or they wanted me to fax something to them. Like, fax, we're not in the 1980s anymore. Like, why am I faxing you anything? It's just insane. And why are you making me. You figure that stuff out, how you're going to bill me and how to connect the records. But I had to do all that stuff. It actually took me two day, two different visits across three days to get some blood work done. Like just insane and unpleasant. And then I contrast that to. I went to Hood river on down in Oregon to go do some wind sports a couple weeks ago. And we stayed in one hotel, but we went over to a neighboring hotel, a Best Western. And. And I'm like, I don't expect a lot from a Best Western. You know, it's not a, it's not a four season, it's not a upper tier brand or within any, even any group. But I was blown away at how lovely it was and what a fantastic restaurant they had and what a fantastic experience we had stopping at this other hotel for dinner on the river. And like every step of the way they took care of us and made us feel special and like that. Right?

Yeah, exactly. And you know, it's interesting, you know, when we, when we sat out, when we set, got together to write this book, we didn't want to just be two people with an opinion, you know. My co author had spent many years working in hospitality marketing and then he ended up working with Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Prior to my years in academics, I spent many years working in the hospitality industry, but then held a joint appointment at MD Anderson Cancer center in Houston. We knew that hospitality gave better service than healthcare, but we didn't want to just say that. We wanted to prove it. What we did is we actually went out and we surveyed about 1200 people across the United States. You know, I was all representative in terms of ethnicity, geographic location, gender, etc. And we asked them about visiting at Health Care, visiting a hospital, visiting a walk in clinic, going to their doctor, visiting a restaurant or visiting at a hotel. And sure enough, we found that in pretty much all cases, as you would expect, going to a hospitality, whether it be a hotel or a restaurant, people were happier than visiting a healthcare. So we wanted to go and say, well, why is that? And what have we learned in the hospitality industry that can be used to help healthcare?

Yes.

And I think what's important is that what I'll talk about today is that what we found, it doesn't matter whether we're in healthcare, whether, whether we're in the trucking business, any type of business. We kind of identified what we call the five principles to provide a great customer experience. And that's, that's really what we wanted to do. And, and when we think about it in terms of healthcare, it's making a patient feel like a loved family member. We said, how do you want to feel when you go to a healthcare? I want to feel like a love family member because family members always get better taken care of. And if we're in general business, I want to be, I want to feel like I know the owner. I want to feel like the staff loves me. Right. Because if they love me, I'm going to give more word of mouth, I'm going to spend more money. Right. I did a lot of research prior in my academic career working with, with you know, hospitality firms and we found that customers who were loyal, instead of buying a cheap bottle of wine, they bought the more expensive bottle of wine. Right. They visited more frequently. They were more likely to post online positive comments.

Yeah.

And of course they were more likely to tell you if they had a problem. And if they have a problem, then we can fix it.

You know, if you think about, I don't know, you know, you've probably been to Italy. Some of our listeners, viewers will have like a true traditional Italian restaurant. If the owner's there, they're going to come by as your first time welcome. Like, oh, make sure you try the this or that. And then like how was your meal? Hey, you know, wait a minute, wait a minute. We make this limoncello here. You should have some like, they come and bring you something like that, like everything. And yet that's really rare. I mean you'll see it here in not just Italian but other restaurants where somebody takes the time to go over and, and like connect with you and remember you or notice you, even if they don't remember you. I think I've seen you be here before Glad to have you back. You know, that kind of thing. There was a. There was a famous mater d in Vegas years ago, I want to say his name was Mr. August. And he was fantastic for making people feel welcomed and connected and, you know, like that kind of thing.

Yeah. And I think, I mean, that's critical and I think. But if you're growing your business, it's very hard for you as the owner to be there every day to create that relationship.

You may not. And every meal and. Yeah, and.

And so what you have to do is put in systems to make that happen.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

And that really becomes a critical issue. So what we did, when we looked at, we traced really the history of hospitality. How did hospitality be some so great at creating that great experience?

Sometimes, right? Not always. Not every restaurant, more often.

And we, and we started with Kermit Wilson. So Kermit Wilson, for many of you, he was the founder of Holiday Inn. And he founded Holiday Inn actually because he took a trip with his family from Memphis, Tennessee up to Washington D.C. and this was a time when there were no brands, no standards. And every time he's. Every night he stayed at a different place hotel and had a terrible experience. So he came home and he talked to one of his friends who was a builder and said, I want to build a hotel. What should we call it? And the movie Holiday Inn had just come out with Bing Crosby. So he goes, let's call it Holiday Inn. And so what, he was really the first person to create kind of a standardized room, standardized service. You know, at one point their whole motto was the best surprise is no surprise. And he was the one who really led the industry to where we are today. And when we did all this research and we thought about our own experience, I've been very fortunate. For 22 years, I was on the executive education faculty at Cornell University. So I traveled all over the world working with major hospitality firms, really learning what are they doing to create great experiences. And then they were seeking my advice. And essentially what we did is we took my experience, my co author's experience, plus all the research we've done over the years, and we identified really five things that we believe will help you scale your business and create a great customer experience. When we talk about, in healthcare, we talk about patients being treated like loved family members. And again, the ultimate goal of why do we want to create. Create great experiences? Customers spend more money, more likely to spend positive word of mouth. And when we think about the lifetime value of how many times they're going to come back and buy from us, it becomes incredibly successful.

Yeah.

So what I can do is I can talk, I can share with everyone, kind of our approach to these five points.

Awesome.

Okay. And so because we're in, you know, we're doing healthcare, in healthcare, they talk a lot about the payer. Right. We're not customers, we're payers.

Yeah. And we're certainly not guests or members.

No, we're certainly not guests or members. And. And so what we kind of, with a play on words, came up what we called the payer model. And basically the first is we prepare. And I'll give some examples of each of these in a minute.

Yeah.

So the first p is prepare.

Yeah.

The second was we anticipate.

Yeah.

The third as we engage.

Yeah.

The fourth is we evaluate and in the final reward. And the idea was by focusing on, you know, preparation, anticipation, engagement, evaluation, and reward, we will create. Make a patient feel like a loved family member.

Yeah.

And your audience's business, you're going to create a loyal customer who's going to spend more and give positive word of mouth.

Right.

And just like when we're married, you know, I've been married 41 years. Congrats. When my wife is complaining, I don't think of it as a complaint. I think of it as a gift of what I can do better.

You're a better man than me.

So. And so we look at as a complaint, as a gift, and our loyal customers will tell us, hey, you know, I didn't like what you did. Instead of telling all their friends.

Yeah.

And. And that's. And that's what we want to do. Yeah. So. So if we think about preparing, so obviously in healthcare or anybody in any business, we pretty much know when our guests are going to come and see us. Right. I mean, there are statistical models we can use that will tell us. How many times does the phone get a ring? The. Between eight and nine. Right, right. And we should be able to what.

Monday looks like versus Wednesday.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So we want to use some of those. So we want to prepare so we're staffed properly in terms of when. When are the calls going to be coming in. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

We also want to be able to have as much data.

Yeah, don't have that. Don't have that. We're experiencing unusual call volumes and that is any time of day or night. That's just nonsense. Stop it.

I was on a call the other day and they said, you're. We'll answer your phone in five minutes. It Was I was on the call for an hour. Oh. And it only ended because they closed and they turned off the phone. And then a minute later I got a call back and said, please rate our service on a 1 to 5. Yeah. And I didn't talk to anybody.

Yeah.

But yeah. So we, so in preparing, and this is, you know, one of the interesting things is loyalty programs. Right. Loyalty programs have taken over every type of business today. And when you think about it, the purpose of a loyalty program, it's to give us, let us, let us take your data. Right. I sign up for a loyalty program, I give you my name, my phone number, where I live, I give you all this information and then I can use that as an industry. I can use that to better prepare for your visit. I know when you last came, I know what kind of food you like, all those kinds of things. And in order for you to give me all your data, I'm going to give you something in return. Right.

And so like even a basic thing. I've worked in some restaurants in different roles in the past and I knew and I got trained early on. Like, if I'm about to, if I know that. Okay, you're finishing your appetizer, your salads now, and we're entrees are going to be coming up shortly. I should ask you if you want a drink refill so that I bring that before or with the dinner, not try to sell you wine after. You're eating your steak already. And if I'm about to drop a steak on one and a burger on the other, then I know I want to maybe put some ketchup on the table and I want to put a steak knife out. And there are a couple of things like that that I want to anticipate and bring with it. Preparing and anticipating the needs rather than playing catch up. Because if I run around, I can't carry that many tables or I'm going to do that poorly and I'm going to get a bad tip from everyone.

Yeah, exactly. And you and you brought up the second term is anticipation.

Yeah.

How is the guest going to think about to purchase? Right. And in the anticipation in the healthcare we talk about the person's going to be nervous.

Yeah.

What's it going to be like? Am I going to be taken care of? But even in a hospitality experience, Right. We're anticipating what could go wrong. You know, we're going on vacation. We've saved all this money to go on vacation. Are we going to have a great time? Right. So there's A certain nervousness. So how do we anticipate the emotional state of our guest and then ensure that we. We're creating an environment that great. Gives great things. So, for example, what do we do in house and hospitality firms is we have scents. Right. So you walk into a hotel and you smell a certain feeling.

Yes.

Yeah. Or not. One of the Hilton brands, Doubletree Hotels, always had fresh chocolate chip cookies. So you walk into the hotel and you smell the aroma. Chocolate chip cookies. That brings back the memory of being at home of mom.

Right, right, right.

And so that suddenly you're. Suddenly you're at ease. Right. A lot of the hospitality firms that provide free breakfasts, you'll notice the breakfast rooms are always yellow. The color the wasp. Because yellow is bright. It's rev. Revigorating. It's sort of, let's start the whole day fresh.

Right, right.

So we use colors, we use scent.

Right.

To really anticipate, we use the sound of music. Yeah, right. How does music then impact the mood?

Yeah, right.

Always think about, whenever I hear classical music, I want to have brunch. Right. Because they're.

They're always your association. Uhhuh.

Yeah. That's sort of the association we know of restaurants.

You know, that's. You'll notice as you go to hotels and restaurants now that they are creating a mood and a vibe. There's music, there's aromas, there's visuals. It's an entire sensory experience. The tone, the style, when it's done well, is all in sync. And I know, oh, I'm in this hotel and it smells like they're catering to men here. This has got a kind of a. A manly kind of thing. Oh, this hotel is about having fun. It's got a kind of a sexy vibe to it. Like. Right. Different.

Exactly. And one of the major hotel hotel brands basically has their own music director and. And the brands now it's part of the Intercontinental Hotel Group, Kimpton Hotels. Kimpton has kind of a music director for their different properties. So if you're at a Kimpton in Seattle, that's going to have a different vibe. So it's going to have a different music scene than if you're a Kimpton in London. Right. So they identify who's my target. Let's create this vibe with music, with colors, targeting to my audience. But I know I'm in a Kimpton because it's me. Right. And what we want are always. We want to get our customers to say that this organization gets me.

Yes.

They know me.

I identify with it. I connect to it or I come to it for this particular mood or time. I did a talk at a conference a couple weeks ago, and I'm like, okay, here's my slides and here's my walk on music. I have a theme song and they're like, you have your own theme song? We've never had a speaker had their own theme song before. Sometimes people ask for a vibe or like, no, I have my song. Right. I played at the opening of the show I had recorded for me.

Absolutely.

Makes me feel good. You know, and in our, all of our workshops, the ones with me, with Vern and that kind of thing, there's music and all the things that, that speak to something, that it's a lyric or it's a voice mood that goes through growing your business. Right?

Yeah. And what happens is, and, and that from a psychological perspective, the music gets imprinted in our brain. So when we hear the music, we automatically think of something like Eric Clapton and Michelo. Right. I loved Eric Clapton. Now every time I hear Tonight's Tonight, I immediately think of Michelo beer. Right. And so, so firms try to tie that together. Together, right.

Yes.

And again, it's all part of the anticipation. So the preparation is we start thinking about the guest. We get all the information in advance so we can make their arrival as easy as possible. We anticipate what's going to actually happen to them and how their mood is feeling.

Yeah.

And then once they arrive, that's when we start the engagement. Right. And. And hospitality firms have been great about creating engagement. Right. And I think, you know, I know that in your past, you've had Horse Schultz, you know, from Ritz Carlton, and he talked about his, you know, ten foot, five foot rule, where you're so many feet away, you have to acknowledge, as they get closer, you make eye contact. As they get even closer, you say hello. Right. And one of my advisory board members, a gentleman named Ed Nady, he ran the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills. And he was actually named the hotelier of the world. I mean, just an incredible hotel guy.

Yeah.

And, and what he trained all his employees was to use, he said, Remember 14 words. I don't care what else you remember, but remember these 14 words. And they were, remember me, recognize me, anticipate my needs, give me what I want on time. Right. So remember me, recognize me, anticipate my needs, and give me what I want on time. And he said, if you can remember those 14 words anytime you have a guest react. Interaction, and you remember that and you kind of work on one of those areas, you're going to create a great customer satisfaction. And in Beverly Hills Hotel was always, always ranked one of the top hotels in the world in terms of its, you know, status, in terms of how they treat, create customers. And that's all that a part of engagement, you know.

So I don't stay frequently in a Ritz Carlton, but I have stayed a few times. And I remember when I first stayed in, in them in my 20s as an executive for another company, and the first time that. The first thing I remember is I went out with my car and then I came back later and they, the, the guy at the thing said, welcome back, Mr. Gallagher. And I was like, how did you, like, remember my name? Where did that even come from? Welcome back, Mr. Gallagher says the guy taking my car from me, the valet or the doorman or whatever it was. And then the next time when I went up or whatever it was, they welcomed me on the floor and they said, would you like a glass of wine? And I, you know, would you like a Cabernet or glass of Pinot or something? But they had not only just remembered that I liked a red wine, but a particular kind, and they offered it to me on arrival. And I'm like, oh, I love these people, you know?

Yeah. And. And we argue in the book that any firm can do this, right?

Yes.

Because that's one of the advantages of having a loyalty program is because you've identified yourself, we tie that back to your on premise purchases. And we know. So the next time you go to that Ritz Carlton, you're offered that same Cabernet. Right. And, and now with technology, you know, it's so easy to look at your guests in advance, take pictures of them off Facebook. It's kind of creepy. So when they walk up you, you've seen who that guest is, even though you've never met them, that they can say, welcome. You know, Dr. Shoemaker.

Yeah. You know, within hospitality. So I fly and stay in a lot of hotels and I probably do 120 flights a year roughly. And I fly and there's two carriers, two groups that I fly with a lot. When I get on United Airlines, it doesn't matter how much I'm flying or whatever. There's like, there's no way to have status. They have so many multimillion flyers that I'm still like number 35 to get on, and they never upgrade me. And I'll notice up to an hour before the flight they're still trying to sell first class Seats instead of giving them to flyers with even more status than me, I'm like, what are you doing? Those are your best people who give you millions of miles and fill those seats the day before. Just the last of them give them away. And then if I fly with Alaska or America, it'll be like three days before and I'll be like, you've been upgraded to first class. I'm like, oh, thank you, God. And I'm in seat 1C, my favorite seat. Aisle, first row. Like, I love you. I'm first on first off and I'm going to be taken care of. And I'm not even, you know, that massive of a flyer. The same thing then in hotels. I stay in both the Marriott Group and the Hyatt Group and I actually had more status with Marriott. But every time I tried to use my points in Marriott, something about the way they organize their grips, I never could. They'd be like, well, you can't use your points at a ski resort in the winter and you can't use your, your points at a hotel in Hawaii in the winter. Like, we're gonna, we're gonna only give you the off season inventory. We're only gonna give you the leftovers to use with your points. I'm like, I got hundreds of thousands of points. I can't really use them when I want to use them. By contrast, the Hyatt, always upgrading, always giving me free nights. Sure, no problem. Like just a piece of cake. And I'm like, where did I move my traffic to? Marriott's so well regarded for their hospitality and their thing as a culture, but now as they've grown, like they don't actually take care of their top tier people that well.

I think, you know, it's, you bring up a very interesting point and it really comes down to sort of the philosophical differences. So in marketing, we do everything we can to really love the customer.

Yes.

When we look at demand management, we do everything, we kind of to take as advantage of the customers much as we can to extract that revenue. And it was interesting because I was asked to give a talk at an airline conference at one point and they wanted to know how hotels price. And I had enough of an ego to see, say I'm not here to tell you how hotels price, I'm here to tell you how I think airlines should price. And this was back in the early 2000s and British Airways actually hired me to come and the research I did with them, we changed their whole pricing strategy. But basically the way we should think Organizations should think about it. And this is how British Airways thought about it was I said, tell me when you want to fly and I'll tell you what you have to pay. Tell me what you want to pay and I'll tell you when you can fly. So what we've done now is we've given the customer choice, empowered them. We've empowered them, and now I feel better about my service. So those of you that are growing your business and you have constrained demand.

Yeah.

Move demand around by giving the customer choice. And at the time when we did that research with British Airways, you never knew. It was always a guess is what you were going to pay.

Yeah.

So they were the first airline to come up with the calendar approach. And now hotels and airlines and everybody is doing the calendar. We argue in the book that we think the same thing should be done in health care. You're going to get the same level of care, the same level of service, but maybe instead of getting it on a Monday morning and it's really crowded, you change your behavior. You come on a Saturday when it's less crowded, you save a little bit of money and you get the same level of care. So the philosophical has to come from the organization to say, how do we give the customer choice to spread out our demand and reward them for making, choosing the option that works best for us. And, and Hyatt clearly does that with you. They know your value, they know the light, your lifetime value, and they're willing to make that cost because they know that I could get more money from you on that one stay. But I know that you're going to be staying with me for the next 20 years. Your real value is not the hundred dollars I'm getting today, but it's in the millions.

Yeah.

And we talk about that in the book. We give a calculation on how to calculate the lifetime value of the customer.

Yeah. And, and you could offer the same thing. Like, listen, if you want to get an appointment, come in on Wednesdays. We're more available than we're, whatever. I, you know, I want to go back to that hotel down on the Columbia river and, But I'm not going to go on the weekend. It's more crowded. The rates will be higher. I'm going to go midweek because I have some control over my schedule. So I'll go back at a time like that. The same thing. True. On the other one. I'm like, you know, I've got to stay at a bunch of places at dates that are driven by client engagements and I'm going to pay a. A reasonable business rate for those things. I want to. I want you to give me an upgrade to the inventory. Like, if you. If you get a great room and you haven't sold it, give me that room that night. I want to feel taken care of and recognized. And then I want to know that when I go off with my wife or a kid or something like that for a little trip, that I am going to have a free night because I've spent so much time on the road.

Exactly. And you know that we've kind of skipped one of the E's, you know, but that's really the reward.

Yes.

You know, so remember we talked about prepare.

Yeah.

We anticipate.

Yeah.

We engage.

Yeah.

But then we evaluate. We evaluate that customer. What's their lifetime value? What did they like about us? What didn't they like about us? What are we doing?

Right. Yeah.

So the examples you gave, you're a loyal customer. We see what you're worth, and we reward you for your behavior.

Yeah.

And. And that's sort of the payer model, which, again, we put it towards healthcare. But we believe that in any business, if you focus on those five principles, you're going to be successful in your business.

That's really great.

And we can show you by calculating the lifetime value of the customer, of what your purchase is really worth billing, not on today's visit, but on your purchases over the years. You're going to be working with Hyatt. And. And the thing that I would really want to stress to your listeners, who are all business people, is focus on that lifetime value of that customer. Focus on what their true needs are. And then make sure you're preparing, you're anticipating, you're engaging, you're evaluating, and you're rewarding. And think about it not just in terms of your customers, but the same thing with your employees. How do we prepare our employees for their first day? How do we engage them at work? A good example. I left my dean's job. And when you're the dean, everybody's nice to you because you're like the dean. So I go to work done in the UNLV foundation, and a big sign on my door says, welcome, Stowe. We're so glad you're joining us. Right. They took me out to lunch. They made sure my. I had all the things I needed in my office. Right. And they prepared and they anticipated that I was going to be taking a new job, a new office, new people. Everybody came by, right?

Yes.

And they engaged with me. Right. They asked me after a week, hey, how was everything going? They evaluated my first week and. And then they rewarded me by giving me, you know, I did something nice to somebody and they gave me a little plaque. So we can take those same model and apply it to our employees.

Yes.

Yeah.

Really good. Make the first day, make the onboarding a memorable experience. Have them feel welcome. You can. We often talk about the value in sort of giving people a hell week after that. So they really get dirty and experience the full range of the business. They dig into things. There's no problem with doing that, but they ought to be welcome and excited about what's coming and feel like it's a challenge worthy of them, that it's worth kind of that time, that experience. And. And there's service all around.

Yeah. And especially, you know, in today's environment where we're a shortage of staff and our employees could choose any company to work with.

Yes.

And so there's going to be that cognitive dissonance that I choose the right company.

Yes.

And the more we can do to make them feel like, oh, my God, they really wanted me to come here. They engaged with me.

Yeah.

And. And I remember I took my first job when I was young, after my. I did my master's before my doctoral, and I moved across country to take this job. It's my first day in the office. I'm sitting at my desk eating my lunch. All my co workers went out to lunch. No one stopped in to say, hey, you want to go to lunch with us?

Yeah.

I was like, oh, my God, what have I done? Yeah. Right.

Yep.

And we change that culture in that organization. As I started to rise up in the organization and we implemented a lot of stuff that we now call the payer model. At the time we did, I didn't know that, but yeah. So it's thinking about.

Well, you think about, like, health care is an easy one because it's so obviously not taking care of people. There's other financial service and others that do not such a great job of it that leave you feeling on the defensive, not appreciated, that kind of thing. But, you know, they're. They're focused on healing illnesses. Right. For sure. The doctor's thinking about your illness or your condition or your injury and not thinking about your whole experience, like welcoming you. And the people at the staff are thinking about doing their paperwork. Right. And not getting sued and not having a problem with the billing because they got something wrong and complying with everything and making sure their HIPAA forms are signed and. But they're not thinking, welcome back. How are you doing today? And we're glad to see you. And we're going to take care of you, and we're going to fix that thing or get rid of that mole or check your test on this or that, or fix that cough that you've got, like, whatever it is. Like, we're glad to see you. We're here to take care of you. You don't have that the vast majority of the time.

No. And I think it really comes down to the culture that you. Organization. Right. And. And so when I, as I mentioned, I did a lot of work with MD Anderson.

Yes.

You know, by arguing the number one cancer center in the world.

Yeah.

And when I first started working There, you know, 15 years, probably about 13 years ago, it was a very much. The doctors were the doctors, the staff were the staff. Right.

Yes.

And everybody had their role, and no one kind of interacted. Well, what we did is when we implemented a whole. We did a lot of research to really understand employees, understand the doctors, understand the patients, and we. We were able to get a cultural understanding. So I remember when I talked to the radiologist, they said, well, you know, the, the technicians, they take the pictures. And when I interviewed with the technicians and I used the word technicians, they were like, we're not technicians. Technicians fix toaster ovens. We're technologists. Right. So we got the doctors and the technologists talking to each other in a very different way. We got the nurses very involved. So we brought the radiologist in and said, okay, here's what the patient has to go through. How can you and the nursing staff help us do a better job to get our patients ready? So it's now, suddenly the nurses weren't being told what to do. They were asked, how could we do a better job? Right. And the whole culture shifted because suddenly everybody felt like they were. Their role was to help with the patient. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And in hospitality, we've kind of always done that. But in healthcare, it was very standardized. But now the good organizations like the Cleveland Clinic, you know, or the Mayo Clinic, they're really reversing that, and the.

Patient really becomes thinking more holistically about that experience.

And everybody's there to help them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And again, I think these principles can work in any organization, no matter what the business is, because customers are customers. Right? Yes. We're nervous about healthcare. We're nervous about a meal we're going to go out to. We're nervous if we buy this Product, is it going to be any good?

Yes. Automotive, construction, financial services, on and on and on. Are you really seeing, serving, taking care of people and at any price point. Right. McDonald's does a great job of service, but what they're selling is a predictable, highly consistent experience. Right. Happened very efficiently. They're not selling a white tablecloth service and a three hour meal. They're selling a different kind of thing. But they're doing a great job in their category.

Yes. And you look at Hampton Inn, you look at La Quinta, right. All of these brands are, do a great job.

Right.

They give you great value for the price you pay.

Right?

Right. And I think it's real. I think we as a society, we get really hung up on, oh, the more you pay, the better service you should get. But the reality is everybody should get an equal level of service. Right. Everybody. We should be concerned about the payer model. Whether you're paying a hundred dollars for a hotel room or you're paying.

It should be a great experience. Right.

You're getting a great experience. The sheets you get in the thousand dollar hotel may be very different than the sheets you get in the Hampton Inn, but you're still gonna, they're gonna know you have arrived. They're going to anticipate your needs. Right. They're going to engage with you.

There's going to be a little more marble in that other bathroom. Yeah.

And they're going to reward you. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're going to get a big towel versus a small town.

No, but they should both smell clean. You should both. A smile is, is free.

Exactly.

Yeah. And you're not gonna have the same ratio of staff in a.

Right.

In a small place versus a grand high end place versus a, a more economy economical place. You're not going to have that ratio. And you may not be ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen, but, but you could still be, smile, you could still be friendly, you could still be whatever.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's, I mean, I think that's the real advantage of, of thinking about services. Right. Because we all want to provide a great level of service to people. We, we want to show people we care for them. And how do we do that? Right?

Yeah.

And again, using the payer model we talk about in the book with all these different examples, we show how that can be done in health care, obviously how it was done in hospitality, but really how it could be done in any business. And that's what's exciting.

You know, let me contrast one of our client examples in technology. Years ago, in doing some strategy work with one of our clients, they determined that friendly service, like a high degree of friendliness, was not something that their best clients valued. And so they were left with this decision of like, well, they really value technical expertise and ability to solve problems. But, but being overly friendly is not something we need. So are we going to hire rude people? Like, how do we disinvest in friendliness? And I'm like, well, you don't need to hire rude people, but you could hire people that are quirky, that are. It's technical stuff. Right. So they could be like quirky techie type people that don't fit the super gracious, polished concierge style of service people. You could hire people whose skills were principally technical in nature and not gracious, obsequious, whatever, and then you could highlight that geekiness in that thing like, ah, people are kind of quirky folks and typical nerds and geeks, but they can fix your server and service like, bam. And that became great service. Right. They were preparing for and anticipating the needs and engaging with the Right. And that was great service in their world. It wasn't, how can I help you to, how can I provide excellent service today? It wasn't some absurd script that they're reading at you incessantly and, and not actually being able to solve your problem.

Right. But, but, but that also, you know, in contrast to that, that makes a lot of sense. But you don't want to hire people that are jerks like Cleveland.

They weren't hiring people who are obnoxious. They just weren't hiring for that, you know, excessively polished politeness.

I'll give you a good example. What made Cleveland Clinic what it is today.

Yeah.

They had a very highly, highly skilled heart surgeon who was just a jerk. Right. And he treated the staff terribly. He treated the anesthetics, the nurses, etc, and, and Toby Hargrove, who became president of, of, of the Cleveland Clinic, he fired him.

Yeah.

He said because he doesn't understand empathy.

Yeah.

And the people we're going to hire have to understand empathy. Right.

Yeah.

They went out and they found some really talented surgeons.

Yes.

Who understood empathy.

Yes.

And Right. And so you have to be very careful of, of that one person. What is their impact on the rest of the team that's working there? And then how does the rest of the team deal with the patient or the guest?

Yes.

Right. So it's always that balance of managing people so that they're nice to employees. So the Employees are nice to the guests and vice versa. There's just a different way to think about it.

Yeah. Before we run out of time, let me a couple shout outs to some folks. Remind everybody that if you've thought about scaling up for a long time and you'd like to get some help with it, we've now made it more affordable and easier than ever before. For just 1500amonth you get weekly touches, quarterly planning, annual strategy sessions, all that learning, coaching, accountability, guest speakers, a whole range of things and more. 1500 bucks a month. Scaling up's never been easier. We've made, we're working now to make it the most accessible available program in the world. You'll find all our back shows and that kind of thing@scalingcoach.com info ScalingCoach.com is an email for us. I want to give thanks to Wanda Mitchell, our show producer, getting things our guest ready and the show at the door, the folks at Podfly Productions and to my friend and mentor, the creator of Scaling up and the Rockefeller habits that came before at Vern Harnish, without whom none of this would have been necessary. Anyway, thanks so much for all of that. I want to recap some things then that Sto talked about. He talked about payer model and bringing great service. Whether you're in healthcare, life sciences or any number of other industries. Construction, manufacturing, technology. Can you prepare for the guest and the employee? Can you anticipate their needs then engage them? Can you evaluate the work that you're doing and see if you're actually doing a good job fulfilling on your intentions there and then create rewards for everybody involved for when they are doing and hitting that. All that and more in the book Hospital by Healthcare. Whether you're in the healthcare or not, industry or not, there's something to learn about HOS from hospitality to apply to any industry and Hospitable Healthcare is the website to go check out the book and the ideas, that kind of thing. Stowe, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us.

Bill it was great, great being here and thank you very much and hope you're every everyone takes something away from them today, but thank you such a pleasure.

Thanks again everyone for watching for listening. We'll talk to you again next time. In the meantime, keep scaling up. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software. Powered by alignment, it's the official software for scaling up with scoreboard you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.