Blog

Over the years, I have seen that for most hospitality brands, especially restaurant chains, the guest experience drops the most at peak times.  In fact, for some brands, nearly half the customer dissatisfaction comes during peak times. WHY IS THIS THE CASE? Imagine your brand is designed to serve 100 customers at peak time. That means if 100 customers come in, each is likely to experience the brand at the 100% level. What happens if 110 guests come in? Then the 110 guests must share the experience and each get 10/11th of the experience; or 91% experience level. The worrisome part is, for the brand to operate at 91%, nearly half the guests may get below 91% experience level. Is that acceptable for guests?  Will the diluted experience make them want to come back? If 120 guests come in then the level drops to 83%. If 130 guests come in, then the...

Dear All, The ZenMango blog is back.  Had to take time off to finish the book Marperations®, which is finally completed.  Also have been planning to blog in a way that will be more relevant today and have some cool ideas that will launch in the next month. As I restart the blog, I want to start with the basic fundamental element that defines and measures every businesses success.  Most businesses have numerous KPI's (Key Performance Indicators). They are trended and measured against benchmarks. But what is the one thing that is most critical to measure?   TRAFFIC DEFINES BUSINESS SUCCESS When I look at a brand’s success, it is all about transactions or traffic. That is the one number measure that is real. Think, even for a single store operator, success is defined by how many times they open the cash register and how much they put in every time. If they are opening the cash...

The ZenMango blog is taking a hiatus as we focus on writing our upcoming book Marperations®.  ...

If Marketing Ran the Airline World:  As passengers board the plane, marketing would love to create “a moment” to start the experience. The moment could include a video where employees or the president of the airline thank customers for choosing the airline, then present a feel-good section where happy customers and employees showcase the cities around the world that the airlines connects to. At the end of the video a jingle and tag line would play that connect to the customer such as, "Your friendly airline," or "Bringing the world closer," or "You focus on the destination and we take care of the journey".  All these messages would be the airlines ways of making the customer realize that they are part of this big family and larger than life experience. Before the flight takes off, marketing would use the captive audience to sell. After the welcome and feel good messages a...