The Welcome Experience — Active Thinking

Why it’s so important to create a warm welcome and share a sincere goodbye

Culturally we have evolved to see the welcome as an expression of sincerity, trust and genuine friendship. As a child, I remember being intrigued by the efforts my parents made to greet and say goodbye to friends and family. Why this crescendo at the start and at the end? Somehow, we are biologically programmed this way.

These social norms, that have evolved over millennia, apply to businesses as well. First impressions really matter. Many organisations recognise this. Waitrose talk about the first 10 metres, the National Trust the first 100 metres, Disney determined that the first 90 seconds were by far the most important part of the experience and even Billy Butlin famously commented that his resorts should give them a good first dinner and last breakfast. Anyone working to deliver a premium experience, whether it be airlines, hotels or retail, will know the investment those firms make to create the right first impression. Even Gap have someone on the front door to welcome people.

At the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics every single athlete was met by hosts after leaving the aircraft

However, for some businesses, the welcome is also where they incur a large amount of cost. At an airport there is check-in and security, at a museum there is the cost of running ticket desks and machines, resolving questions and sometimes security. It is also where revenue is generated through car parks, ticket sales, retail or cafés. This means the welcome and goodbye experiences strongly influence the commercials of the business. In addition, there is the challenge of managing variable customer flows and queues (see café blog) . Many customers would class this as a ‘brilliant basic’ - if you can’t manage queues properly what’s the rest of the experience going to be like?

An unintended consequence of queues and bottlenecks is the increase of stress and anxiety.

When this happens ‘free-thinking’ time is reduced and people lack the ‘head- space’ to take-in relevant information around them as they are focused, solely, on getting through the process with their family and friends. Consequently, this reduces propensity to spend. Organisations go to great lengths to get around this. For example, Virgin Airlines invested heavily in their Upper Class check-in to make it quick and personalised; all paperwork is undertaken in advance so a small team of people can then be fully engaged with the passenger to enable a quick check-in, taking only 20 seconds.

It is a similar story with the goodbye. Like the welcome, research shows that the last 7 mins linger strongly in people’s minds. Again, this translates into stories told to friends and what they write on social media like TripAdvisor. For many, they just want to get out and go home - but this is not always easy to do. The anxiety of not getting home on time can also cause customers to leave prematurely, reducing dwell time. Car parks are frequently a big issue for many organisations to manage but they are often not integrated into the overall experience.

When give the choice, customers want to be greeted by a person standing-up rather than enter a building.

So, the welcome experience is much more than providing the right level of emotional engagement. It’s also about providing an environment where people can purchase what they need and have the head space to do it. Since as much as half of all revenue is generated through ‘add-ons’ like retail and cafés designing a process that is easy, intuitive, inclusive and predictable is crucial.

What can be done to improve the welcome experience?

The first step is to really understand how the experience currently works and what customers really think about it - not what the organisation assumes they think or how they would like to think it works. Driving change is difficult if this step is not undertaken. This involves using a range of tools including simulation modelling, process analysis, customer insight and direct feedback from customers and employees. The solution typically requires a blend of people, processes, automation and infrastructure and requires all parts of the organisation to become involved. Typically, this allows efficiency improvements of over 20%, increased revenue and a reduction in the physical space required to manage the experience.

Secondly, the welcome space is often influenced by many different functions in the organisation and this can make it feel jumbled and confusing to a customer. A leadership role needs to be created to integrate the whole welcome space. This has the additional benefit of enabling the customer experience to act as the glue to bind the organisation together.

Thirdly, continuous improvement. As much insight is gained through learning and adapting than through research and analysis. Sometimes organisations stumble on great insight by accident. Creating a culture where this flourishes will yield great results.

Like many things, the difficulty lies in managing the change and providing a vision and operating model that all stakeholders can buy-in to. This doesn’t need to be expensive and enables the organisation to develop an experience which can deliver significant business benefits.

Consumers increasingly want to purchase ‘experiences’ rather than ‘things’. Those organisations that embrace this change will make their organisation more empathetic, engaging and resilient. This will foster an environment where tangible commercial benefits can be realised. For those who can, it is a path worth taking.