Sitting with an Alumnus Interview with Simon Bernhard, AEHL 2016

Please introduce yourself.

SB: Absolutely, my business partner, Meagan Cederbaum, and I are EHL alumni, with both having worked in hospitality before doing EHL and, more specifically, in operations. This is to say, we have the hospitality DNA deep in our blood.

We decided to go to EHL because we had high internal expectations to learn at the highest level in an international environment. Our main motivation has always come from a deeply-rooted passion to serve and to feel the energy creating memorable experiences for people.

Can you talk about MIMO Hospitality and the need for this concept?

SB: MIMO Hospitality is an abbreviation that stands for ‘micro moments’. We can’ take credit though as we believe this term was first coined by Google a while ago.

In a Google context, micro moments are the sum of all of those touchpoints which, together, create a cohesive brand and customer experience.

After university we had the chance to work in tech for multiple years, designing cohesive customer journey's on a daily basis. These same principles apply to restaurants. Imagine you’re a customer looking for a restaurant to celebrate a special occasion. You move through different stages. Every stage might seem small at first - but, put together, it creates a unique brand experience.

When we design our concepts, we always start with the bigger picture. We call it a brand-map, where we outline the different steps of a sequence of a customer-journey which ultimately give us a service-blueprint we use to optimize the parts that need most attention. It allows you not to lose yourself in details and to focus on what really matters. E.g. how you present yourself in the digital space has a significant impact on the perception of your brand to your targeted segments.

As you may know, the buyer journey is made up of different stages. Consider the awareness stage, for example. How present are you in the digital world, or even how easy is it to find and to book your restaurant?

But a brand perception is not only shaped in the digital world but also in physical spaces. For example, how the tables are presented, how guests are greeted, etc. All of these can (and should) be seen as important touchpoints.

Consider: how is the food brought to the table? How were you greeted in a given restaurant?

How do you ensure every customer feels welcome upon arriving at your restaurant (even those who don’t have a reservation).

User journeys cannot only be designed for your business, but also for your employees. In a peoplefirst industry, it becomes incredibly important to understand how to shape culture which facilitates the distribution of the service. You cannot be in the business 24/7 - it’s culture that allows you to step back and empower your employees instead.

So the question is: how can you design culture and an employee experience that allows for that interaction and that moment of delight.

The solution is simple. When we look into different touch points, we consider the process, tools, and people. Holistic brand experiences are incredibly hard to achieve, but set you apart if you’re able to design them well, both in the digital and in the physical space. Bringing this mindset to hospitality is the reason we found MIMO Hospitality.

How do these micro-moments highlight the essence of hospitality, both in the physical and digital world?

SB : Great question. Both need to happen together, they cannot operate in silos.

First, there is a brand and a brand experience that you foresee. Then, you have to map all of those steps.

Let’s say you have a super nice website that is communicating with extremely thoughtful pictures and copywriting. If that is not matched in the physical world, then you have a disconnect and that might create question marks in your customer's mind. People don’t like to be surprised in a negative way.

So the borders start to blur, but you cannot disconnect one from the other; both worlds need to harmonize together. And how they harmonize is with technology. To us, technology is an enabler to create more human-centered interactions because it allows you to gather and read data in an easier way.

For example, we work with a CRM software that automatically acts as a reservation system. This means, we know exactly how many times a person came to our restaurant and their preferences (via POS Data matching), so we can get very personal. We know exactly what type of items they ordered before, what type of wine they had, if they have allergies, etc.

This knowledge is great because you can then start to personalize the experience. But keep in mind that it’s always the human being that needs to interpret it. This is why culture is important. If your staff does not know how to interpret this data, its worthless. Knowledge needs to be shared and implemented, within the critical touchpoints.

The reservation system is another great example of how human-centered design can improve the overall brand-perception. If you’re unable to create a cohesive website architecture, it might be very difficult for potential guests to book a table. The more clicks you have, the higher the chance that new clients will churn.

Now, let's think about physical space. What we do, for example, is that we always give something extra that people don't expect. Those are the little things that can propel you forward and together as a team (we help define what this ‘extra’ will entail).

We have adopted this term called accounting hospitality. It's very similar to something that Ritz Carlton has done in the past, but we're currently doing it on a restaurant level.

In short, this means that each employee has a certain budget that they can invest as they see fit. What we do as a company is to create the environment to facilitate the decision making on how to best invest that budget. We have pre-shift meetings where we skim through CRM data checking if people are celebrating a special occasion, how many times they dined with us before and whether we need to apply special attention to their stay. Imagine you are greeted like this: “Welcome Mr-Gautier. We have table number 7 already prepared for you. Would you like to start with a Negroni like last time?”.

In conclusion, the combination of physical and digital creates a brand experience. This is to say, your brand is not a logo, it's not a design. Rather, it's what your customers and your employees are saying about your organization.

We want to change the way hospitality is experienced for both employees and customers. During our time as product managers at Hospitality Digital, we conducted more than 700 interviews with restaurants all over Europe.

Combined with our previous experience in operations, we know how easy it is to get distracted by daily operational hurdles and to lose sight of the bird's eye view. At the end of the day, there's a macro trend and a worldwide staff shortage, accentuated by the pandemic. People don't want to work in hospitality anymore. Be it because of the long hours, the pay, not being able to work remotely, etc.

It's our responsibility to change that perception. This is the impact that we want to have with MIMO. We want to be perceived as an organization where service and hospitality are celebrated and where we can truly appreciate the feeling of serving people, gaining energy and value from that exchange. That's the impact we want to have.

How do you see that unwinding in the future and what are the trends to expect in the near future?

SB: Look at everything that is happening in technology. Of course, you should aim to look at this problem from a lens of culture and how the organizational culture is shaped within businesses, even at the small level. AI is taking the world by storm now. It's funny that it has only just recently gained attraction by a wider audience. Working in tech we were exposed to the power of it well before it became mainstream. To me, this is something that hasn't been properly touched upon in hospitality yet, but it will definitely be the case.

I believe that, in the next year, combining automation softwares like Zapier, and documentation software like Notion, will help share and store information centrally. This helps distribute and make critical information readily available to the entire organization, which is critical.

Of course, ChatGPT is also gaining popularity and very relevant. Turn the situation around and consider using this technology not being scared of it. It can certainly be used to your advantage. I see incredible potential in replacing overpriced agencies and empowering individuals to overcome writers block.

Ensuring that the data is exchanged in meaningful ways is key. Working with CRM software allows you to collect data on your guests to increase the level of personalization. The more you're able to personalize a guest experience, the more likely you’ll be going to have a positive impact on an individual.

At the end of the day, we’re all humans. We all have an ego and we respond passionately when we're touched on an emotional level. And hospitality is all about how well you're communicating with your guests. Your guests must feel like you know them. Technology is a fantastic enabler for that. And then, on the organizational cultural side, consider how you can create an environment and habits around your organization. This is especially important if your audience is built up of millennials and especially GenZ. These segments want to make a positive impact on the world. They want to create.

To be successful, you need to really understand why you are in business, what is your purpose, and what are your set of values that you want to transmit to your employees? If you're not doing that, you're missing out on two generations that are seeking impact.

And I say this with all my heart, it's our responsibility to make hospitality attractive again and to think about alternative ways and models. Currently, I see the gap between what is happening in technology and the battle for talent.

Can you share the most memorable moment that you had during your period at EHL?

SB: It's so cliché to say it, but the grad trip was incredible. It was such an impactful experience.

And that's what EHL taught us, right? To stick together and stay in touch, making sure that we're always going to be attached in the long run to the school. It was such a beautiful way to end an experience where you had group work, you had fights, you cried, you laughed together.

And also to work on an SBP where I got the opportunity to shift into tech and discover this new passion. I never thought that I’d go into tech when I was in EHL.

The fact that I got this opportunity was absolutely fantastic and it's all thanks to the SBP. That was probably one of the most rewarding experiences, professionally. It’s such a great concept to learn something and pass it on to help others also grow. That's a unique and beautiful feeling.

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