“ WE DON ’ T NEED MORE MARKETING ,” Dan Gingiss says .“ What we need is more experiences . Experiences are the things people talk about , remember and want to share with others .”

Dan says he used to be an acolyte of email marketing . Now , he would happily give up the practice entirely . “ Customer experience is the best marketing you do .”

How do we get more people to share their experience ? “ We only share two kinds of experiences : Really good and really bad experiences . We don ’ t talk about normal or ordinary or average or ‘ meh ’— we talk about extraordinary or terrible .”

Dan has found spa consumers want to share positive experiences .“ All you have to do is look at your Instagram feed to see that .” He shares a methodology — the WISE framework — for creating experiences people want to share : l WITTY is about being clever — using language to our advantage — to avoid being boring . We have an opportunity to show the humanity behind our brand . l IMMERSIVE is a big one in the spa business , and it ’ s going to happen naturally . It ’ s about the client participating in the experiences — either with their emotions or with one of their five senses . When you have things that people don ’ t always understand immediately , it ’ s great to explain them . Spas have a lot of them . If we can educate our customers , we can add to the experience and earn their trust . l SHAREABLE means an experience is something a guest wants others to know about . Shareable experiences do not happen by accident , and they do not happen because we tell people Follow us on Instagram or Share this post or This is a selfie station .

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Create the experience — give the customer the moment they ’ ll pull out their phone without us telling them to do it . EXTRAORDINARY is where creating shareable experiences can get expensive . But what extraordinary means is “ better than ordinary .” So , it doesn ’ t have to be expensive . For simple , practical , inexpensive ideas : l Focus on the number one factor in a customer ’ s loyalty : Reducing customer effort . Make it easy . People will pay for a simple , fast experience . l You ’ ve got to be a customer of your own company . Fantastic experiences through innovation happen in only one of two ways : if the company hears complaints or suggestions from guests , or if the company leader spends time in the customer ’ s shoes , viewing the experience through the customer eyes . And let your employees do the same thing : Give them a gift card to go through the customer experience . n

EDITOR ’ S NOTE : Scot T . Gillies , executive editor at ISPA , sat in on Dan Gingiss ’ s presentation and chose the above highlight to share .

JULY 2023 n PULSE 27