Coffee with Q in Grand Cayman: Navigating the Digital Landscape of Luxury Hospitality with Qamar Zaman & Kylie Rae Sunshine

So my journey as an overall whole, without telling you every single touchpoint of that experience, I think you get the idea, is it is the who, the what, the where, and all of these kind of questions incorporated into the experience. But sometimes we take for granted the experience itself. And if you can break it down into the structure behind the smile, the structure behind service with a smile is the journey map. You start with a starting point of where you are right now with what you have, with your tools, your resources, your structures and processes and your staff. And then you define what your end success point is or your target goal.

Hey, listen close to what I gotta say, 'cause you know that there ain't no other way. Coffee with Q is the only way. Y'all ready?

Let's go.

Coffee with Q.

Hey.

Good morning, everyone. This is Kamar Zaman, your host with Coffee with Q. Today, I have the pleasure of having Kylie Rae of Sunshine. It's ironic that we are shooting this podcast from Grand Cayman, and she truly is the sunshine. So I will pass on the mic to Kylie, get to know her, and then start this podcast with Coffee with Q. How are you, Kylie?

I am blessed, Q. Thank you for having me here. I love our coffee conversations and excited to get to record it and share it with the world.

Awesome. So let's talk about Kylie, let's, let's get to know Kylie. You know, who is Kylie?

Who is Kylie? I am Kylie Rae Fitzgibbons, as you introduced me. My brand, my nickname, and most people who know me know me as Kylie Rae or Kylie Rae of Sunshine. And I am that person who is dedicated to bring light and positivity into the room and leave someone better than I found them. Essentially, when you cross my path, my goal is that you get a boost of a mood and a better perspective. I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and left right after high school, traveled for the past 2 decades within luxury hospitality management from Orlando, Florida, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Northern Virginia, Tyson's Corner, Lake Tahoe, California, South Beach, Miami, Grand Cayman, of course, and most recently was in Frisco, Texas the past 3, 3 and a half years.

Wow, what a journey. So you're named Sunshine, right? Tell us before we get to know Your professional side of the Kylie way. Tell us, how does the sunshine come in? Because, you know, I walk around in Kintown and the first time I was introduced, I was saying, have you seen this young lady? She's always smiling. And I said, what's her name? And he says, I think it's Kylie Sunshine. So people know it was Kylie Sunshine. And so I didn't know anything better, right? So tell us about that. Tell us so people can connect that way.

Thank you. It's a perfect fit for the Caribbean and naturally with the weather. But it started when I was really young. It was Smiley Kylie in the 4th grade with Miss McConaghy, and it was Kylie Rae of Sunshine. My mother, I believe, started that, the You Are My Sunshine song for younger children. She always sang that song. And my middle name is Rae, R-A-E, so it's the female version of Rae, and Kylie Rae of Sunshine was A nickname that stuck. And throughout the years, some of my closest inner circle would call me that. And some will even say KROS, K-R-O-S. So if you see that abbreviation, it stands for Kylie Rae of Sunshine, and it's stuck for a really long time.

So now that's really become your brand. Okay. So since this podcast is about coffee, and I created podcast because And I love coffee. I drink black coffee. I don't mix anything. But for me, coffee is energy. Coffee is— there's history of coffee. So for example, I moved before I lived in Cayman.

I used to live in Texas and I go to Starbucks and I'll go and place an order for— in the morning they serve this dark roast. So I go there and says, can I have a Dark girls, tall dark girls.

And they will give me coffee and the coffee would have a layer of oil on it. You know, it's like when they give you the coffee that has been sitting for like 20 minutes. So a layer of oil and I said, this is not right. And they look at my face and they say, who is this guy?

And then all of a sudden there is another barista comes and says, oh, this is Q. His coffee is different. So they just go and make a new batch.

I don't even like the pour-overs or the Americanos, they call them here. So they will make a new batch for me. And then the batch has to be finished because most people take the coffee and while the coffee is brewing, they'll just put the cup and they give it to me. And I looked at the lady, I said, what the hell is she doing? You know? So the coffee had to finish. Then they have to take a little bit of coffee out, throw it away, and then pour it. And there has to be bubbles. So when I go to coffee shop, I say, give me my coffee with bubbles. And if I'm going to Starbucks and I talk to them about it, they'll say, English way. So, it's kind of like I am a fussy coffee drinker. So, that's my background, right? So, tell me, what does coffee mean to you?

I love that perspective because it is more than a beverage, like you said. To me, I never used to be a coffee drinker until I started working on In hotels on really intense weather days. It was in Philadelphia over a decade ago, and there was a crazy winter storm, and I worked a triple shift. Most people know doubles and work a lot, but there was no way for people to come in or out of the city. I lived walking distance, so I worked a really long shift, and one of my colleagues said, here, you should try coffee. I said, oh, I don't drink coffee, and it was a black coffee with cream, and I tried it, and it helped me survive My work. So at the time, coffee was an essential survival mechanism, possibly. And then over the years, everyone within my circle would drink coffee as a routine in the morning, as an energy spike. And what I looked at it as my positive perspective was coffee is served in a cup. And so more than just a survive a triple shift, It's a great way for connections to create an experience. Starbucks was designed for more than just a cup of coffee, but to bring people together, and it's an excellent tool for that. So it does do a physical transformation of caffeine and healing and benefits and things, but to me, it's a cup. It's a symbolic signal of how full is your cup. And I look at life with my cup half full, or even further, if it's half full with coffee, maybe it's half full with energy or air, and it's all in how you perceive things. So for me, It's an opportunity to connect. It's an opportunity for an experience and a conversation. But it's also a reminder of how full is your cup. It doesn't always have to be a full cup of black coffee. Cue coffee. But I do like lattes. So maybe that's a play on latte versus cappuccino because like loving a latte or just the play on words and you can do all the flavors to it.

So we need to have a different show on lattes.

We could talk about all the coffees.

Yes.

So let's go into Getting to know Kylie from a professional side, who is Kylie from a professional perspective? You know, you have traveled hospitality industry, you do a lot of things. So tell us, who is that person professionally?

Professionally, I come from the elite side of luxury hospitality management, so I've always been in the luxury market. And started with training as the top 1% luxury service provider in the world. So I've always identified as that with my work experience. So I strive for excellence and enliven the values and missions of the service-based businesses. And for the first 20 years of my career, it started in food and beverage that then transitioned to front of house operations. So I have a big mind for operations and the experience side of it is how can we connect the people taking care of people part and infuse the sunshine or the light to the experience versus transactional. So really driving purpose-driven experiences in the service industry. Most recently, post-COVID, I do task force assignments with certain luxury hotels. I have a consulting company and I travel and do trainings and consulting And some coaching from the professional capacity to bring my perspective of a full cup into the experience world with service-based different companies. And what I've found is it initially started with infusing happiness into the hospitality industry and focusing on workplace wellness and mindset and employee engagement as an individual that leads into employee engagement as a team. that develops high-performers producing teams that deliver results on customer experience. And then that leads to satisfied, profitable owners. That cycle, since we were talking about frameworks, that's the cycle that I believe in. The 3 Ps is positivity, productivity, profitability, and it's like the recycle triangle in that vision. Um, so I travel and train and spread smiles and sunshine.

Very interesting. And I'll tell you, I digress a little bit. I think what you just said, I want to tell you a little bit of a story. So I grew up traveling all over the world with my dad. My dad was in commercial banking. His job was to go set up international banks. So kind of like you, you're international, you're traveling all over. He was setting up international banks. So we would go to Africa, Hong Kong, Tokyo, wherever we went, we went there for 3 years, set up the bank. Then once it's operational, they hired the local guy to run it, then he go set it up. So he was a managing director for bank, 3 years, go set it up from start to finish, like selecting the right kind of marble to the right chairs and the operations and everything goes on. So that's what I did. But one, I mean, that was his banking side. But one thing that I learned early on in my childhood is that every Saturday or Sunday, my dad would take me to the most expensive hotel we were in. So when I was in Hong Kong, we went to this— it's called the Forama Intercontinental. And we sat there and he would— obviously I was not drinking coffee and he was a tea drinker. So you would get desserts. We sit there and he said, just sit here. Okay. So, what are we doing? He says, just sit here. So, I just sit there and eat my— basically, here.

Now, I was busy as a kid, you know, what am I going to do?

But he was reading his newspaper, Wall Street and all. But he did that with me and I could not understand why was he wasting my time and obviously his time. But we did that multiple places. And what I saw that I remember when I connected in my own life is that whenever we went to a really elite hotel, like you said, elite hotel, the first thing you see is people with black suits. Okay? They're opening the door for you. And when we left, he gave them huge tips. And I was saying, why? What's going on with my dad? Why is he giving so much tip? You know? So he did that. And then we sit there and, you know, have a drink of Like you could drink this coffee for $10, but this hotel was like $200. But he was doing it. So what I want to learn that was the mindset. You know, I've built that mindset. It was been pre-programmed in my head. So now when I go to places, I just do that. I don't do it because I want a $200 cup of coffee because I'm enjoying that. So I think the mindset what you just said is, and I loved hotels. Hence, I'm here again. Okay, so that was my story. Now let's talk about your— the what. So who you are, we understand. So tell us the customer journey, like precisely help us navigate. What exactly do you— when, when Kinton called you and says, Kelly, we need you to do this for us, walk us through, you know. The journey. So as if we are with you, take the ball. Okay.

I'm gonna start with a father-daughter story inspired by your father-son story in luxury hotels. I think it complements really well and can also tie in with the journey map experience. So sometimes I'll introduce myself as an experience expert because it's different than hotel manager or those more transactional titles. When I was a teenager, my father was in the medical industry and would travel often, and When he traveled, he would stay at luxury hotels. And we are from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The closest large city is Philadelphia, and there's a lot of hospitals out there that he would do different medical billing and consulting with. When he would stay, sometimes it would be just a day trip and sometimes it would be overnight. When he would stay, his go-to would be the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia. And so we knew of the hotel, but at the time I knew hotels were just a building of where people slept. I didn't realize the complexity of the experience attached to it. And when we went, it was for my birthday, and I walked in as a young teenager with a side ponytail and holey jeans and flip-flops. He was suited and booted, and everyone in the lobby of a business hotel were in a suit. The first impression of the first touchpoint of the journey was a gentleman named Bryce. He was the doorman, bellman, guest services professional. He recognized my father instantly, and I was with him. And he clearly was aware of me coming for my birthday, and he walked up and leaned in with a huge open heart, open arms, and a huge smile and said, good morning, Ms. Fitzgibbons. Remember, I'm a teenager. Who calls me Ms. Fitzgibbons? But I loved it because my last name's not easy to pronounce. Your father's told me so much about you. We're so excited to have you. Happy birthday. If you need anything, please let me know. So simple, so impactful. We walked away from that one touchpoint of the experience, the first impression, and I I looked at my dad, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I said, Daddy, one day I want to get paid $1 million to smile and be kind to people like Bryce. And he said, okay, okay. Moving forward, every touchpoint of that one-night stay was, I believe, what was the career trajectory that led me to where I am, and even bigger than what I could have planned. I thought I was going to go down the route of food and beverage and have a cute little cafe, Coffee with Kylie and Q and like make little pastries. So I went to pastry school. Before that, we were still in Philadelphia at the Story, and we got a tour of the kitchen. The pastry chef came and gave me a tour. In the guest room, when we checked in after the front desk, they upgraded us to a corner room, a big view of City Hall. I still remember the room category as an O2 series.

Yes.

In Center City, Philadelphia. It's beautiful. And there was an amenity in the room, like a chocolate plate, but it had a chocolate bell, so it was significant of the Liberty Bell. It was all of these little details that I say delight is in the details, and that's exactly what it was. So my journey as an overall whole, without telling you every single touchpoint of that experience, I think you get the idea, is it is the who, the what, the where, and all of these kind of questions. Incorporated into the experience, but sometimes we take for granted the experience itself. And if you can break it down into the structure behind the smile, the structure behind service with a smile is the journey map. You start with a starting point of where you are right now with what you have, with your tools, your resources, your structures and processes and your staffing. And then you define what your end success point is or your target goal. And you reverse engineer it, and I say 5 points. We all have 5 fingers, you can count on them. It's your pre-arrival, so before you even arrive, they knew it was my birthday, they knew I was coming in. Arrival was that first impression that I had with Bryce. Arrival was also the touchpoint of the amenity in my room and that first arrival process. In-house, we're checked in, we have lunch in the lobby, the executive chef comes, says hello, introduces me to the pastry chef, We walk through the kitchen, have this whole different experience of in-house when you're physically checked in. Then we do departure, and when you're checking out, what are those touchpoints of billing accuracy, and did they offer assistance with your luggage to make your life easier, to not have you work too hard and lug your luggage? And then post-departure is the, the key that I always present on that I think gets overlooked a lot of times. And so from all of the touchpoints of whether it's preparing for a podcast, whether it's creating experience at a restaurant, It's all parallel with those 5 key pieces. Post-departure is the follow-up. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. Fortune is in the follow-up. We've heard all of these kind of commonalities and phrases, but it's true. So what do you do with your business, with your life best practices for your follow-up? If you go to the doctor, they'll generally say come back every 6 months or every year, dentists or things like that. That follow-up is there for a reason. And Sometimes we don't follow up and ask for feedback. We don't ask for surveys, but that is real perspective that we can make adjustments on and pivot on. So asking for reviews, going to follow up and inviting people back. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they won't. But if you extend an invitation to join on another podcast or another opportunity to stay, I'm more likely to want to come because you invited me. So those are the 5 steps, the pre-arrival, the arrival, In-house departure, post-departure, and building that out to connect the dots between your starting point of where you are and where you wish to go, then that allows you a structured framework that you can duplicate, even if it's personalized with each person. My coffee might be a coconut milk latte with fresh cinnamon. That's my preference. Yours might be the fresh Q coffee that you just described. It's a similar journey, but it's different for each person. So you can duplicate it, you can be consistent with the experience. So that's how you can have a successful luxury brand that's unique to each destination, but across the entire world to globalize it. You can do that with consistency, with a structure behind the smile and behind the service.

Right. And I want to add this and see what's your perspective on it.

Every brand Can build the framework. It can have framework implemented, but behind the brand are people, okay? And if they don't follow the framework, okay, with their own heart, not because they're told that they will do it, but if they don't follow with their heart, doesn't go very well, you know? And I'll give an example here. When I first came in, I was used to my coffee the way it was. So I would go to Cafe Del Sol, go get my coffee. They knew me. One day I went there and the coffee was cold. I didn't want to complain because, you know, people can make mistakes. So I said, you know what, I go all the way at 12 o'clock. I want to have my coffee.

So I'm going to just come to Kimpton to have coffee because I live here. So I'm just going to go there. Now I know that coffee, and I'm used to the coffee that we are drinking right now, and that's the way I like it. But I went, went inside to the cafe, um, and I asked the, the guy that was working there, and I said, hey, can I get some coffee?

And he asked me, what kind of coffee do I drink? I explained to him. He said, we don't have exactly, but I'll try to make it. And he made it for me, and consistently he makes it for me. He remembers me the moment he sees it. Hey, Mr. Zaman, and then he does it. So the importance is coffee beverage. I'm there, but remembering. So people are very important, and sometimes we don't acknowledge these people. What's your thoughts on that in your own five steps? Where do people fit in?

I think people are the first step. I think a lot of focus goes on the guest experience, but there's a journey attached to the employee experience as well.

Right step. You know, if Bryce didn't do— I mean, he, he, he wasn't supposed to do it, right? But he did it in a way that you remember Bryce today. So that's important, right?

It is. Awareness of the job opportunity. There's a lot of opportunities with that. Your arrival phase is then your onboarding experience as an employee. And what does that look like? Do you have a session? Different luxury brands have between 1 to 3 days of sitting in a ballroom, getting a tour of the property, learning the values that make sure that there's alignment before you get put on the floor. And in-house is when you're actively on the schedule and what are you doing on behind the scenes to make sure that each person has their own individual journey map to say your goals might be different than my goals, but how do we keep you engaged? And what are you doing as your own ownership to be, make sure that your cup is full so you can be your best self to pour into the rest of the team. But is the company also mutually, you are here to serve, but it also has to be the right fit for the company so that Relationship is very important. Departure phase, sometimes people move on or get promoted or transfer, especially with a transient island. Some are expats and need to go to other countries or make transitions, and Qaymanians travel a lot too, which I love that. But that experience is departure. How smooth is it? Do you just say, okay, you gave me your notice, you're out, bye, and don't ever follow up on that post-departure? Or do you have an exit strategy as an exit interview to pour into that person to thank them for their service, even if it was short-term? There's different ways to do that. To own that. And I think it starts with the individual. So every single person is responsible for their contribution to the experience. It's not me pointing my fingers at people in culture or human resources or managers or staff. Um, everyone is a team member on the team and my contribution is very important as much as everybody else's. So.

People that have been to your customer journey.

Mm-hmm. But the heart is something that Isn't as easy to develop. You have to have a heart for people. You can teach the skills, but if you don't have the enthusiasm and excitement, it's a mindset like you said at the beginning. Do you, do you love and can you even mold your mindset to see that you get to do something versus I have to?

That, that's, you just nailed it. I have versus can I want to go out? Do you want to go like you? Maybe if you press the beam, that's shadow. And not just when you check into the hotel and get the card key.

These days we are checking in through digital, you know, first we look at the hotel, we look at the reviews, which is your 5th step, you know, post once I'm gone, you know, then what was the review like? Then you go to the website and you fill in the form and the website, is it as inviting as the Itself. Like when I go to stay in Prince, you know, the checking process online is so nice. You get the emails and personalized, and they know everything about you.

And when you're there, they already know, you know, you don't even have to tell them that they know how you even look, you know. So they do all this profiling nowadays with the digital journeys that we have.

Yeah.

Which wasn't possible 20 years ago. So tell us about Cayman now since we are shooting in Cayman. Tell us key takeaways for how people that live in Cayman— we talked about content and you're talking about luxury— help local business. Give 5 tips that you would give to local business, whether it's a nail salon or a coffee shop or whoever. What are the 5 tips Kylie can give With your depth of experience.

Tip 1, have coffee with Q. Okay. Whether it's recorded on podcast or not, if it's not with Q, have coffee with someone. The relationships here in Cayman, the community in Cayman is next level. It's a small enough community that your 6 degrees of separation become 1 or 2, and that could be a link to something that you might need in the near future. So being resourceful and having a community and being active in the community, even in such a beautiful place, it's easy to not ever go to the beach. If you go on a beach walk, if you're not going for coffee, maybe it's a beach walk, I guess. Get out and be social. 2 would be take a look at your framework. Do you have a framework? Do you have core mission, vision, values that drive all of your decision-making? Because that's the framework before the framework of the journey experience. 3 is take my suggestions of those 5 touchpoints and fill in the blanks of what that journey is for your employees or for your guests or for your ownership too. There's all of those pieces. Um, 4 is share a smile assertively because sometimes we get so focused in the transactional, we forget the purpose of defining why we're here and choosing to smile even on days you don't want to. We are all human. You cut me, I bleed. If you hurt my feelings, I'll probably cry more than the normal person. But still, as a Director of Happiness or Experience Director or Sunshine, we all have our cloudy days and really embracing those days and choosing to show up and smile and still be consistent, I think is a really big takeaway. So choosing to smile, because when you share a smile, you never know who needs to receive that. Um, and making sure that your cup is full is the last one that I'll say, um, inspired by your coffee conversation, is when your cup is full, you can better pour into other people, and it's more sustainable than driving from an empty cup.

This— what a hacked wisdom. Inshallah, small podcast, we're going to have more of these because we get to know you more. Thank you for attending Coffee with Q. I'd be able to put all the details. Do give me those 5 steps so we can put them in the show notes so whoever finds it We hope you use it. And, um, thank you for attending Coffee with Q.

Thank you, Q. Until next time.