On Every Holiday Shopper’s Wish List: Environment and Interaction

By Mike Cosentino

Before diving into this holiday-edition of The Monthly Mortar, let me share something really cool! Everyone knows Retail is a Team Sport… To reflect this reality, my book has partnered with my business this holiday season to help Teams consider, discuss and implement the concepts of It’s Not the Bricks, It’s the Mortar: Optimize Your Retail Business for Lasting Success together! Use the code BOOKBOGO when you purchase through this link and we’ll send you a second signed book for FREE. Please be mindful that you must input a quantity of 2 books to enable the offer (you will only be charged for a single book) and there is a limit of 2 total books per order. Offer expires at midnight on December 31^st. If you want additional discounts for larger (bulk) orders, please use this form.

Now onto the originally scheduled holiday helpfulness!

“Experience” Matters… and Matters of Experience

Last week at The Running Event, I had the pleasure of opening the Training Camp Theater. I included the forthcoming definition of “Experience” that I’ve long-used to be certain it still had no defectors or detractors. As both information and guidance are now served and sourced in real-time and myriad ways, an incorrect presumption of like-mindedness can unwind a presentation in a hurry…

Experience (ik-speer-ee uhns) n. : all that is perceived, understood and remembered.

The expedient affirmation from the audience suggested nothing has changed. Now spanning almost 20 years, it was overwhelming confirmation of the relevance and application this definition has for the Retail industry. Even more specifically, this definition remains powerfully instructive for the mortar we must mix to build a strong, stable foundation for any “guest experience.” Whether in-store or online, perception, understanding and memory are the innate cognitive capabilities a service business must favorably and repeatedly influence in its interactions with those it serves.

’Tis the Season

To be sure, this is the most wonderful time of the year to learn or recommit to how proactively shaping an operation with the experiential end in mind is important and smart. Nothing reinforces the magnitude of this mindset better than a store full of shoppers or a queue full of orders! And rightfully so. Because of the number of purchases made during the holidays on behalf of others, the reputation of our business, brand and service proposition is built faster and is seeded deeper. It’s retail arithmetic. The impression an enterprise makes with a single entity organically doubles when the purchase intent is a gift. This is true, whether the experience is good or bad. Positive or negative. When gifts are given, stories and anecdotes are shared. Imaginable statements like, “Wow. Tracking this down was a holiday nightmare,” or “I’m really glad you introduced me to that place (or product),” or “I’m sorry, but my gift for you didn’t arrive in-time” are not only relaying results… They are also reputational report cards handed to loved ones adducing the grades of the business associated with the transaction and the seasonal gesture itself. And make no mistake: skilled leaders and customer service star performers tirelessly strive to affect the accompanying statements made by (or to) the gift giver to be a sugar plum dance that lasts long after the exchange.

Desired Outcomes Paired with Definitive Elements

Of course, if you’re now nervously reading this commentary at the time it is published in mid-December, it’s mostly too late for this year… But it is the perfect time to make a commitment for next month! Utilizing the above-stated definition of Experience to our advantage is the noble work of pairing our desired outcomes with its definitive elements. Regardless of how straightforward it sounds, it takes time. Although my book has a full-scale approach and tactical plan, we can easily cover the requirements to get started and a recommended framework in the remaining time we have together.

As you re-read the definition of Experience with intentionality, first let the defining elements come to life.

Perception. How something is received and interpreted. Check.

Understanding. Objectively right or wrong, this is an acceptable, usable amount of personal comprehension in the present. It goes with me. And you. And them. Over time – and with doses of repetition that provide comfort or assurance or satisfaction – it manifests into belief. Check.

Memory. Although very much the enabler as my total sum of experiences, this definition is not citing my intrinsic capability of recall. For the sake of experience, we’re talking about the output. A memory. Singular. Something recollected with specificity, potentially complete with emotional and/or intellectual attachments to its existence. Check.

As leaders seize the significance of each of these elements contributing to the experience perpetrated through their organization and operation, it is conjoined with a responsibility as weighty as any in a service-first enterprise: Orchestrating an experience so that it is continually perceived, understood and remembered in the way you want it to be.

The Most Difficult Part of “All”

Ensuring an ever-mindfulness by you and your Team with how every facet of your operation is likely or unmistakably “perceived, understood and remembered” is demanding work. There are no permissions issued to turn the required filters off. Like the susceptibility of court reporters to carpal tunnel syndrome, unabating evaluation by service leaders of almost everything in these terms is a necessary occupational hazard. Commitment, practice and mastery is required. Questions like, “What am I perceiving right now?” “How does it make me feel?” and “What will I recall and retell from this occasion” become constant companions. Whether inside your business or not, they are with you everywhere you go. It is true - - with your thoughts, you are never alone.

But this acclimation is not the most difficult part of our relationship with this definition. Oh, no. As we revisit the definition itself, we find that distinction belongs to the pesky 3-letter word that tilts us toward the definitive elements themselves… All. As in, “All that is perceived, understood and remembered.

Ugggh. All is a lot. It’s a ton, really. And when I grasp that “all” is everything, it’s even more.

I know what you’re thinking: Maybe all of us in the service industry should have taken our chances as court reporters…

But do not draw doomsday conclusions too fast. Your sense of foreboding is normal. And, yes, domesticating “Experience” in your organization will require considerable work. Embracing the “All” of it will, indeed, be never-ending. All in all, it will not be easy… and it may never get any easier.

But it will be worth it. And it is manageable. Here’s how:

Environment & Interaction

I believe there are but two (2) components to which “all” aspects of a “guest experience” connect. They encapsulate everything that can be perceived, understood and remembered. And they are found on the mostly unseen and unshared wish list of every holiday shopper who heads out the door or goes online to complete their yuletide affairs!

Environment. And Interaction. Environment and Interaction. At Big Peach, we say it as follows:
- The ENVIRONMENT we provide for our Guests
- The INTERACTION we have with our Guests

Everything is found in those terms. Think about it for a second…

The holiday wreath on the front door or the inviting winter scene on the homepage?

That’s Environment

The volume or genre of holiday music from speakers concealed overhead?

That is Environment, too.

The server who presents the check while generously sprinkling the table with Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses.

That’s Interaction. And so is the annoying pop-up when you’re heavily concentrating on entering sizes correctly this year for each of your grandchildren.

If you take a moment to recall any recent experience, the completeness of these terms will further play out. Whether your retreat is to an initial perception, an achieved understanding or a vivid memory, it will directly connect to the Environment and/or Interaction with which you were involved. It’s that simple.

And, yes, it is also that hard.

Next month, we will suggest a tactical and practical approach to systematizing continuous improvement with both components. In the meantime, hone into all that you perceive, come to understand and, ultimately, remember during the holidays. Be vigilant. Turn it up. Moreover, be unfailingly conscious in the repeated context of Environment and Interaction. If you don’t want to wait for next month’s installment, remember to use the BOGO offer on my book (again, here’s the link; the discount code is BOOKBOGO). To be sure, when the mortar is mixed right with your created experience, the pilings will go sky-high and you can build other aspects of your enterprise with confidence.

Happiest of holidays to you! Build it strong, y’all!

HOLIDAY HIGHLIGHT: The author (far right) and friends at the Finish of the Indie 5k, held during The Running Event in San Antonio, TX early this month.