{"id":335904,"date":"2016-03-01T13:01:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T21:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cxcafe.maritzcx.com\/a-free-cx-design-tutorial-from-my-barber-johnny\/"},"modified":"2017-12-13T21:09:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T05:09:44","slug":"a-free-cx-design-tutorial-from-my-barber-johnny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/a-free-cx-design-tutorial-from-my-barber-johnny\/","title":{"rendered":"A Free CX Design Tutorial from my Barber, Johnny"},"content":{"rendered":"

To immerse yourself in what good customer experience design looks like, one need to go no further than the Riviera Barber Shop<\/a>\u00a0in Redondo Beach, California.\u00a0\u00a0I used to\u00a0view getting a haircut as a mundane task that had to be endured like mowing the lawn or renewing my drivers\u2019 license. \u00a0That all changed after my first visit with Johnny.<\/p>\n

If you call for an appointment, you will usually get the intimating tattooed Tommy<\/a>\u00a0or the rockabilly\u00a0Steve Buscemi<\/a> clone Johnny on the horn. \u00a0In either case you will likely get the same upbeat\u00a0response: \u201cyea, come on down buddy\u2026.we\u2019re not too busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are usually very busy and the parking stinks. \u00a0Riviera is not especially cheap, nor is it especially fast, and it is kind of inconvenient for me to get to since I live in Arkansas. \u00a0So why do I and\u00a0many others\u00a0<\/a>love the place?<\/p>\n

Because they\u00a0create an emotionally engaging experience that is authentic, memorable, and personal.<\/p>\n

The guys at Riviera have created an entire servicescape that is aligned with their brand. \u00a0Outside is an\u00a0antique barber pole and red bench which usually cradles a waiting customer\u00a0smoking a cigarette. Walking through the chronically broken screen door entrance you are greeted by a life-size wooden cigar Indian. Vintage\u00a0Time and Life magazines are scattered about and the walls are plastered with a bizarre array of photos from the 1920s through the 1980s.<\/p>\n

No one is in a hurry. \u00a0Sit, read a magazine, and relax. \u00a0Thirsty? There is an ice box with complimentary Cokes and Coronas, and if it\u2019s Friday help yourself to a\u00a0snoot of Don Julio<\/a>. \u00a0Mike Ness<\/a>\u00a0would be well at home here.\u00a0A classic and powerful\u00a0behavioral setting<\/a> if ever there was one.<\/p>\n

However, what really drives the experience are the barbers. \u00a0The punk rockabilly meets beach bum\u00a0barbershop floor is their stage and they are the stars. \u00a0They banter. \u00a0They joke. \u00a0They share their\u00a0world views and advice. They are performers, high end professionals, and therapists rolled into one.<\/p>\n

They are a group of professionals\u00a0who are great at what they do and clearly love it. I never knew that a shave and haircut could be such a high end experience. \u00a0Johnny, Luis, Tommy, and the rest of the crew at Riviera have truly created something special from the mundane.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What can be learned from this?<\/p>\n

First, it is a good exemplar of how to create a powerful brand. \u00a0Some companies take too narrow a view of their brand. \u00a0Functional thinking predominates in the belief they are selling \u00a0a car or a meal or a hotel room or gasoline. \u00a0In reality, what companies are offering to their customer is\u00a0an experience<\/em>. That experience is part of every single touch point \u00a0a customer has directly or indirectly with the brand. Unfortunately, many companies tend to be siloed\u00a0into disparate channels such as in-store, online, and call center which makes them look at their business in that binned way.<\/p>\n

The promise of\u00a0omni-channel\u00a0<\/a>is breaking down those barriers which is good, but we need to do more than just coordinate our communication. We need to be thoughtful about how the overall experience is designed and executed. Riviera Barber Shop\u00a0isn\u2019t just just\u00a0about cutting hair; it\u2019s about good music like\u00a0Social Distortion<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Frank Sinatra\u00a0<\/a>and Dodgers baseball when there\u2019s a game. \u00a0It\u2019s about the innane chatter about celebrities, sport figures, and politicians. \u00a0Verbal posturing, sparring, and general trash talking among the barbers are\u00a0features. Johnny and his crew create a total organic experience for their customers without even realizing it.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to my second point. \u00a0Brand experiences are tough to engineer without the most important raw ingredients: the right people. \u00a0You can have all the technology, processes, training, incentives, facilities, and job aids and still fall flat on delivering a\u00a0holistic brand experience.<\/p>\n

Getting the right people to make the brand come alive is key. \u00a0Without those talented folks at center stage, the result is at best an animatronic facsimile or at worst an empty stage. \u00a0In selecting people it\u2019s not just hiring for the right skills, you need to get the right cultural fit and make sure they are engaged. \u00a0Employees shouldn\u2019t live the brand, they should be the brand.<\/p>\n

Steve Jobs once said \u201cthe only way to do great work is to love what you do.\u201d \u00a0The guys are Riviera clearly do. \u00a0They are not passive passengers working in a barbershop, they are the brand. They create an experience well beyond a simple haircut with their verbal jousting, music selection, pet squirrel, baseball preferences, and occasionally some good spirited profanity. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t hurt they deliver in spades on their core service: an awesome shave and haircut.<\/p>\n

Even if a franchised store could attain the same quality, it would run the risk of losing authenticity. \u00a0It absolutely can be done, but needs to be carefully nurtured to scale. I can\u2019t wait to go back, my hair is getting kind of shaggy and the elections are coming up\u2026Tommy and Johnny may have an opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To immerse yourself in what good customer experience design looks like, one need to go no further than the Riviera Barber Shop\u00a0in Redondo Beach, California.\u00a0\u00a0I used to\u00a0view getting a haircut as a mundane task that had to be endured like mowing the lawn or renewing my drivers\u2019 license. \u00a0That all changed after my first visit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7959,"featured_media":180204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,84,14,428],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}