March 1, 2025 • 45 mins
AI & Service Transformation Unforgettable Hospitality Experiences
In this episode of the Social Hotelier podcast, host Sam-Erik Ruttmann interviews Johann Diaz, an expert in service transformation and customer experience.
They discuss the importance of redefining strategies to meet evolving customer needs, the role of AI in enhancing service delivery, and the shift towards servitization in business models.
Johann emphasizes the significance of understanding customer sentiment, the core principles of exceptional service, and the risks and opportunities associated with AI adoption.
The conversation also explores future trends in AI, particularly the rise of agentic AI, and how organizations can prepare to remain competitive in a rapidly changing landscape.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The world of service and ops is kind
of where I sat. And the opportunity really
after many years of experience
to offer that experience to many rather than
to the few organizations
was the opportunity that developed, you know, using
great web technologies and such like. That's now
the the opportunity to package all of that
(00:21):
up, turn it into a framework, and provide
courses and coaching programs around that to help
smaller businesses as well. So they should be
able to access and then leverage all the
experience that I've had in the large enterprise
sector. But, really, how do they utilize that
in a start up or
a small organization
(00:42):
that's growing and scaling up? So that's what
I wanted to do, and that's how the
Service Revolution Academy came about.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Social Hotelier
podcast with me, Samirik Ruitman.
In this episode, my guest, Johan Diaz, a
seasoned expert in service transformation
and customer
experience
whose insights are particularly relevant to hospitality,
(01:05):
tourism, and hotel professionals.
With over thirty five years of experience
working with global leaders like Unilever,
Vodafone,
Johan now helps organizations
rethink
service delivery in the world shaped by AI
and digital transformation.
As founder of the Service Revolution Academy, he
shares strategies for breaking silos and creating seamless
(01:27):
guest experiences.
Discover how your hotel or tourism business can
stay competitive
by adapting to evolving customer needs and using
innovative service strategies.
This is a must listen. So welcome, Johan,
and thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Amarek.
Good to, good to meet you and good
to see everybody online.
So, perhaps we can get started if you
(01:47):
can share the background and what you what
led you to start,
the Service Revolution Academy.
Yes. Well, simply,
over thirty five years worth of experience in
the world of Service.
X, I call it.
Service excellence
ultimately is what I think everybody
(02:08):
seeks to achieve.
So the world of I started in the
world of
operational
technology
and customer service,
that often brought into it field service.
And then I got
pulled into the world of IT service
as some of the software vendors were then
starting to sell more and more IT service
(02:29):
management platforms.
And that's where I
landed in the likes of the Unilevers and
Diageos and BPs of the world and ran
many of their IT service management projects and
programs for a while.
And so service has always been in my
blood. I should say,
I was also chief operating officer. So the
(02:51):
world of service and ops is kind of
where I sat.
And the opportunity really after many years of
experience to
offer that experience
to many rather than to the few organizations
was the opportunity that developed, you know, using
great web technologies and such like. That's now
the the opportunity to package all of that
(03:14):
up,
turn it into a framework,
and provide
courses and coaching programs around that to help
smaller businesses as well.
So they should be able to,
access and then leverage
all the experience that I've had in the
large enterprise sector.
But, really, yeah, how do they utilize that
(03:35):
in a start up or a small organization
that's growing and scaling up? So that's what
I wanted to do, and that's how the
Service Revolution Academy came about.
Very good. Now, just to understand,
how how do you guide organizations to take
a step back and redefine their strategy, especially
(03:55):
when they may have lost touch with the
evolving customer needs? And most of the hotels
and the tourism
destination business that I'm dealing with, they tend
to think they know the customer very well.
But I think they tend to also
forget that
the the the needs of the customer tends
to change over time. And and that's why
maybe a step back
(04:17):
and redefining the strategy
could be of essence. So maybe you can
share how you go about this when you
are dealing with them. Let's say a new
customer, for instance.
Yes. And that's a really valid point, Samarek.
So many organizations,
as you say,
we're all in it. Right? We're we've all
got our heads down. We're going, going, going
(04:39):
on a daily basis, and there's nothing wrong
with that. But, of course, everybody knows
that from time to time, you need to
step out of it and just go, well,
actually,
why are we doing what we're doing? Who
are we doing it for? And do they
still actually need that to your point?
And the reality, as we've all lived through,
is that as both consumers and business customers,
(05:04):
our needs have changed
over the years. And, you know, as
we've
we've gone through the pandemic, for example,
and with the pandemic,
a massive acceleration
in digital platforms and use of digital platforms,
even though we were doing things like mobile
banking and such like Cornell mobiles for perhaps
(05:26):
quite a while.
But I think the last, let's say, five
years or so has really accelerated the take
up.
So you're absolutely right. The need
for any leadership team to really step back
and ask themselves the question with good evidence
now,
You know, the day and age of,
(05:48):
the chief executive or the chief marketing officer
or whomever
having a good sense of what was happening
in the market,
it's not to say it's gone, but the
opportunity now to have real data
that is often very near real time
to actually feed
those conversations
(06:09):
is fundamentally important.
And, actually, that's one of the other things
that I offer is
as I wrap around
a support service around the framework,
you know, I will challenge people to say,
well, when last did you actually survey
either your customer base or more importantly,
(06:29):
your prospective
customer
base. And again, with the likes of AI
out there, there's plenty of data out there
to actually go and get very quickly,
analyze it very quickly, and feed it into
the decision making of the leadership team.
Yeah. And that should be done, and it
(06:50):
should be done on a regular basis. Yeah.
Could you just for the, for for the
audience just to understand a little bit, maybe
you can share
an example of of a company that is
a new customer
for you and then how you went about
it, without maybe mentioning the name of the
company, but just to get the idea. How
what would be your approach to this specifically?
(07:14):
So,
if I look in the world of
technology solution
providers, let's put it that way. Okay? An
organization that I worked with,
a a while ago,
one of the things that we had to
do was
I would describe them as having had
a Rolls Royce of a product,
(07:34):
and they were in kind of scale up
mode, let's put it that way, just out
of start up, got the investment in scale
up mode.
And
as is often the case, they were trying
to sell their product, stroke, service
in lots of different ways, a scattergun approach.
And one of the things that I am
(07:56):
the
chief marketing officer and chief sales officer did
was really to take that step back,
look at some of the real data, actually
speak,
speak to some of the real customers,
and just truly understand
what problem they were trying to solve.
(08:16):
Don't talk about technology. Don't talk about anything
else.
Just, you know, we'd say to them, look.
Tell us what problem
or what opportunity you're trying to go after,
and let us come up with some options
around
the ways you could achieve it.
So we did a bit of customer
research. We did a bit of market research.
(08:39):
And as I say, there's there's data out
there to analyze how markets are trending,
especially with new technologies.
There's ways of getting sentiment analysis, for example,
from
booking calls
that that,
the large booking agencies might have.
(09:00):
There's data all around.
If you know what problem you're trying to
solve,
then you can go look for the specific
data that would help you make some decisions.
And having done that then, we were able
to bring that back into what was more
of an innovation conversation internally to say, great.
(09:22):
Now we truly understand
what our prospective clients would really like. Now
we can
tweak, alter, redirect,
some of the products and services that we've
got available.
Yep.
The word sentiment analysis might be,
not very clear for people. Could you just
briefly say describe what what does it actually
(09:43):
mean?
Yes. Of course. So
at any time in a conversation
like ours that we're having even now,
you and I will be feeling
different things. And if you now transcribe that
into the conversation, whether
transcribe that into the
conversation,
whether online,
whether via text, or whether via voice,
(10:06):
with an agent
who is booking, let's say, a room, a
conference facility, a restaurant, whatever it might be,
a flight, and so on,
the customer's
emotional
state
usually
dictates
how we make decisions.
This is the reality of humanity,
(10:28):
actually.
We might have all the information to hand,
but actually our feelings tell us something other
than what the data is telling us.
And nine times out of 10,
we will go with the decision of our
emotions,
almost irrespective of what the data says,
(10:48):
or we will look to make the data
fit
the emotional response.
So sentiment analysis
now
very cleverly
uses AI
agents and bots and engines behind the scenes
to literally analyze the conversation
that is usually happening in real time
(11:10):
when the customer is either on the phone
or online, as I say, via the chat
box or whatever,
to determine how the customer or prospective customer
might be feeling,
and therefore,
give the agent the opportunity
to meet
that the feeling and the emotional response
(11:31):
that the customer actually wants.
Oh, it's excellent. Results in
Yeah. That results in a a higher proportion
of sales.
Yeah. That's excellent. I mean, in in the
hotel,
industry, we always talk about, what is service
or what is hospitality. And service basically, we
that's basically the the actual product that we
(11:53):
offer them. But hospitality is what how we
make our customers feel. And then that's how,
essentially, this is what we are trying to
achieve,
at all all times. So, yeah, that well,
thank you very much. I think it's,
clarifies a lot, and I
interesting that the AI agents are able to
pick up on the nuances of a conversation
and and, then analyze this and provide valuable,
(12:18):
information for us. Yeah. It's very good. It
is remarkable
what technology is now able to do. Yeah.
So,
you you about the customer service philosophy, you
emphasize serving
customers exceptionally well. What are the core principles
that organizations
often overlook
when trying to build seamless customer experiences?
(12:41):
For me, there is one
absolute basic mantra that I often use,
which is that
life is all about service.
And what I mean by that is inherently,
I think as human beings,
we were designed for and we were built
for serving and loving each other. It's as
(13:02):
simple as that, and everybody knows this,
intuitively understands it because it's what we do
very naturally without even necessarily thinking about it.
So with that perspective,
I then
look at
the process, if you like, that a business
(13:23):
goes through
to serve
its customer or its prospective customer.
That therefore starts at the beginning of the
whole
customer journey,
which is
when a prospective customer
engages
either with your website directly
or with a third party website, and they're
(13:45):
considering
buying into your product or service.
So it starts right at the beginning of
the journey, and it goes all the way
through hopefully having made the sale.
And let's face it, sales is only
serving the customer
extraordinarily well so that they see the value
(14:06):
for themselves
in what it is you have to offer
them. And the authenticity
of you
in offering them what you've got and being
able to demonstrate the value to them is
what a sale is all about. Right? And
then you move it into
the world of service and operations.
How do you, if you like, onboard them?
(14:28):
How do you welcome them? How do you
bring them into
your your hotel, your restaurant, wherever it is,
and,
enable them to take up the product or
service? And then, as you rightly say, you
know, how do you deliver that great experience
to them
throughout their stay?
(14:50):
But also then, you've got a relationship.
You've got a relationship that you can cultivate
because ideally, of course, any business wants repeat
business.
So you can continue to serve them
all the way through despite the fact they
might not be using your services at the
moment, but it doesn't stop you being able
to serve them,
(15:12):
all the way through by offering them
new information,
new thoughts, new ideas,
whatever it is they're interested in,
tailoring
some offerings to their preferences.
And using AI to do this is now
much easier than it ever was before. So
the preface
of
(15:32):
intuitively
the human being understanding service means
that service starts from the moment
a prospective customer thinks about
possibly using you and your business
all the way through to the end, essentially,
where after
their whole lifetime journey with you, they might
(15:54):
do something different or they might go away
or they might move or or whatever might
happen. So it's an end to end
process, and I often call it end to
end service.
Very good. Yeah. In
with hotels, it has been traditionally the first
time we knew about the guest is that
when they make a booking, but now we
(16:15):
are going way before that in that actually
to create a journey before that. And some
of the,
ultra luxury hotels, once we have identified the
guest and there has been initial contact,
you actually have a conversation with the, guest
in advance to tailor
their their visit so they,
they they know
(16:36):
so the hotel knows exactly what are the
certain expectations that the guest has, whether it's
gonna
what kind of breakfast can we provide you?
Just the small things.
And then
finally living through that total experience with them.
And
in the past, it was always the idea.
The last thing you knew about the hotel
was when you see the grumpy cashier, when
(16:58):
you have to pay the bill. And the
only thing you remember about your experience was
that how how cashier was not so happy
looking. But I think we have
fortunately, we have gone way beyond that and
that
that,
hotels realized that the one of the most
important service element is the moment when you're
leaving and then how to make you feel
at that point to hopefully
(17:18):
return again. And I I I like the
idea you talk about this AI agents, how
they are
how how this can be analyzed
in
real time and really can the hotels can
learn a lesson
from
that experience and and continuously improve,
what they're doing.
You have talked about servitization
(17:38):
trends,
with the shift towards servitization
where business focus deliver
delivering service outcomes rather than the products. How
should organization adapt their models?
So servitization,
I might quickly fall into the world of
(17:59):
operational
efficiency
here. So
let let's take a a hotel
where, you know, any size hotel has got
a huge amount of equipment
and,
products and things and machinery and all sorts
of things that it uses to deliver
that outstanding service. Right?
(18:19):
Let me
let me come back to that, Sam Eric,
in a minute because it sparked one point,
actually,
which talks about experience. Now experience,
if you think about the definition of experience,
it is actually
the consumption
of a service
and how we feel.
(18:42):
So experience is all to do back to
the sentiment stuff. Experience is all about how
it makes us feel.
Now, you and I could experience the same
service
very differently
because I'm not in a good mood,
but you are in a good mood. Now,
there's nothing different to the quality of service
(19:04):
that the organization's
provided,
but our experience
is quite different.
So I challenge leaders to say,
can you actually deliver
experience?
My challenge, my hypothesis is to say, you
can't deliver the experience.
You can influence,
(19:25):
of course, the experience,
but what you can deliver
is the service.
And that's why the service is something you
control and it has to be outstanding.
So with my two hats on, remember I've
been in customer service, but I've also been
in operations.
So with my operations hat on, I say
(19:45):
from an operational efficiency
perspective,
the notion these days that with a connected
machine, let's put it that way, let's talk
about the heating, ventilation, air conditioning system in
any hotel.
You know, a fundamental
piece of equipment
that's running the whole show by way of
(20:08):
the environment,
massively important for the guests.
Instead of having to spend
hundreds of thousand, millions of pounds, euros, dollars
on this machinery,
which historically
has been the case,
now in the connected world using IoT, Internet
(20:28):
of Things,
where
that machine, if you like, is online
on a twenty four seven basis,
the manufacturer
doesn't need to sell it as a one
off product.
Instead,
And remember, let's go back to our first
conversation, which is
just tell me what you're trying to achieve.
(20:50):
Well, the customer, the hotelier would say, all
I want to achieve
is ambient room temperature
at all times, varying
overnight and during the day for all of
my guests. Great.
So then the manufacturer
should be able to say, well, if I
offer you
heating as a service
(21:12):
or cooling as a service,
it means
that I don't need to sell you a
big capital piece of equipment.
I now allow you to buy that
on a subscription
basis,
maybe per month, maybe per user in your
rooms
even, because if I've got the technology down
(21:34):
to managing it per room,
then it now becomes a very, very different
cost economy
that allows the hotel management
to truly manage some of their costs in
a much more dynamic and real time manner.
So servitization
(21:54):
is about turning
products from manufacturers
into services.
So they sell it as a service
without you having to fork out huge amounts
of money in capital outlay.
Yeah. No. That's very good. Yeah. Very good.
Yeah.
Maybe we can move on to the,
(22:16):
artificial intelligence
integration because we have mentioned that several times
now. Yeah. During this podcast,
AI is transforming industries, as you talked about.
What do you see the greatest opportunity?
You mentioned the opportunity, but I'm I'm also
interested in risk of AI adaptation in enhancing
customer service and operations. There are risks involved.
(22:40):
What are your thoughts on that?
In the risks specifically?
Yeah.
Well, we can't cover both again. It's okay.
Okay.
Okay. Let let me talk about those risks
then. Yes. There are risks. Now, actually,
the first risk I would challenge people with
is,
don't wait too long before you actually start
(23:02):
adopting,
experimenting with, and engaging, and frankly, embracing
AI technology.
Because
almost even more than when we had the
dawn of the Internet, and Sam Erik, you
and I were around to remember
when that happened and when we started using
it in business,
(23:23):
AI,
you know, is a quantum leap even from
then. And the reason it is in large
part
is because of the natural language processing.
The fact that
no longer
does anybody need to have a degree in
software engineering or a particular computer language,
(23:43):
now the computer speaks our natural language.
So a massive difference,
which means it's now available to everybody
as we're seeing.
So
anybody who is sitting there thinking, Oh, I
wonder what we should do, you're almost too
late.
Get out there and start trying it, start
(24:04):
playing around with it, start experimenting,
and then start thinking,
How could I use this in my business?
Now, then there's a question about
where to start
because so many organizations
have then taken a scattergun approach.
They've not really gone into it. They've gone
into it a little bit, but they dip
(24:24):
their toe in the water, but they don't
really have much intention behind it.
I think that's the wrong approach.
And that that that brings with it risk.
It it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
because
anybody could try something and it's, you know,
I don't really understand it that much, so
I don't get much value out of it.
So it can't be very good.
(24:45):
Well, what might not be very good is
the approach that you take, and then you're
gonna miss out on all the benefits.
And if you're not doing it, I guarantee
your competitors are doing it. And if I
extrapolate that by one or two years,
you know, I might even challenge a leadership
team to say, look, you will be out
of business
if you don't adopt
(25:08):
some of the AI opportunities.
And what do I mean by that? Well,
simply,
AI gives you the opportunity
to,
see around the corner.
Let's let's put it that way.
Because of the vast amount of data that
is out there,
(25:29):
we as human beings, and even with our
little spreadsheets,
can't
crunch
all that data
to very, very quickly determine
are there any patterns within the data? Well,
AI can. That's how it was built. Okay?
And not only
does it do it, but back to my
point about using natural language to query it,
(25:53):
the sales organization
can literally sit there on top of their
own
sales database, let's say, which has analyzed
all the sales conversations
that it has had over the last x
number of years and identify
the patterns
(26:13):
around
good sales processes,
good sales techniques,
good sales language to use,
best type of prospects to go for,
probability
of,
making a sale with these types of organizations
or consumers,
all of that data's out there using AI
(26:35):
agents. You can get it to crunch the
data, and then you've got more information
to make good decisions on again.
And you can choose to focus
your marketing investment in a particular area
without having to take scattergun approaches,
and that's just sales. You know, in the
whole world of end to end service, I
(26:57):
define three phases. I always say
sales,
service,
and success,
the three S's that I talk about, right?
And I think they're obvious, but the first
is how we make the sale and it
might include marketing and everything else that goes
with it, business development and so on, and
third party channels and distributors and partners.
(27:18):
The second is the service and the operations.
So,
you know, when the when the client finally
wants to book,
how seamless and how effortless and frictionless is
that process to do so. When they turn
up in your hotel or your restaurant or
your flight or wherever, how nice,
(27:38):
how welcoming,
how good,
back to experience.
Right? How great is that service so that
it makes them feel good.
And then as you said before, you know,
the success
of that relationship
is how do they actually use
your product or service and then capturing that
(27:58):
data. So next time Sam Eric walks in
the door,
we've got everything the way he likes it.
We've even got him a sweet deal in
the way he liked it and so on.
So
AI can be used in all of those
phases
from a
a sales perspective, from
(28:19):
a operational,
efficiency perspective,
from a customer delight perspective,
in all of those areas. And if you've
not tried and started using some AI technologies,
then you're almost already behind the curve and
you've got to put it down.
Yeah. That's so true. I mean,
hotels
(28:39):
have been behind the curve for longest time,
but I think now,
the hotels are waking up, and I I
can see that
the the advanced hotels are are doing that.
I just kind of thinking about traditionally,
you you always had somebody
who was good in coding, who was working
in the hotel. But in in the organization
you're dealing with, who what kind of positions
(29:01):
are there that are actually dealing with this,
the AI
side side of things? What
what jobs do they have, and how do
they go about it?
You
know, this is that's a great question, Samara,
because with the dawn of AI, it does
mean that,
traditionally,
if you like our IT support structure, let's
(29:23):
put it that way,
is changing,
and has to change. And
when I talk to my IT colleagues, I
actually sometimes am challenging them to say and
provoking them sometimes to say, that organizations are
not going to have an IT department much
longer. Let's face it. Because
business technology
(29:44):
is available
out there,
outside of our organization,
and I can buy into it
to the point of servitization,
I can buy into it on a per
user per month basis with my credit card.
Why do I need an IT organization? And
by the way, they run
(30:05):
all the IT infrastructure.
We don't need to worry about it anymore.
How delightful
is that?
IT becomes more of a commodity
purchase. Just like you or I walk into
the room and switch lights on, we expect
the lights to come on. Yeah. And IT
and technology
is going more,
(30:25):
in that direction, of course. I mean, we
all have our mobile apps, and we expect
them to work. And for the most part,
for the most part, they do.
You know? So we've perfected the the world
of what I call business technology
to such a degree that
in the new world, you're now looking at,
(30:46):
so how best do I engage
with these AI
models?
And let's take ChatGPT, for example, or, you
know,
Gemini
or Microsoft Copilot or whatever large language model
people are
using.
The key there,
(31:06):
it's not so much a language, but it's
the prompt.
Yes. So if anybody hasn't heard of the
word prompt, that's where it comes from.
It's literally the question that you are asking
off the AI model. That's what people are
calling prompt.
And there's a whole world called prompt engineering,
which is literally
(31:28):
teaching you how to engage best
with the AI model in order to get
the best response.
Because
like everything, and we've always said this, right,
if you put, you know, garbage in, garbage
out, so if you just ask it a
very vague,
spurious question,
(31:48):
then you're just gonna get a very general,
you know, non prescriptive
answer, which doesn't really help and doesn't mean
much to you and doesn't give you any
value.
Whereas if you spend a little bit of
time defining your prompt carefully
with good language,
with very precise requests, with lots of context,
(32:11):
then you give the machine called the AI
large language model
a narrowing
opportunity
to go find the real data that you
really want
because it's otherwise needle in a haystack because
the haystack's out there,
and you have to just give it an
idea of what it is you actually want.
(32:32):
Right? So,
you have to have people who now learn
how to prompt
the large language models properly.
So that's one.
Then it's going to expose more by way
of data science.
For many, many years, and, you know, I've
talked about the big IT projects that I
was involved in,
(32:54):
One of my very first conversations
with the leaders in the organization would be,
tell me about your data.
How good is your data?
How
are you using your data?
How well do all these systems
conform to a data strategy?
And then how clean is your data? How
(33:14):
accurate? How up to date? How consistent? And
so on. Well, if you've been a little
bit lax,
let me put it that way, with your
data management
previously,
AI and this place to a risk,
AI will expose
the
inaccuracies
in your data
(33:35):
if you are trying to use it in
your AI models.
Because now AI does
everything a lot bigger, faster, and cheaper than
ever before.
But if you put garbage in there, you're
gonna get a lot of spurious
AI responses.
Now people often
translate that to me. No. The system doesn't
(33:56):
really work, and this AI thing isn't much
good. Well,
listen carefully. You know, the AI will do
what it does. Right? Yeah. And if you
put rubbish in there, then you're just gonna
get rubbish out. So data strategy and plan
is a fundamental, and data science,
therefore,
is an
an ever growing
(34:16):
need for any organization.
Yeah. So,
so
this this really gives me the feeling that,
somebody who
organization
I mean, one of the best paying jobs
should be the prompt engineer
in in a in in any organization because
they are,
because the questions are not just a simple
(34:37):
question,
but it actually is a very long prompt
that actually requires
the the whether it's a chat GPT or
Copilot to come back to you, double check
with you, can they continue,
make the analysis and etcetera? Because I use
this myself in
in in blog writing. I mean, this is,
just a simple simple thing. So I Mhmm.
(34:57):
I love to write, but I,
English is not my first language. So, there
will be lots of
errors in there. And when I when I
write this and I then I ask,
in this case, I'm using CHAP GPT four
to analyze. And also also asks me the
same question. Give me an ex specific example
of what you're talking about. So it kind
(35:19):
of wakes wakes me up that, well, I
have to expand on my, my blog to
keep the audience alert and interested in it,
but I'm writing. And so I found it
in, in the small things I do very
helpful and I can see how that is
important. And I'm considering that I'm, I've been
around for a while and I I'm doing
a chattyPT at my age. So I think
my question actually lead leads to the leadership
(35:41):
of organization.
How can you get them
wake up to this or our leadership,
enlightened that they understand the importance
to use this kind of,
the artificial intelligence
that it that it becomes
an intelligent assistant for your organization.
Right.
(36:01):
You're absolutely
right. There's there's so much, and this goes
back to one of my first comments, which
is sometimes the risk is,
it feels like you're caught like a rabbit
in the headlines. Right? Yeah. You know this
thing is happening all around you. But actually,
as a CEO, as a COO, whomever,
you're actually a little bit unsure where we
should start because there's so much choice.
(36:24):
So one of the things that I
work with my clients on is putting together
a plan.
And, you know, we step again, I get
them to step back
fundamentally and go, just tell me about your
business.
Tell me what you're trying to achieve. And
then I can start to make suggestions
based
(36:45):
on the business outcomes that you want to
achieve in the next year to two years.
Right? Don't talk to me about something you
wanna do in ten years' time. I mean,
let's get very focused on here and now,
right, because we want to bring you some
quick wins
to give you some quick cost savings.
We'll open up new avenues of opportunity for
you so you get the real benefit within
(37:07):
the next three months, within the next six
weeks. Right? And that's
the opportunity of AI tools done well is
that you can really
gain those benefits very, very quickly.
Start small,
prove the benefit,
deliver the value.
Everybody will then see it, and you'll go,
alright. Okay. And then everybody jumps on the
(37:27):
bandwagon and goes, well, actually, perhaps this could
work for us.
So be very
intentional,
be very strategic,
put a a a plan together, and that
all can be done very quickly.
You know, I could workshop some of that
with,
c suite and their teams
fairly quickly
(37:47):
and come back based on their business outcomes
that they're driving for,
come back with a plan and a roadmap
for AI tools that they should start to
implement,
and then we can help them implement that.
That's that's not the difficulty.
It's actually sometimes getting started with a plan,
with good intention, and with good leadership behind
it.
(38:08):
Yeah. So, maybe let's look a little bit
at the future. What are the key trends
the businesses should monitor and prepare
for
for the for the this year and next
year ahead of to remain competitive
and customer centric? What are the things that
you have you're are noticing in the in
the world we're living now? This year, it
(38:29):
it is purported
that it it's going to be the year
of agentic
AI. So
not just chatbots
where the chatbot would deliver back to you
the information
for you to make your decision and then
take the next action.
(38:49):
The AI agents
are now developing at a pace where they
are now
able
to make the decision for you,
assuming you've given it your
permission, and even
place the order for you
so that they become a true assistant,
(39:12):
without you having to do it. So you
could,
once the technology
perfects itself, which will be this year,
you could say
to,
you know, AI bot,
Paul,
make a reservation
in my favorite
(39:33):
French restaurant
in
my local town for three people
in three weeks' time on whatever date it
is. And by the way,
my guests are gonna be
my wife, my daughter, and my brother, whatever
it is. Right? And the AI agent
will firstly know your preferences
(39:56):
and will
know or be able to perceive
the preferences of your guests.
They will then be able to find,
in real time, the availability
of your favorite restaurant because they will know
your favorite restaurant,
and they will be able to book the
table for you.
Let's say
(40:17):
the restaurant has an offer
of
a pay 50%
upfront,
and actually they take 25%
off the menu, the the meal, the price,
or whatever it is, well, it will be
able to then
book the table,
pay the 50%
discount,
you know,
(40:38):
money to actually secure,
and it will be able to carry out
that whole process
without you as the human needing to be
involved.
Now that is called
agentic
AI.
It's where the AI agents now
are given some agency
by you to actually make decisions on your
(41:01):
behalf
and take actions
on your behalf.
That is the new world that we're going
into
pretty much this year, and the amount of
investment pouring into agentic
AI solutions is huge. Absolutely
huge.
That's where you're going. So again, you see,
leadership teams need to be
(41:21):
up to speed in their thinking so they're
at least thinking
in this direction.
Because if they don't do it, their competitors
are going to be doing it. Yes.
Yeah. It's very true.
In fact, in my in in one of
my recent episodes, I've had this discussion with
the,
with an Indian friend of mine about,
exactly what you're mentioning. And it also deals
(41:44):
with,
you have
your friendly AI agent or intelligent assistant, I
like to call them, to Yeah. To look
for the
best price flights
of course there turn to be it's the
Wednesday morning when the price are lowest. And
then if you don't have the if you're
free to go, then they will book everything
for you. So it's,
(42:05):
yeah, that's, very interesting times. And in fact
Yeah.
So, One of the other things, Amariq, sorry.
One of the other things that I read
the other day in the world of hospitality,
which I thought, oh, that sounds really interesting,
for example, is just the whole world of
dietary need or
preference.
Okay? Again,
(42:25):
you and I could say to our good
friends, the, the intelligent assistant, let's put it
that way.
This is my diet that I want to
follow.
These are my requirements.
These are my
things that I need to be careful of,
but these are things that I really like.
Go find me some really great
(42:47):
options
for restaurants
on Saturday night
in my local vicinity,
which are you which will be prepared to
do a personalized
menu
for me
and come back with the options, or even
then
make some decisions for me based on the
criteria I've given it to you and go
(43:08):
book me a table and book me the
menu
and actually place my order for me
so that when I turn up, my food
gets delivered,
based on all my dietary preferences and requirements.
This is the world that is opening up
in front of us.
Very good. Well, Johan, this has been a
very interesting conversation with you about,
(43:31):
what's going on at the moment.
Well, I'm sure I have people already wondering,
well, if I want to connect with, Johan
and Service Revolution Academy,
So how can they find you, and how
can they connect with you if they want
to start a conversation? So how you can
provide that excellent service to them?
Yes. They're very welcome to find me on
LinkedIn. You will find me under my name
(43:53):
fairly quickly,
or else go to,
service-revolution.com.
And that's the website for the Service Revolution
Academy, and you can find me via that.
So very happy to have a conversation.
Very good. Johan, thank you very much. I
appreciate you joining today's episode, and thanks very
much for your fantastic insights.
(44:14):
You're very welcome, Sam Erik. Nice to talk
to you.
Well, thank you for tuning in to The
Social Hotelier.
If you enjoy this episode, please take a
moment to leave us your review.
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(44:35):
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we have an incredible lineup of guests coming
up your way. So stay tuned for more
thoughtful, provoking conversations.
Until next time, take care and keep exploring.
The world of service and ops is kind
of where I sat. And the opportunity really
after many years of experience
to offer that experience to many rather than
to the few organizations
was the opportunity that developed, you know, using
great web technologies and such like. That's now
the the opportunity to package all of that
(00:21):
up, turn it into a framework, and provide
courses and coaching programs around that to help
smaller businesses as well. So they should be
able to access and then leverage all the
experience that I've had in the large enterprise
sector. But, really, how do they utilize that
in a start up or
a small organization
(00:42):
that's growing and scaling up? So that's what
I wanted to do, and that's how the
Service Revolution Academy came about.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Social Hotelier
podcast with me, Samirik Ruitman.
In this episode, my guest, Johan Diaz, a
seasoned expert in service transformation
and customer
experience
whose insights are particularly relevant to hospitality,
(01:05):
tourism, and hotel professionals.
With over thirty five years of experience
working with global leaders like Unilever,
Vodafone,
Johan now helps organizations
rethink
service delivery in the world shaped by AI
and digital transformation.
As founder of the Service Revolution Academy, he
shares strategies for breaking silos and creating seamless
(01:27):
guest experiences.
Discover how your hotel or tourism business can
stay competitive
by adapting to evolving customer needs and using
innovative service strategies.
This is a must listen. So welcome, Johan,
and thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Amarek.
Good to, good to meet you and good
to see everybody online.
So, perhaps we can get started if you
(01:47):
can share the background and what you what
led you to start,
the Service Revolution Academy.
Yes. Well, simply,
over thirty five years worth of experience in
the world of Service.
X, I call it.
Service excellence
ultimately is what I think everybody
(02:08):
seeks to achieve.
So the world of I started in the
world of
operational
technology
and customer service,
that often brought into it field service.
And then I got
pulled into the world of IT service
as some of the software vendors were then
starting to sell more and more IT service
(02:29):
management platforms.
And that's where I
landed in the likes of the Unilevers and
Diageos and BPs of the world and ran
many of their IT service management projects and
programs for a while.
And so service has always been in my
blood. I should say,
I was also chief operating officer. So the
(02:51):
world of service and ops is kind of
where I sat.
And the opportunity really after many years of
experience to
offer that experience
to many rather than to the few organizations
was the opportunity that developed, you know, using
great web technologies and such like. That's now
the the opportunity to package all of that
(03:14):
up,
turn it into a framework,
and provide
courses and coaching programs around that to help
smaller businesses as well.
So they should be able to,
access and then leverage
all the experience that I've had in the
large enterprise sector.
But, really, yeah, how do they utilize that
(03:35):
in a start up or a small organization
that's growing and scaling up? So that's what
I wanted to do, and that's how the
Service Revolution Academy came about.
Very good. Now, just to understand,
how how do you guide organizations to take
a step back and redefine their strategy, especially
(03:55):
when they may have lost touch with the
evolving customer needs? And most of the hotels
and the tourism
destination business that I'm dealing with, they tend
to think they know the customer very well.
But I think they tend to also
forget that
the the the needs of the customer tends
to change over time. And and that's why
maybe a step back
(04:17):
and redefining the strategy
could be of essence. So maybe you can
share how you go about this when you
are dealing with them. Let's say a new
customer, for instance.
Yes. And that's a really valid point, Samarek.
So many organizations,
as you say,
we're all in it. Right? We're we've all
got our heads down. We're going, going, going
(04:39):
on a daily basis, and there's nothing wrong
with that. But, of course, everybody knows
that from time to time, you need to
step out of it and just go, well,
actually,
why are we doing what we're doing? Who
are we doing it for? And do they
still actually need that to your point?
And the reality, as we've all lived through,
is that as both consumers and business customers,
(05:04):
our needs have changed
over the years. And, you know, as
we've
we've gone through the pandemic, for example,
and with the pandemic,
a massive acceleration
in digital platforms and use of digital platforms,
even though we were doing things like mobile
banking and such like Cornell mobiles for perhaps
(05:26):
quite a while.
But I think the last, let's say, five
years or so has really accelerated the take
up.
So you're absolutely right. The need
for any leadership team to really step back
and ask themselves the question with good evidence
now,
You know, the day and age of,
(05:48):
the chief executive or the chief marketing officer
or whomever
having a good sense of what was happening
in the market,
it's not to say it's gone, but the
opportunity now to have real data
that is often very near real time
to actually feed
those conversations
(06:09):
is fundamentally important.
And, actually, that's one of the other things
that I offer is
as I wrap around
a support service around the framework,
you know, I will challenge people to say,
well, when last did you actually survey
either your customer base or more importantly,
(06:29):
your prospective
customer
base. And again, with the likes of AI
out there, there's plenty of data out there
to actually go and get very quickly,
analyze it very quickly, and feed it into
the decision making of the leadership team.
Yeah. And that should be done, and it
(06:50):
should be done on a regular basis. Yeah.
Could you just for the, for for the
audience just to understand a little bit, maybe
you can share
an example of of a company that is
a new customer
for you and then how you went about
it, without maybe mentioning the name of the
company, but just to get the idea. How
what would be your approach to this specifically?
(07:14):
So,
if I look in the world of
technology solution
providers, let's put it that way. Okay? An
organization that I worked with,
a a while ago,
one of the things that we had to
do was
I would describe them as having had
a Rolls Royce of a product,
(07:34):
and they were in kind of scale up
mode, let's put it that way, just out
of start up, got the investment in scale
up mode.
And
as is often the case, they were trying
to sell their product, stroke, service
in lots of different ways, a scattergun approach.
And one of the things that I am
(07:56):
the
chief marketing officer and chief sales officer did
was really to take that step back,
look at some of the real data, actually
speak,
speak to some of the real customers,
and just truly understand
what problem they were trying to solve.
(08:16):
Don't talk about technology. Don't talk about anything
else.
Just, you know, we'd say to them, look.
Tell us what problem
or what opportunity you're trying to go after,
and let us come up with some options
around
the ways you could achieve it.
So we did a bit of customer
research. We did a bit of market research.
(08:39):
And as I say, there's there's data out
there to analyze how markets are trending,
especially with new technologies.
There's ways of getting sentiment analysis, for example,
from
booking calls
that that,
the large booking agencies might have.
(09:00):
There's data all around.
If you know what problem you're trying to
solve,
then you can go look for the specific
data that would help you make some decisions.
And having done that then, we were able
to bring that back into what was more
of an innovation conversation internally to say, great.
(09:22):
Now we truly understand
what our prospective clients would really like. Now
we can
tweak, alter, redirect,
some of the products and services that we've
got available.
Yep.
The word sentiment analysis might be,
not very clear for people. Could you just
briefly say describe what what does it actually
(09:43):
mean?
Yes. Of course. So
at any time in a conversation
like ours that we're having even now,
you and I will be feeling
different things. And if you now transcribe that
into the conversation, whether
transcribe that into the
conversation,
whether online,
whether via text, or whether via voice,
(10:06):
with an agent
who is booking, let's say, a room, a
conference facility, a restaurant, whatever it might be,
a flight, and so on,
the customer's
emotional
state
usually
dictates
how we make decisions.
This is the reality of humanity,
(10:28):
actually.
We might have all the information to hand,
but actually our feelings tell us something other
than what the data is telling us.
And nine times out of 10,
we will go with the decision of our
emotions,
almost irrespective of what the data says,
(10:48):
or we will look to make the data
fit
the emotional response.
So sentiment analysis
now
very cleverly
uses AI
agents and bots and engines behind the scenes
to literally analyze the conversation
that is usually happening in real time
(11:10):
when the customer is either on the phone
or online, as I say, via the chat
box or whatever,
to determine how the customer or prospective customer
might be feeling,
and therefore,
give the agent the opportunity
to meet
that the feeling and the emotional response
(11:31):
that the customer actually wants.
Oh, it's excellent. Results in
Yeah. That results in a a higher proportion
of sales.
Yeah. That's excellent. I mean, in in the
hotel,
industry, we always talk about, what is service
or what is hospitality. And service basically, we
that's basically the the actual product that we
(11:53):
offer them. But hospitality is what how we
make our customers feel. And then that's how,
essentially, this is what we are trying to
achieve,
at all all times. So, yeah, that well,
thank you very much. I think it's,
clarifies a lot, and I
interesting that the AI agents are able to
pick up on the nuances of a conversation
and and, then analyze this and provide valuable,
(12:18):
information for us. Yeah. It's very good. It
is remarkable
what technology is now able to do. Yeah.
So,
you you about the customer service philosophy, you
emphasize serving
customers exceptionally well. What are the core principles
that organizations
often overlook
when trying to build seamless customer experiences?
(12:41):
For me, there is one
absolute basic mantra that I often use,
which is that
life is all about service.
And what I mean by that is inherently,
I think as human beings,
we were designed for and we were built
for serving and loving each other. It's as
(13:02):
simple as that, and everybody knows this,
intuitively understands it because it's what we do
very naturally without even necessarily thinking about it.
So with that perspective,
I then
look at
the process, if you like, that a business
(13:23):
goes through
to serve
its customer or its prospective customer.
That therefore starts at the beginning of the
whole
customer journey,
which is
when a prospective customer
engages
either with your website directly
or with a third party website, and they're
(13:45):
considering
buying into your product or service.
So it starts right at the beginning of
the journey, and it goes all the way
through hopefully having made the sale.
And let's face it, sales is only
serving the customer
extraordinarily well so that they see the value
(14:06):
for themselves
in what it is you have to offer
them. And the authenticity
of you
in offering them what you've got and being
able to demonstrate the value to them is
what a sale is all about. Right? And
then you move it into
the world of service and operations.
How do you, if you like, onboard them?
(14:28):
How do you welcome them? How do you
bring them into
your your hotel, your restaurant, wherever it is,
and,
enable them to take up the product or
service? And then, as you rightly say, you
know, how do you deliver that great experience
to them
throughout their stay?
(14:50):
But also then, you've got a relationship.
You've got a relationship that you can cultivate
because ideally, of course, any business wants repeat
business.
So you can continue to serve them
all the way through despite the fact they
might not be using your services at the
moment, but it doesn't stop you being able
to serve them,
(15:12):
all the way through by offering them
new information,
new thoughts, new ideas,
whatever it is they're interested in,
tailoring
some offerings to their preferences.
And using AI to do this is now
much easier than it ever was before. So
the preface
of
(15:32):
intuitively
the human being understanding service means
that service starts from the moment
a prospective customer thinks about
possibly using you and your business
all the way through to the end, essentially,
where after
their whole lifetime journey with you, they might
(15:54):
do something different or they might go away
or they might move or or whatever might
happen. So it's an end to end
process, and I often call it end to
end service.
Very good. Yeah. In
with hotels, it has been traditionally the first
time we knew about the guest is that
when they make a booking, but now we
(16:15):
are going way before that in that actually
to create a journey before that. And some
of the,
ultra luxury hotels, once we have identified the
guest and there has been initial contact,
you actually have a conversation with the, guest
in advance to tailor
their their visit so they,
they they know
(16:36):
so the hotel knows exactly what are the
certain expectations that the guest has, whether it's
gonna
what kind of breakfast can we provide you?
Just the small things.
And then
finally living through that total experience with them.
And
in the past, it was always the idea.
The last thing you knew about the hotel
was when you see the grumpy cashier, when
(16:58):
you have to pay the bill. And the
only thing you remember about your experience was
that how how cashier was not so happy
looking. But I think we have
fortunately, we have gone way beyond that and
that
that,
hotels realized that the one of the most
important service element is the moment when you're
leaving and then how to make you feel
at that point to hopefully
(17:18):
return again. And I I I like the
idea you talk about this AI agents, how
they are
how how this can be analyzed
in
real time and really can the hotels can
learn a lesson
from
that experience and and continuously improve,
what they're doing.
You have talked about servitization
(17:38):
trends,
with the shift towards servitization
where business focus deliver
delivering service outcomes rather than the products. How
should organization adapt their models?
So servitization,
I might quickly fall into the world of
(17:59):
operational
efficiency
here. So
let let's take a a hotel
where, you know, any size hotel has got
a huge amount of equipment
and,
products and things and machinery and all sorts
of things that it uses to deliver
that outstanding service. Right?
(18:19):
Let me
let me come back to that, Sam Eric,
in a minute because it sparked one point,
actually,
which talks about experience. Now experience,
if you think about the definition of experience,
it is actually
the consumption
of a service
and how we feel.
(18:42):
So experience is all to do back to
the sentiment stuff. Experience is all about how
it makes us feel.
Now, you and I could experience the same
service
very differently
because I'm not in a good mood,
but you are in a good mood. Now,
there's nothing different to the quality of service
(19:04):
that the organization's
provided,
but our experience
is quite different.
So I challenge leaders to say,
can you actually deliver
experience?
My challenge, my hypothesis is to say, you
can't deliver the experience.
You can influence,
(19:25):
of course, the experience,
but what you can deliver
is the service.
And that's why the service is something you
control and it has to be outstanding.
So with my two hats on, remember I've
been in customer service, but I've also been
in operations.
So with my operations hat on, I say
(19:45):
from an operational efficiency
perspective,
the notion these days that with a connected
machine, let's put it that way, let's talk
about the heating, ventilation, air conditioning system in
any hotel.
You know, a fundamental
piece of equipment
that's running the whole show by way of
(20:08):
the environment,
massively important for the guests.
Instead of having to spend
hundreds of thousand, millions of pounds, euros, dollars
on this machinery,
which historically
has been the case,
now in the connected world using IoT, Internet
(20:28):
of Things,
where
that machine, if you like, is online
on a twenty four seven basis,
the manufacturer
doesn't need to sell it as a one
off product.
Instead,
And remember, let's go back to our first
conversation, which is
just tell me what you're trying to achieve.
(20:50):
Well, the customer, the hotelier would say, all
I want to achieve
is ambient room temperature
at all times, varying
overnight and during the day for all of
my guests. Great.
So then the manufacturer
should be able to say, well, if I
offer you
heating as a service
(21:12):
or cooling as a service,
it means
that I don't need to sell you a
big capital piece of equipment.
I now allow you to buy that
on a subscription
basis,
maybe per month, maybe per user in your
rooms
even, because if I've got the technology down
(21:34):
to managing it per room,
then it now becomes a very, very different
cost economy
that allows the hotel management
to truly manage some of their costs in
a much more dynamic and real time manner.
So servitization
(21:54):
is about turning
products from manufacturers
into services.
So they sell it as a service
without you having to fork out huge amounts
of money in capital outlay.
Yeah. No. That's very good. Yeah. Very good.
Yeah.
Maybe we can move on to the,
(22:16):
artificial intelligence
integration because we have mentioned that several times
now. Yeah. During this podcast,
AI is transforming industries, as you talked about.
What do you see the greatest opportunity?
You mentioned the opportunity, but I'm I'm also
interested in risk of AI adaptation in enhancing
customer service and operations. There are risks involved.
(22:40):
What are your thoughts on that?
In the risks specifically?
Yeah.
Well, we can't cover both again. It's okay.
Okay.
Okay. Let let me talk about those risks
then. Yes. There are risks. Now, actually,
the first risk I would challenge people with
is,
don't wait too long before you actually start
(23:02):
adopting,
experimenting with, and engaging, and frankly, embracing
AI technology.
Because
almost even more than when we had the
dawn of the Internet, and Sam Erik, you
and I were around to remember
when that happened and when we started using
it in business,
(23:23):
AI,
you know, is a quantum leap even from
then. And the reason it is in large
part
is because of the natural language processing.
The fact that
no longer
does anybody need to have a degree in
software engineering or a particular computer language,
(23:43):
now the computer speaks our natural language.
So a massive difference,
which means it's now available to everybody
as we're seeing.
So
anybody who is sitting there thinking, Oh, I
wonder what we should do, you're almost too
late.
Get out there and start trying it, start
(24:04):
playing around with it, start experimenting,
and then start thinking,
How could I use this in my business?
Now, then there's a question about
where to start
because so many organizations
have then taken a scattergun approach.
They've not really gone into it. They've gone
into it a little bit, but they dip
(24:24):
their toe in the water, but they don't
really have much intention behind it.
I think that's the wrong approach.
And that that that brings with it risk.
It it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
because
anybody could try something and it's, you know,
I don't really understand it that much, so
I don't get much value out of it.
So it can't be very good.
(24:45):
Well, what might not be very good is
the approach that you take, and then you're
gonna miss out on all the benefits.
And if you're not doing it, I guarantee
your competitors are doing it. And if I
extrapolate that by one or two years,
you know, I might even challenge a leadership
team to say, look, you will be out
of business
if you don't adopt
(25:08):
some of the AI opportunities.
And what do I mean by that? Well,
simply,
AI gives you the opportunity
to,
see around the corner.
Let's let's put it that way.
Because of the vast amount of data that
is out there,
(25:29):
we as human beings, and even with our
little spreadsheets,
can't
crunch
all that data
to very, very quickly determine
are there any patterns within the data? Well,
AI can. That's how it was built. Okay?
And not only
does it do it, but back to my
point about using natural language to query it,
(25:53):
the sales organization
can literally sit there on top of their
own
sales database, let's say, which has analyzed
all the sales conversations
that it has had over the last x
number of years and identify
the patterns
(26:13):
around
good sales processes,
good sales techniques,
good sales language to use,
best type of prospects to go for,
probability
of,
making a sale with these types of organizations
or consumers,
all of that data's out there using AI
(26:35):
agents. You can get it to crunch the
data, and then you've got more information
to make good decisions on again.
And you can choose to focus
your marketing investment in a particular area
without having to take scattergun approaches,
and that's just sales. You know, in the
whole world of end to end service, I
(26:57):
define three phases. I always say
sales,
service,
and success,
the three S's that I talk about, right?
And I think they're obvious, but the first
is how we make the sale and it
might include marketing and everything else that goes
with it, business development and so on, and
third party channels and distributors and partners.
(27:18):
The second is the service and the operations.
So,
you know, when the when the client finally
wants to book,
how seamless and how effortless and frictionless is
that process to do so. When they turn
up in your hotel or your restaurant or
your flight or wherever, how nice,
(27:38):
how welcoming,
how good,
back to experience.
Right? How great is that service so that
it makes them feel good.
And then as you said before, you know,
the success
of that relationship
is how do they actually use
your product or service and then capturing that
(27:58):
data. So next time Sam Eric walks in
the door,
we've got everything the way he likes it.
We've even got him a sweet deal in
the way he liked it and so on.
So
AI can be used in all of those
phases
from a
a sales perspective, from
(28:19):
a operational,
efficiency perspective,
from a customer delight perspective,
in all of those areas. And if you've
not tried and started using some AI technologies,
then you're almost already behind the curve and
you've got to put it down.
Yeah. That's so true. I mean,
hotels
(28:39):
have been behind the curve for longest time,
but I think now,
the hotels are waking up, and I I
can see that
the the advanced hotels are are doing that.
I just kind of thinking about traditionally,
you you always had somebody
who was good in coding, who was working
in the hotel. But in in the organization
you're dealing with, who what kind of positions
(29:01):
are there that are actually dealing with this,
the AI
side side of things? What
what jobs do they have, and how do
they go about it?
You
know, this is that's a great question, Samara,
because with the dawn of AI, it does
mean that,
traditionally,
if you like our IT support structure, let's
(29:23):
put it that way,
is changing,
and has to change. And
when I talk to my IT colleagues, I
actually sometimes am challenging them to say and
provoking them sometimes to say, that organizations are
not going to have an IT department much
longer. Let's face it. Because
business technology
(29:44):
is available
out there,
outside of our organization,
and I can buy into it
to the point of servitization,
I can buy into it on a per
user per month basis with my credit card.
Why do I need an IT organization? And
by the way, they run
(30:05):
all the IT infrastructure.
We don't need to worry about it anymore.
How delightful
is that?
IT becomes more of a commodity
purchase. Just like you or I walk into
the room and switch lights on, we expect
the lights to come on. Yeah. And IT
and technology
is going more,
(30:25):
in that direction, of course. I mean, we
all have our mobile apps, and we expect
them to work. And for the most part,
for the most part, they do.
You know? So we've perfected the the world
of what I call business technology
to such a degree that
in the new world, you're now looking at,
(30:46):
so how best do I engage
with these AI
models?
And let's take ChatGPT, for example, or, you
know,
Gemini
or Microsoft Copilot or whatever large language model
people are
using.
The key there,
(31:06):
it's not so much a language, but it's
the prompt.
Yes. So if anybody hasn't heard of the
word prompt, that's where it comes from.
It's literally the question that you are asking
off the AI model. That's what people are
calling prompt.
And there's a whole world called prompt engineering,
which is literally
(31:28):
teaching you how to engage best
with the AI model in order to get
the best response.
Because
like everything, and we've always said this, right,
if you put, you know, garbage in, garbage
out, so if you just ask it a
very vague,
spurious question,
(31:48):
then you're just gonna get a very general,
you know, non prescriptive
answer, which doesn't really help and doesn't mean
much to you and doesn't give you any
value.
Whereas if you spend a little bit of
time defining your prompt carefully
with good language,
with very precise requests, with lots of context,
(32:11):
then you give the machine called the AI
large language model
a narrowing
opportunity
to go find the real data that you
really want
because it's otherwise needle in a haystack because
the haystack's out there,
and you have to just give it an
idea of what it is you actually want.
(32:32):
Right? So,
you have to have people who now learn
how to prompt
the large language models properly.
So that's one.
Then it's going to expose more by way
of data science.
For many, many years, and, you know, I've
talked about the big IT projects that I
was involved in,
(32:54):
One of my very first conversations
with the leaders in the organization would be,
tell me about your data.
How good is your data?
How
are you using your data?
How well do all these systems
conform to a data strategy?
And then how clean is your data? How
(33:14):
accurate? How up to date? How consistent? And
so on. Well, if you've been a little
bit lax,
let me put it that way, with your
data management
previously,
AI and this place to a risk,
AI will expose
the
inaccuracies
in your data
(33:35):
if you are trying to use it in
your AI models.
Because now AI does
everything a lot bigger, faster, and cheaper than
ever before.
But if you put garbage in there, you're
gonna get a lot of spurious
AI responses.
Now people often
translate that to me. No. The system doesn't
(33:56):
really work, and this AI thing isn't much
good. Well,
listen carefully. You know, the AI will do
what it does. Right? Yeah. And if you
put rubbish in there, then you're just gonna
get rubbish out. So data strategy and plan
is a fundamental, and data science,
therefore,
is an
an ever growing
(34:16):
need for any organization.
Yeah. So,
so
this this really gives me the feeling that,
somebody who
organization
I mean, one of the best paying jobs
should be the prompt engineer
in in a in in any organization because
they are,
because the questions are not just a simple
(34:37):
question,
but it actually is a very long prompt
that actually requires
the the whether it's a chat GPT or
Copilot to come back to you, double check
with you, can they continue,
make the analysis and etcetera? Because I use
this myself in
in in blog writing. I mean, this is,
just a simple simple thing. So I Mhmm.
(34:57):
I love to write, but I,
English is not my first language. So, there
will be lots of
errors in there. And when I when I
write this and I then I ask,
in this case, I'm using CHAP GPT four
to analyze. And also also asks me the
same question. Give me an ex specific example
of what you're talking about. So it kind
(35:19):
of wakes wakes me up that, well, I
have to expand on my, my blog to
keep the audience alert and interested in it,
but I'm writing. And so I found it
in, in the small things I do very
helpful and I can see how that is
important. And I'm considering that I'm, I've been
around for a while and I I'm doing
a chattyPT at my age. So I think
my question actually lead leads to the leadership
(35:41):
of organization.
How can you get them
wake up to this or our leadership,
enlightened that they understand the importance
to use this kind of,
the artificial intelligence
that it that it becomes
an intelligent assistant for your organization.
Right.
(36:01):
You're absolutely
right. There's there's so much, and this goes
back to one of my first comments, which
is sometimes the risk is,
it feels like you're caught like a rabbit
in the headlines. Right? Yeah. You know this
thing is happening all around you. But actually,
as a CEO, as a COO, whomever,
you're actually a little bit unsure where we
should start because there's so much choice.
(36:24):
So one of the things that I
work with my clients on is putting together
a plan.
And, you know, we step again, I get
them to step back
fundamentally and go, just tell me about your
business.
Tell me what you're trying to achieve. And
then I can start to make suggestions
based
(36:45):
on the business outcomes that you want to
achieve in the next year to two years.
Right? Don't talk to me about something you
wanna do in ten years' time. I mean,
let's get very focused on here and now,
right, because we want to bring you some
quick wins
to give you some quick cost savings.
We'll open up new avenues of opportunity for
you so you get the real benefit within
(37:07):
the next three months, within the next six
weeks. Right? And that's
the opportunity of AI tools done well is
that you can really
gain those benefits very, very quickly.
Start small,
prove the benefit,
deliver the value.
Everybody will then see it, and you'll go,
alright. Okay. And then everybody jumps on the
(37:27):
bandwagon and goes, well, actually, perhaps this could
work for us.
So be very
intentional,
be very strategic,
put a a a plan together, and that
all can be done very quickly.
You know, I could workshop some of that
with,
c suite and their teams
fairly quickly
(37:47):
and come back based on their business outcomes
that they're driving for,
come back with a plan and a roadmap
for AI tools that they should start to
implement,
and then we can help them implement that.
That's that's not the difficulty.
It's actually sometimes getting started with a plan,
with good intention, and with good leadership behind
it.
(38:08):
Yeah. So, maybe let's look a little bit
at the future. What are the key trends
the businesses should monitor and prepare
for
for the for the this year and next
year ahead of to remain competitive
and customer centric? What are the things that
you have you're are noticing in the in
the world we're living now? This year, it
(38:29):
it is purported
that it it's going to be the year
of agentic
AI. So
not just chatbots
where the chatbot would deliver back to you
the information
for you to make your decision and then
take the next action.
(38:49):
The AI agents
are now developing at a pace where they
are now
able
to make the decision for you,
assuming you've given it your
permission, and even
place the order for you
so that they become a true assistant,
(39:12):
without you having to do it. So you
could,
once the technology
perfects itself, which will be this year,
you could say
to,
you know, AI bot,
Paul,
make a reservation
in my favorite
(39:33):
French restaurant
in
my local town for three people
in three weeks' time on whatever date it
is. And by the way,
my guests are gonna be
my wife, my daughter, and my brother, whatever
it is. Right? And the AI agent
will firstly know your preferences
(39:56):
and will
know or be able to perceive
the preferences of your guests.
They will then be able to find,
in real time, the availability
of your favorite restaurant because they will know
your favorite restaurant,
and they will be able to book the
table for you.
Let's say
(40:17):
the restaurant has an offer
of
a pay 50%
upfront,
and actually they take 25%
off the menu, the the meal, the price,
or whatever it is, well, it will be
able to then
book the table,
pay the 50%
discount,
you know,
(40:38):
money to actually secure,
and it will be able to carry out
that whole process
without you as the human needing to be
involved.
Now that is called
agentic
AI.
It's where the AI agents now
are given some agency
by you to actually make decisions on your
(41:01):
behalf
and take actions
on your behalf.
That is the new world that we're going
into
pretty much this year, and the amount of
investment pouring into agentic
AI solutions is huge. Absolutely
huge.
That's where you're going. So again, you see,
leadership teams need to be
(41:21):
up to speed in their thinking so they're
at least thinking
in this direction.
Because if they don't do it, their competitors
are going to be doing it. Yes.
Yeah. It's very true.
In fact, in my in in one of
my recent episodes, I've had this discussion with
the,
with an Indian friend of mine about,
exactly what you're mentioning. And it also deals
(41:44):
with,
you have
your friendly AI agent or intelligent assistant, I
like to call them, to Yeah. To look
for the
best price flights
of course there turn to be it's the
Wednesday morning when the price are lowest. And
then if you don't have the if you're
free to go, then they will book everything
for you. So it's,
(42:05):
yeah, that's, very interesting times. And in fact
Yeah.
So, One of the other things, Amariq, sorry.
One of the other things that I read
the other day in the world of hospitality,
which I thought, oh, that sounds really interesting,
for example, is just the whole world of
dietary need or
preference.
Okay? Again,
(42:25):
you and I could say to our good
friends, the, the intelligent assistant, let's put it
that way.
This is my diet that I want to
follow.
These are my requirements.
These are my
things that I need to be careful of,
but these are things that I really like.
Go find me some really great
(42:47):
options
for restaurants
on Saturday night
in my local vicinity,
which are you which will be prepared to
do a personalized
menu
for me
and come back with the options, or even
then
make some decisions for me based on the
criteria I've given it to you and go
(43:08):
book me a table and book me the
menu
and actually place my order for me
so that when I turn up, my food
gets delivered,
based on all my dietary preferences and requirements.
This is the world that is opening up
in front of us.
Very good. Well, Johan, this has been a
very interesting conversation with you about,
(43:31):
what's going on at the moment.
Well, I'm sure I have people already wondering,
well, if I want to connect with, Johan
and Service Revolution Academy,
So how can they find you, and how
can they connect with you if they want
to start a conversation? So how you can
provide that excellent service to them?
Yes. They're very welcome to find me on
LinkedIn. You will find me under my name
(43:53):
fairly quickly,
or else go to,
service-revolution.com.
And that's the website for the Service Revolution
Academy, and you can find me via that.
So very happy to have a conversation.
Very good. Johan, thank you very much. I
appreciate you joining today's episode, and thanks very
much for your fantastic insights.
(44:14):
You're very welcome, Sam Erik. Nice to talk
to you.
Well, thank you for tuning in to The
Social Hotelier.
If you enjoy this episode, please take a
moment to leave us your review.
You can do that. If you're listening to
our audio version, let's say in apple podcast,
just use your mobile device to put your
short review, or if you are watching this
(44:35):
on, let's say YouTube, I appreciate to give
us a thumbs up. And I don't mind
if you subscribe to this channel. The more
I guess I have, more subscriptions I have,
that gives me the chance to bring more
guests to this show. So and,
we have an incredible lineup of guests coming
up your way. So stay tuned for more
thoughtful, provoking conversations.
Until next time, take care and keep exploring.
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