From the Magazine (July–August 1998) - Harvard Business Review
Economists have typically lumped experiences in with services, but experiences are a distinct economic offering, as different from services as services are from goods. ... An experience is not an amorphous construct; it is as real an offering as any service, good, or commodity.
The Progression of Economic Value
An experience is not an amorphous construct; it is as real an offering as any service, good, or commodity. In today’s service economy, many companies simply wrap experiences around their traditional offerings to sell them better. To realize the full benefit of staging experiences, however, businesses must deliberately design engaging experiences that command a fee. This transition from selling services to selling experiences will be no easier for established companies to undertake and weather than the last great economic shift, from the industrial to the service economy. Unless companies want to be in a commoditized business, however, they will be compelled to upgrade their offerings to the next stage of economic value.
FORTY-ONE NORTH has joined the new wave of the Economic Value movement – the Experience Design. We conceptualize, craft and program enhanced and meaningful customer experiences for residential buildings, corporate offices, healthcare institutions, senior living facilities, airport lounges, social clubs and other venues, carrying over the high-touch elements of the luxury hospitality. Experience Design enhances the overall value of a service, brand, asset but above all, transforms people’s lives. Our mission is to CRAFT TRANSFORMATIONAL EXPERIENCES THAT BUILD VALUE.
FORTY-ONE NORTH is a proud Founding Member of the World Experience Organization (WXO). WXO is a community of thought leaders in the various areas of the Experience Economy.
Below are some of the services we provide:
Best time to avoid costly mistakes is to prevent them in the first place. The design phase of any project is the best time to bring the right expertise onboard, the expertise that has deep knowledge of the type of operation or activities that will take place when the project is completed, by envisioning all aspects of that operation and anticipating/staging how things will run then. This will help with planning of infrastructure and with allocating the adequate amount of space to provide the best experience. This audit is made taking in consideration the guest experience perspective and back-of-house or operational conditions with the focus of making sure efficiency will be at its best during revenue or value generating period. A thorough assessment during the design phase can help save thousands or even millions of dollars in corrective work after completion and while in full operational mode, as well as in revenue loss due to that same work, when it impacts the ability to sell products and services.
Conceptualization
Event Design
Residential Amenity Experiences
Healthcare Patient Experiences
Creating experiences that are memorable and add value. That’s FORTY-ONE NORTH’s mantra.
Think of us as your Experience gateway or supporting resource for anything related to creating new, or elevating the current, customer experiences. Depending on the stage of a certain project, either at the designing, planning, construction, or conversion phase, we would function as your Experience advisors, focused mainly on your overall customers’ journey, providing guidance and input along the process, helping to conceptualize and program those spaces by using some of our Experience Design tools and market benchmarks.
Our aim is to be the resource of choice, bringing the knowledge and expertise from our long and international careers in the luxury and lifestyle hospitality to companies outside the hospitality industry. Through our partnership and support we can help them provide high rated levels of experience, achieve higher scores in customer satisfaction or, better yet, become a market reference in customer experience. We sincerely believe that when taking the necessary steps to create thoughtful and valuable experiences, businesses are on a first instance, making a clear statement that customers are at the forefront of everything they do while elevating the overall value of their products, services, brand and their company as whole at the same time.
Customer Journey Mapping
Through a set of tools, we will be able to identify the moments and touchpoints that provide value to a customer at different stages of their experience. Below are a few of the elements used to design the Customer Experience roadmap:
- our XCTA (Experience Chart and Touchpoint Assessment) tool allows us to understand how customer experience flows and identify opportunities to provide experience value
- our OXR (Optimal Experience Roadmap) tool is used to design the most valuable customer experience journey
- XV (Experience Value) refers to the set of elements that are part of an OXR (above) and are strong contributors to CXS or NPS ratings
- CXS (Customer Experience Score) refers to a rating or set of ratings that measure Customer Satisfaction, normally obtained through a custom-built ranking or rating survey
- NPS (Net Promoting Score) refers to a market rating benchmark that identifies how likely a customer is to recommend or promote a product, service, or brand
There are so many factors that truly impact the overall customer experience and consequently their satisfaction which are in most cases overlooked, creating operating inefficiencies or flawed experiences. All the above tools are used to make sure that everything being done to create, improve and deliver an experience or service, has the customers’ satisfaction top of mind when you trust FORTY-ONE NORTH as your Experience Design advisors.
Service Excellence Training
While designing a customer experience, we can’t overlook the value and importance of those delivering that experience. Having a beautifully designed and comfortable space or product becomes an “empty” experience without the emotional connection built through those that deliver the service or experience to a customer. This is where FORTY-ONE NORTH’S years of expertise in luxury and lifestyle hospitality can add value to your teams through the delivery of custom made training programs to fit the needs of each project or experience without compromising ever the core values of your brand and Service Excellence.
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