Customer Experience: Delivering 5-Star Moments

In this episode, join Switchfly's Ariella Barshay and Ian Andersen to explore what truly makes a customer experience unforgettable. Together, they unpack the art of 5-star moments, the role of thoughtful personalization, and the delicate balance between technology and human touch in service. With stories from the front lines of hotels and practical insights on empathy and communication, this conversation reveals how the smallest details can create lifelong loyalty. Tune in for actionable tips and fresh perspectives that every service professional can use to wow their guests.

Chapters
(00:02) Defining 5-Star Moments
(01:03) Memorable Service Examples and ROI
(03:22) Intentionality and Reading Customer Needs
(06:08) Creative and Simple Experience Touchpoints
(09:56) Personalization and Technology in Service
(13:57) Balancing AI and Human Support
(18:46) Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in Hospitality
(21:38) Building Feedback Loops and Coordination
(27:03) Using Customer Data and Institutional Knowledge
(31:11) The Value of Grace and Humanity in Service

Connect with Switchfly
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Creators and Guests

Host

Ian Andersen

Demand Gen & Marketing Operations Manager

What is Travel Buddy with Switchfly?

See more at Switchfly.com

Today on the show we're gonna talk about
a customer experience that is a five star

moment featuring special guest Ariella
Barshay, who has an extensive background

in hospitality, hotel management,
operations, technology, and knows what it

takes to deliver that customer experience.

So we talk a lot about ai,
real people on the phone.

We talk about a lot of these
moments that make things special.

So.

So let's get to it.

Welcome to Travel Buddy,
presented by Switchfly.

In this podcast, we talk about all
things travel, rewards, and loyalty.

Let's get to it.

Brandon Giella: What is a 5-star
customer experience moment?

Ariella Barshay: I would say
it's a moment that leaves someone

telling other people about it.

You know, it's really hard to
have someone talk about something

great that happened to them.

Everyone is.

Much more eager to say, I didn't like
this or I didn't like that, but a 5-star

moment would really be when someone leaves
that experience, that vacation, that

flight, that trip, and they go off and
tell other people about how great it was.

I highly recommend that service.

I highly recommend this hotel.

Everyone has to stay there.

It was amazing.

I'd say that is 5-star experience

Brandon Giella: I actually love that
because, there's a lot of ways to

define customer experience and that I

have not heard before.

That simply, but that's a very
simple, straightforward thing.

If somebody wants to tell
about it, that's good.

That's exceptional.

Okay.

I love that.

Okay.

Tell me of a time where that
was the case where you did that.

Can you think of anything
that comes to mind?

Ariella Barshay: Oh gosh.

years

ago when I was working at this,
hotel, that brand was known

for customer experiences.

we didn't have a budget
to make someone happy.

so everyone, whether you worked in
in-room dining, if you were a houseman, a

housekeeper, you worked at the front
desk, as long as that guest left

happy.

Then you could spend
whatever you need to spend.

You could comp their night,
you could upgrade them, you

could do whatever you wanted.

because them leaving happy
was the most important part.

And there was one time I, you know,
someone was telling me all their issues

and we were just having a conversation
and I think they just wanted to vent.

And in the end I was, I
just said, you know what?

Let me comp your night for you.

And they were so unbelievably shocked.

They like had nothing else to say and
then they wrote me an email later on

and they were like, I just wanna let
you know you really made our weekend.

I've told everyone about
how great this hotel is.

This is where we will be
staying in the future.

So everything to them, even if it
was really minor that they didn't

like, you know, it, it's one little
thing after another that just

makes for an awful experience.

even if you're flying.

The flight's delayed.

Now you get on the flight, it's taking
a while, and then now, like, you

know, it's, it's just all these little
things that just make for a disaster.

they just said all of that didn't
even matter and the next time they

were in Philadelphia, that's where
I am, they would stay with us.

Brandon Giella: I, I love that.

I, I, that's such a simple
thing, but think of the ROI on

that, you know, a couple hundred

bucks or whatever of a cost,
but now you've got free

marketing that's worth probably

thousands of dollars for that.

But you've also got repeat business, which
is thousands of more dollars over the

lifetime.

It's not, it's like.

The ROI is so easy.

Ariella Barshay: Yeah.

And that was a time, yeah.

So sorry.

Ian Andersen: No, I was just gonna
say like most, most companies

don't necessarily have an unlimited

customer, er, service budget.

or, or the, the, plan to like do whatever.

Whatever you possibly can to do it.

So, so maybe like, how can, how can you
be intentional in creating those moments

without sort of like free range, right?

Like how do you set up a process
to create those kind of moments?

Ariella Barshay: Yeah,
it, it really depends.

a lot of my face-to-face contact was
when I was working within hotels.

So either behind the front desk in room
dining within sales, and a lot of it

has to do with what that guest, that
partner that, Customer is telling you,

if you're able to read between the
lines, they're telling you exactly what

they want, what they need, you know,
someone's coming in and that question

is, oh, what are you here celebrating?

That could either make or break their
stay because maybe when they were on the

phone, when they book their reservation,
they said, oh, it's my birthday

weekend, it's my first time to the city.

And those notes never made it into.

The reservation.

So now here I am at the front desk
asking them what they're doing here

and that kind of leaves a gap in
that customer service aspect of it.

but so it, you know, if you could tell
with that body language, they seem

a little unhappy and they're like,
oh, I actually told them when I made

the reservation, it was my birthday.

And you'd say, oh, I'm so sorry.

I must have missed that.

I am so happy you're celebrating
your birthday with us.

I hope you enjoy your stay.

I actually upgraded you
from a queen to a king.

And you know, it's something like that.

It doesn't cost the hotel money if they
have the occupancy available, if they

have those room types available, and
now that person is going to their room

being like, wow, I got a free upgrade.

Brandon Giella: mm.

Ariella Barshay: so little like that.

Mm-hmm.

Ian Andersen: that's a really
good point that like I,

customer experience very rarely is
like one catastrophic event, right?

Brandon Giella: Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Ian Andersen: little

things that build up of like,
you're, you know, it takes

a while to get checked room.

It takes, you know, like whatever
the, the, there's not enough

towels or, you know, they're
like these little things that,

that build up to like an
overall bad experience.

And, it's interesting that you can
kind of turn that around by just

being a little more, a little more
intentional and forward thinking

about, how to deal with the customer.

Brandon Giella: Mm-hmm.

Ariella Barshay: Oh.

First things, the first time I
ever worked behind the front desk.

And some I asked how their travel in
was, or you know, how their day was

so far, and they said uneventful.

And it took me off guard.

'cause I was like.

Brandon Giella: Hmm.

Ariella Barshay: Uneven.

I had to think about it for a second.

And that's the best thing
that someone could say.

There was nothing that made them
have a bad taste in their mouth

before coming to the hotel.

So now I have to make sure that
their check-in experience is great.

Or at the restaurant we
get their order correct.

you know, things like that.

But the, the customer always tells you
what they want, even if it's not flat out.

Brandon Giella: I

Ariella Barshay: I

want an

Brandon Giella: Pay attention.

Pay attention.

It can be simple.

It doesn't have to be this
super big, magical thing, but,

but it could be creative too.

I, I wanna get your thoughts
on this last episode.

We had talked about this book that I read
years ago called The Power of Moments.

I think it's, chip and Dan Heath.

I, I could be getting that wrong.

but that, one of the things that they
talk about in this book, there's this

hotel, I believe, if I'm getting my
details right, I believe it was in

la there's a hotel and it had a red
phone that was an ice cream phone.

So you could pick up, and, and you
just pick up and you set, you put in

your order for ice cream and it will be
delivered to you somewhere in the hotel.

And, and I, I love that idea
because that's pretty simple.

Like, it's not this super
operationally complex thing.

It's a bit of an investment, but
it makes this like creative, like

unusual thing that people remember.

Like that is an easy thing to remember.

like, oh, how was your ho,
how was your stay in la?

And.

It was great.

You know, the hotel, they had this phone
that you could get ice cream whenever

you wanted, and that kind of thing.

It's like, it's a cheap thing in a sense,
but it's super memorable and creative.

I'm wondering, is there anything like
that that comes to mind that's like,

okay, it doesn't, again, it doesn't
have to be this giant operation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ariella Barshay: I love ice

cream.

Oh my gosh.

For sure.

It's a friendly hotel.

Again, I've worked at a few of them.

we would have dog beds, dog
bowls, dog treats, that our chef

from the restaurant would make.

And if someone came in with their
dog, their dog is their child.

So they're a part of the family.

so if they're checking in and you
acknowledge their dog, that's, that's it.

You know, they, they love that.

If you offer treats.

Think about how inexpensive a
box of treats are, and you're

just offering them a treat,

you're now acknowledging the whole
entire family, hotels that do wine hour.

when I, I was the lead concierge
at this one hotel and I would do

food holidays, so I'd work with our
restaurant team and I would just, you

know, Google National Food holidays

and any day that had something
really fun, we would have that to

give out when people checked in.

And we'd say, oh, it's
National Skittles Day.

Oh, it's National Gingerbread
Cookie Day, or something like that.

And you know, we were a hotel that would
do wine hour, and so if it was National

Margarita Day, we then would also have
margaritas, or we would give out drink

cards so they could go to the restaurant.

And you know, that's all about
different parts of the hotel working

together, but even hotels that
are not full service like that.

Again, if you're pet friendly
and you can offer dog treats,

that's something so tiny,

Brandon Giella: Mm-hmm.

Ariella Barshay: Oh my God.

An ice cream phone is so cool.

Brandon Giella: Yeah, it's, I, I think
that's what I wanna get across is like,

when you think about customer experience,
it, to your point is it's something

worth telling to, to someone else.

That doesn't have to be this
giant technological operation.

It could be the smallest, simplest thing
that takes a little bit of creativity,

a little bit of forethought, and it
doesn't have to for hotels or airlines

or any kinda loyalty program either.

It could be if you're
a consulting business.

It could be if you're a small
business, it could be, you

know, a whole range of things.

A law firm, and there's just
these little moments that you

can do that really increase that
customer experience for somebody.

Ariella Barshay: Yeah, you're, you're
creating this human connection with

somebody else, in an industry that
was based off of human connection and.

There's a lot of niches of it, a lot of
parts of it that are kind of losing that.

So if you are a company that can keep
that communication human, you can keep

that experienced human, you'll go far.

Brandon Giella: Yeah.

That's great.

That's great.

yeah, there's, there's more to
talk about there, but I want to,

I wanna shift gears and talk a
little bit about personalization.

So it's something we talk
a lot about on the show.

'cause personalization is everything.

I mean, the details, you know, God is in
the details, the devil's in the details.

Like getting those things
right is so important.

but it's hard to do it.

It can be hard to do.

So you, we talked about a couple of things
that, Operationally are not that complex.

Maybe an ice cream foam, maybe
some dog treats, you know.

But then there is at a, at an enterprise
level, at a big corporate level, there

are some things like getting the,
the booking, you know, the notes and

the booking is for my birthday and
it doesn't make it to the front desk.

There is some operational complexities
and technological complexity in that to

personalize some of these moments that
can be quite an investment, can be tricky.

and personalization is something that.

Folks have been talking about for
decades, you know, especially since

the era of big data, you know,
personalization has been everywhere.

Use that data to personalize everything.

but I wanna talk a little bit about
like, how you have seen this work well

in your experience, either on the tech
side, the operations side, and then as

we are in 2026, we must talk about ai.

So I want to hear your thoughts
on like how AI does or does not

fit into the mix and whether.

Real people are still important, you know?

so, so what are your thoughts on, on
personalization broadly and then bringing

that down into, you know, today's era?

Ariella Barshay: Being a technology
company, there's only so much that you can

do to make it personal to each customer.

we are a SaaS company, so we are providing
this software as a service, and overall

it has to work for all of our customers.

Of course, some of them.

Want something changed or
maybe they want something on a

homepage or maybe they want this.

It's not as simple as it should be.

It, it does involve a lot of work.

So, you know, us as a company, we need
to figure out is it a benefit to us?

Does it make a difference
to them, to their customers?

Sometimes, you know, they're, they're not
the ones that are viewing that homepage.

It's.

You know, another customer or
their customer's, customers.

So we kinda have to look at that.

But personalization is very important
because it makes people feel special.

Brandon Giella: Mm-hmm.

Ariella Barshay: everyone should feel
like the big fish in a small pond,

and that's kind of something
that I've always kept.

so whether, you know, I'm
speaking with a customer, I have

a monthly call, weekly call.

They ping me for something,
I'm letting them know.

This, this, what you're bringing
to my attention is very important.

Even if it's something we can't do, you
know, let me see, let me talk to somebody.

I wanna make sure this works for you.

It works for us, and sometimes
in the end we can do it for them.

Brandon Giella: Hmm.

That, that brings to mind.

There's this, this company
that I like called 37 Signals.

They

built a software called Basecamp,
and one of the guys says that there

are two tokens on the table at
any customer service interaction.

One of the tokens says
it's not a big deal.

The other one says it's the end of
the world, and whichever one you grab,

the customer will take the other one.

I really like that as like a
simple, like, you take the end

of the world thing and you make

everything you can do to make it right,
because then they're forced to grab the,

it's not that big a deal, but thank you.

You know,

Ariella Barshay: Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, I like that.

Brandon Giella: okay, so thinking
about the, on the, on the tech

side, you were mentioning there's a
conversation you had recently of, you

know, AI versus real people and, and
like, what do you think about that?

Maybe it's incorrect dualism.

Maybe it's a false dichotomy that with,
if you push into ai, you have to give

up the people or you know, how, how do
you think about that, that dimension?

Because that's what
everybody's asking these days.

It's like, okay, what do I do with
AI and do I still need a call center?

Is that important?

Ariella Barshay: Yes.

Yeah, that's a big conversation.

you know, there's a lot

of potential customers out there,
customers that we currently have, some

partners that want to make sure that

their customers, their users,

get to speak to somebody.

And we reiterate, we have a call center.

It's 100% human.

They're answering

the calls.

If you have to email someone, you're
emailing with us, we're there as support.

And it definitely goes hand

in hand.

I mean.

Having ai, having a chat bot, having
that ability to just quickly, you know,

text within an app or on the website.

I have a question about this, and
then you're given a whole list

of.

Please pick one of these options.

Sometimes you just, you just
want to speak to a person.

You're like, please help me.

And the longer it goes on where
you can't be helped, and you're

kind of given that roundabout that,
you know, Ugh, I was already here.

The call has dropped.

Now you're back.

I think that there's a lot of ease
People can breathe when they call

a phone number and someone says,
thank you so much for calling.

How may I help you?

They're like, great, I'm being helped.

Brandon Giella: yes.

Yes.

I love that everybody's been
on that phone tree where

dial three, if you have X and Y
and I get to number seven and it's

still not the category of the thing

that I'm looking for

Ariella Barshay: Just
happened the other day

Brandon Giella: I

don't know what to press.

I want to

get off

this

phone.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So, yes.

But I understand that obviously the
need for routing and categorization

and, and all of that, but not every
request is gonna fit neatly into a box

that you thought about three years ago.

Yeah.

Ian Andersen: That's, that's an
interesting point though of like,

you, you sort of think of customer.

experience, not, not just customer
support, but as, as a part of it,

of like, you know, you have to
set up for the broad stroke right?

Of, of kind of everybody.

yet you're obviously not gonna
have the employee base to handle

every single potential
customer individually.

so there is a transition point of.

Where you're having technology take
care of things versus like there is

some point at which you were going
to have an employee, a human directly

handling this, Event one-on-one.

So how do you, where do you
set up that transition point?

How do you think about that going in?

Is it a chat bot on the website that
lets you, you know, if you want to talk

to somebody, here's a number, or is
it, you know, like what part of that

decision tree do you then, break out
and how do you think about that with

like, staffing with, your text, your,
your, your text set up, like, That's,

you know, all sort of part of it, right?

Ariella Barshay: Oh, of course, I
mean, with our call center, it's

during our contracting process.

Our potential partners
are letting us know.

These are the, these are the hours,
or this is the time zone that

a lot of our customers are in.

And then, you know, we're looking at
what we already have set up, and then

we're saying, okay, we can do X, Y, and
Z, or this is the potential, you know.

Last year we were going through that.

How many hours do we need to
have our call center available?

How many different time zones?

How do we make it work?

And we need to make sure that someone
is always there to answer the phone.

That is so important.

And I mean, hey, there's a lot of
times we all travel and we're so

happy we could just be in our app
and check into our room on our app.

But when you check into your room and
they're not hypoallergenic pillows.

I'm going to call down to the
front desk and ask for that.

I'm not going to go back into the app
and chat and then maybe someone will.

There's almost a sense of urgency
and that's why you want to speak to

a human and you want that connection.

whether you're really happy
or it's something that you

feel like is not satisfactory.

You want that person on the other
end who's receiving your feelings to

acknowledge that in a way, and then
you feel like, wow, I have been helped.

Brandon Giella: Hmm.

I like that

Ian Andersen: That's a good point
about the empathy of customer support

and customer experience that you
can't get technologically, per se.

Ariella Barshay: No, they're
just, they're answers.

you know, you're asking a
question and maybe that response

back is the right answer.

And if it's not, you have to
ask it in a different way.

when you speak to someone on the phone,
you're kind of giving them this idea

of what you need, what you want, the
activities that you're trying to book,

what flights, the hotels, any of that.

and then they get an idea of
what you need, what you want,

and then they're helping you.

Brandon Giella: So I wanna go deeper
in that, that idea about empathy and

emotional intelligence, because I
think for a lot of operators and a

lot of, you know, tech forward kind of
people that I'm sure a lot of listeners

to the show, it's, it's, I think.

I don't wanna say easier, but
sometimes it's easier to think about

like, here's the schematic of the
flow of like the customer service.

Experience, and here's all the
tech, the tech stack and how data

moves from one silo to the other.

But there's also like a
very human element to this.

Like we are, we are emotional creatures.

The elephant is the emotion and the
reason is the little writer on top

that can barely control this thing.

What have you learned over the years
about empathy and emotional intelligence?

Something that maybe stuck with you or
like a principle or a practice that you

have that when somebody comes to you
with a request or when you're thinking

about hospitality kind of generally
speaking, what's something that you

wish you knew earlier or that you'd
like to say that you think has been

really, really helpful in that regard?

Ariella Barshay: Something that I
was told right away was that when

you are in front of the customer,
whether that's a meeting, whether that.

Is, you know, you're behind the front
desk, the customer's in front of you.

If you're a server, a bartender, you're
walking throughout the restaurant, making

sure everyone has having a great time.

Like that is your stage.

Like

you are there to make sure
that everyone is so happy.

And if they're not, how can you fix it?

Your feelings, your emotions, everything.

You could do that behind closed doors.

So sometimes, you know, there were,
there might be really tough situations

and you can look at your colleague,
your manager, a co, a coworker of

yours and just kind of give that
eye of like, I need to step away.

Like, what is happening is too much.

and if you have that support,
then everyone can help to make

sure that the situation is fine.

But yeah, being able to know that
you're kind of acknowledging the

feelings and acting in a way.

Once you step away, you can be your normal
self, but you're there to relate in a way

to that customer when you are talking to
them and making them feel like they are

the most important person in the room.

Everyone wants to feel that way from
the person who maybe had a Groupon.

They're using points or
someone paid top dollar.

Everyone in that room is
the most important person.

Brandon Giella: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That, that is super helpful.

Yeah, that's exactly how you feel
when you walk into a restaurant

or you're on an airline.

There might be 300 other people on
this plane, but I, I am the important

one that you need to pay attention to.

It is through my

Ariella Barshay: I

My money on

Brandon Giella: Yeah,

Ariella Barshay: On this?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brandon Giella: yeah.

Yeah.

Not always easy to do.

Okay.

okay, so I wanna talk more,
getting, getting into more of

the details or the practicality
of, of how this has done well.

And so one of the things that we have
talked about is like building, feedback

loops and listening to the customer.

So when you think about operations.

In a, a loyalty program, rewards
program, a hotel program, working at a

restaurant, thinking hospitality, and,
and trying to deliver high, high quality

client experience, customer experience.

How do you create the kind of feedback
loops to listen to the customer

deeply and then make it happen,
and then kind of close that loop?

What is that like for you?

Ariella Barshay: So a lot
of times it's understanding.

Who on the customer side, where
that question is coming from?

Who brought it to your
contact's attention, and

why is it important to them?

And once you understand those questions,
then you could say, okay, taking all

this, taking this feedback, and then
I can bring it to the appropriate.

person here on our team, and
then they can work on it.

I have kind of always been in that
mindset that if a customer tells

me something once, like, Hey,
this is brought to my attention.

It was someone important telling them.

Brandon Giella: Mm

Ariella Barshay: That's why they're
bringing it to our attention now.

It, it is a big issue on their side.

A lot of times they'll let
things slide, you know, okay.

They, they wrote customer success
or you know, customer service.

they've made a ticket,
they did this and that.

They pinged me about something.

But if they reach out and they say, Hey.

I've been told X, Y, Z, and is happening.

this is feedback that they're telling
me needs to be fixed right away

because it's important on their side.

And so if I then bring it to the
correct departments on my end and we

get it fixed, it makes my contacts
life so much easier at their job.

And the issue at hand is resolved, but.

It, it's hard because now you're
working with a couple different teams.

You have to do some follow up.

the last thing you want is for
your customer to do a follow up

with you, your contact, and to
say, Hey, any update on this?

Or do you have any idea?

So kind of setting that expectation.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I should have an answer
for you in a couple days.

Or if it's Tuesday, you could say, oh, I
should have an answer for you by Friday.

And then Friday you could say,
oh, I'm still working on it.

Kind of setting that expectation.

But when they give you feedback, it's
because it's important in their eyes.

Brandon Giella: that's helpful.

So assume anytime you're hearing about
something, assume it's a big deal.

Handle it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Ariella Barshay: It might not be
the end of the world, but to them

there is a reason why they're
bringing it to your, someone else

brought it to their attention.

It's now on their plate.

Brandon Giella: Yeah, I'm wondering how
in a modern business, something I've

been thinking about a lot lately is
called what I call like a coordination

failure, or the coordination problem.

Because what you have to do is coordinate
a lot of information to a lot of

people very quickly and make it happen.

And I'm wondering how,
how you resolve that.

And what I mean is, okay, you get
this request and makes it up the

chain or through the team, but you've
gotta get other people involved.

Other technology apps, you know, whatever.

There could be a geographic location.

It could be from a call center that's,

you know, overseas and you
gotta route that information.

And how do you coordinate information
or knowledge or data such that you can.

Resolve things quickly between multiple
different partner, you know, departments

or teams or, because of course you've
got your hotel and you've got the kitchen

or the wait staff having to do this with
the front desk or, you know, there's

different coordination challenges there.

But in a modern tech business or
a global enterprise, you've gotta

coordinate all over the world, different
time zones, different technologies,

like how does that, how do you
think about that kind of problem?

Ariella Barshay: It definitely
can be tricky, especially

if you know you're here.

For me, I'm on the East coast and if the
person that's bringing something to my

attention is in India, you know, there
is a very big time difference there.

So being so, so basically acknowledging
and knowing, okay, if I was to email

them, now it's the o overnight for them.

but kind of bringing everyone in.

So every company is different.

They might have a system that you can
submit a ticket and within the ticket it

gets assigned to departments and then, you
know, from there everyone's working on it.

You might have, Someplace where you
can create a group chat, different

platforms like that, but being able to
involve multiple people at once in one

place kind of stops that, like an email
here, a ping here, let me call here and

then get all those different answers.

so kind of just bringing everyone
in at once and saying, Hey, this

is, this is what the customer, the
partner, the user brought up, it's

been brought to our attention.

are you seeing this?

Can we fix it?

When will it be fixed?

Or is this something we can add?

Things like that.

Brandon Giella: hmm hmm.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Bringing everybody together,

getting all on the same page alignment.

Yeah, it's hard to do.

Ariella Barshay: Yeah, And sometimes,
you know, maybe everyone doesn't need

to be brought in right at the beginning,
but you know, there could be times

where, you know, you're speaking to
two different departments, and then

you bring someone else in and they're
like, oh, I didn't know about this.

And then now you're kind of backtracking
telling them about it, and you're

like, okay, so what do you think?

Brandon Giella: Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Ian Andersen: So something we hear
a lot about kind of on the, the cus

success side of things are, Things
like, net promoter or, net net promoter

surveys or scores, some of those like
tools that customer success teams

use to, to measure how they're doing.

how do you, how do you
take information from that

to improve your team but
also to communicate across.

The organization because, something
you've brought up a few different

times is that like, it's not just
the people dealing face to face

with the customer that needs to

know some of this stuff.

How does that information go
out across the organization?

Ariella Barshay: So.

Every company is different.

you know, whether you are like us
and, you know, we provide a service.

We provide this platform.

we can let our different teams know this
is what's going on, whether you are a

hotel, One of the hotels I worked at, we
had customer profiles, within the brand.

And so just like your loyalty
number, your pillow type, things

like that are always attached.

So we would go through in the morning,
attach people's profiles to the

names, because a lot of times someone
will make a reservation, they won't

give their loyalty number, and then
they just assume that we would know

when they check in and we don't.

And that the missed.

That's a missed opportunity to
make sure that someone is happy.

So there's a lot of steps behind the fact.

but then if you're making your
reservation through a third party,

a lot of people don't understand
you made your reservation with them.

It has nothing to do with us at the hotel.

It has nothing to do
with us at that airline.

You made it with them.

It was their responsibility to
give us all of your information.

we would have it all
lot at checkout as well.

Someone would want their bill and we're
like, well, you didn't book through us.

We don't have your bill.

You booked through this third party.

And they're like, no, I booked with you.

And we're like.

No, you booked through this third party.

You have to get, we
don't know what you paid.

All we have is your name.

So we don't have any information.

And again, those are, those are missed
opportunities, but being able to

sync stuff up, yeah, we had internal,
like Hotel Insider, we had internal

profiles between our brands hotels.

And we would write notes.

So if someone stayed at our hotel and had
a really bad stay, we would write a note

and just say, we tried our best to fix it.

these are all the issues that they had.

The next time they check in, please make
sure they have this pillow type, they have

a view, they have this, this, and that.

there was one, there was one time
we were matching profiles while we

were looking at who was arriving.

And we just saw it was like
the same issues over and over

and over, and we were like.

Oh, oh.

This person likes to
get their stay comped.

They're doing the same thing
at all these different hotels.

It's the same issue.

If they're having issues, why
do they keep staying with us?

Why do they keep staying within our brand?

Maybe we're not the best brand for
them, but then we realize like, oh,

they're, they're stay gets comped every
single time they've learned the system,

but we knew now because of the notes.

Brandon Giella: Okay, so the
takeaway is, my dear listeners,

don't get on Ariel's blacklist.

You will be have, you'll have a bad life.

This is not good.

Okay.

Good

Ariella Barshay: We always know.

Brandon Giella: We always know.

That's great.

Okay.

Okay.

There is so much to cover here.

So as we wrap up, I have
one final question for you.

If you were queen of the customer
experience for all of the land and you

had the most important customer experience
and loyalty podcast on the planet, and

you had your opportunity to say the thing
that you want to say most to all these

people listening, what would you say?

Ariella Barshay: The person that is
helping you is so important in making

sure that your experience is amazing.

Like give them grace.

Make sure that you are very nice to them,
because for example, you could have a

queen room and it could be a city view.

mean it's a view of the city,
it just means it's a high room.

Like we know that

the, the

front desk agents know what the views
are from all these different rooms

and they can make your stay
amazing or they could give

you the stay that you booked.

And all you have to do

is just be nice.

We are nice too.

whoever you're on the phone
with, be nice to them.

Everyone's just doing their job.

Brandon Giella: They're human
beings at the end of the day.

Ariella Barshay: Yes,

Brandon Giella: they may be some poor
kid in college just trying to get

through school like I was, and you
get yelled at by somebody and it's

like, man, I'm just trying to do my

job.

I'm trying to help you.

You know, I'm just in college.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I got you.

Ariella Barshay: I want
you to have a great stay

Brandon Giella: Yes, yes.

I'm trying my best.

Ariella Barshay: Yes.

Brandon Giella: That's great.

Okay,

ALA, thank you so much for

your expertise and your wisdom.

I know you've done this a long
time and have so much expertise

to share, so thank you for taking
the time to share it with us.

Ian, it's a pleasure.

As always, I love talking to you all and,
and learning about how to make a defining

experience, a customer experience
that is a five star moment.

So I hope everybody was able
to take away some lessons here.

And Ella, I hope to have
you back on the show.

We'll see you next time.

Ian Andersen: Thanks, Brenda.