Source: Alley Watch

I just finished a new book by Stephen J. Cloobeck, "Checking In: Hospitality-Driven Thinking, Business, and You". As a self-made entrepreneur and former chairman of Diamond Resorts International, he asserts that the five biggest companies by market value today, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, aren't really tech, but hospitality companies.

Tech may be the tool, but hospitality - making life a little easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable for your customer, is the winning focus.

Unfortunately, too many of the technical entrepreneurs I mentor and advise are focused on their technology and assume that the value will be self-evident to customers. They don't do the translation from technology to customer comfort in their marketing, and they don't constantly check to make sure that every interaction results in a memorable customer experience.

The keys to doing this well, for tech and non-tech businesses, are highlighted in his book, and he offers the following five lessons from hospitality to all entrepreneurs:

  1. Priority at every business stage on the customer. Rather than leave your customer focus at the delivery stage, and technology in the front, customer needs, and expectations must be the beginning of your journey via requirements, and remembered all along the way in times of crisis and confusion, competition, growth, failure, and success.

    For example, as a potential investor, I regularly see business plans that lead with pages on the technology, and only abstractly relate to customer value and improving the total customer experience. Voice recognition and artificial intelligence are great technologies, but very few customers today can tell you how these make their life more enjoyable.

Read the full article at alleywatch.com