I read a thought piece recently on why cities have a seemingly moral obligation to protect their nightclubs.
You won’t be surprised to know it was written by a nightclub operator.
But like I believe every business in the UK should spend their budget with me, and my cat believes she should receive a much higher volume of treats, we cannot will a person, sector or nation into change, just because it suits US.
Because this has been a driving factor in hospitality’s exhausting relationship with crisis – that we are so busy telling people what we want to be the case (Protect your nightclubs! Get back to the office! Buy this new menu! Read this hilarious email I wrote!) that we’ve become completely oblivious to what the customer actually wants. And we’re not a million miles away from the Blockbuster Videos and Blackberries of the world in becoming alarmingly close to irrelevance.
Hospitality in it’s current form could just become obsolete.
CUSTOMER FIRST = COMPETITIVE EDGE
You may well be shaking your head, thinking, ah Vic, but people have to eat and drink don’t they! And you’re right, they do – but not necessarily with YOU.
As the market corrects the over expansion of the last 3 decades, we’ll see people with far less disposable cash than previous generations, and believe me when I tell you they are going to be so much more discerning than they were before about where they want to spend their money and who they want to hear from.
Becoming a fully fledged customer first business – and most importantly responding to what the data is telling you, might be just the competitive edge you need.
