Laura Goldwyn, the director of global food and beverage (F&B) marketing at the luxury hotel chain Mandarin Oriental, kicked off our chat with an anecdote about her retail experience when buying a suit for her wedding.
The in-store customer service at the shop, which Goldwyn did not name, was nothing out of the ordinary.
That changed, however, when she encountered a rather inconvenient mishap.
While making her way to the car, Goldwyn noticed the wheel of the pram she had been resting the suit on had rubbed against the suit bag, leaving black oil stains all over it.
Her local dry cleaner could not help due to the nature of the fabric.
When she returned the suit to the shop, an assistant – who had been in fashion for over 30 years – knew exactly how to fix the stains and offered to take it home and personally care for it.
“I burst into tears,” she said.
“It was a lot. And from that moment on, I will always buy suits from that brand. That level of personal service stays with you.”
Goldwyn now oversees the marketing and commercial strategy for Mandarin Oriental’s food and beverage business, focusing on the 250 bars, restaurants and event spaces across the company’s 45 hotels worldwide.
While the hospitality sector differs from retail, she believes all brands are ultimately aiming for the same goal she experienced with her wedding suit: “creating ultra-personalised, authentic experiences that make customers feel seen.”
The importance of customer experience
Guest experience comes first at the Mandarin Oriental, and there are four key factors that make up what an exceptional guest experience really means. For Goldwyn, there are four key factors that make up what an exceptional guest experience really means.
It starts with energy.
“The moment you step into a bar or restaurant, before you’ve tasted the food, sat down, or even really taken in the space, you feel whether there’s an energy there or not,” she says.
“A huge amount of our focus goes into creating that sense of vibe, and a lot of that comes down to our people.”
It is then about ensuring Mandarin Oriental’s people are obsessed with its guests and welcoming them as if they were coming into their own home.
“For us, our bars and restaurants are the soul of our hotels, so it’s critical that our people are the ones creating and circulating that energy. That’s probably the single most important thing.”
Then, of course, there is the product itself.
The Group ensures that the menus are exceptional and that the staff are genuinely proud of the food and drink they are putting out.
“Are we showcasing real craftsmanship in how a dish is plated or how a drink is poured? That pride shows up in everything, whether it’s celebrating local cuisine or pushing into more innovative, experimental territory in certain environments,” she says.
The final element, for Goldwyn, is anticipatory service, knowing what a guest wants before they have to ask for it.
“That means having a high level of emotional intelligence, understanding how guests move through our spaces and anticipating their needs in a way that feels intuitive rather than intrusive.”
The food and beverage sector itself acts as a marketing tool for Mandarin Oriental as it is often the first and most frequent touchpoint and therefore the main gateway into the brand.
For that reason, the customer journey must be flawless.
“The number of customers we touch through food and beverage is far greater than the number who stay in our hotels,” Goldwyn adds.
“Because of that, F&B becomes the voice and, I would argue, the soul of the brand.”
Loyalty – a huge focus for retailers – is built through focusing on the quality and long-term nature of customer experience at Mandarin Oriental.
“We have some really lovely anecdotal examples of guests who started their relationship with us through food and beverage.
“Maybe they first came for an anniversary dinner when they were newly married, and over time they’ve grown with the brand and are now some of our regular suite guests.
“That idea of people growing up with Mandarin Oriental is something I find incredibly exciting, and it really underlines the role food and beverage plays in shaping the long-term customer journey.”
The brand deliberately goes against traditional loyalty points programmes that competitors may adopt to move away from purely transactional engagement.
“For us, service is the real pillar of loyalty,” she adds.
“People come back because they’ve had an exceptional experience, and that’s usually because of a person they’ve connected with – someone who’s made them feel genuinely seen.
“Hospitality is naturally well-positioned to deliver that kind of experience, but I do believe retailers can do it too because I don’t think loyalty is fundamentally different across the two sectors at all.”
Events can also create memorable in-person moments for potential and pre-existing customers, but from a luxury hospitality point of view, Goldwyn feels that less value needs to be placed on creating events just to be present in the IRL space, and that more importance should be put on designing events where there is a true consumption moment that will genuinely resonate with consumers.
“You have to be thoughtful and make them value-driven. Why would someone actually want to come to an event? I think it’s about being very thoughtful about the what and the why first, and then making sure that the on-site experience is truly meaningful,” she says.
“Linking back to loyalty, people won’t come to the next event if you haven’t created something that really resonates with them because ultimately, you have to make sure it’s seen as a really good investment of their time.”
What marketers in retail can learn from Mandarin Oriental’s use of AI
It is no secret that generative AI has drastically changed customer expectations in the last few years.
For the hospitality sector and Mandarin Oriental specifically, Goldwyn believes consumers are expecting the same levels of personalisation, ease and speed that they receive from AI platforms.
“Because people can use those tools in their personal time to get things done, remove admin from their lives, and get instant answers, their expectations are changing,” she says.
“They’re going to expect a similar level of service from us. If we’re not keeping pace with what they can already do outside of our brand, then we have a problem.”
Goldwyn feels that consumers have become far less patient when it comes to digital experiences. Gone are the days of people trawling through brand websites and FAQs to find what they need.
“With in-person experiences, you still have a bit more room to play, but in the digital space, that patience level has dropped dramatically.”
While many Mandarin Oriental guests book online, the Group’s marketing team wants to ensure that when potential customers do engage with the brand online, the experience is as seamless as possible and caters to different types of customers.
“For us, it’s about applying the same rigour we bring to offline service to the online experience, so that we’re genuinely covering all bases,” she explains.
Zero-click search is also affecting online brand interaction. People are getting the information they need through AI chatbots and AI-powered search without landing on brand websites.
Goldwyn recognises that serving customers involves showing up in these moments with relevance.
“We’re spending a lot of time thinking about how we do that in a way that’s authentic, genuinely useful, and still maintains the integrity of the brand while staying visible and relevant.”
Mandarin Oriental’s credibility scores have become really predominant because AI agents have the capacity to scan far more results than a typical search, particularly reviews. For Goldwyn and her team this places even more importance on delivering exceptional experiences.
“We really have to make sure we’re delivering that, because everything is connected.
“If you’re falling down in one place, it will eventually make you fall down in another. I don’t think any of that is new – even in the offline world, that was still true – but now it’s moving faster across different channels.”
Goldwyn herself is fixated on the new SEO phenomenon, Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), and she recognises the ways in which generative AI is changing the marketing funnel.
She believes that AI has collapsed the funnel into one place.
“You now have awareness, consideration and conversion happening in one machine at the same time for one customer.
“So, as a marketer, figuring out what that means for your product and your brand is incredibly important right now.”
The technology is the biggest marketing evolution Goldwyn believes retail CMOs should be paying attention to right now.
While she says marketers should plan ahead or risk falling behind “very quickly”, Goldwyn does, however, feel the industry should still be really careful in charging ahead with using AI agents for customer service.
“In the luxury space, where the sales journey is high touch, it will be particularly interesting to see how AI will be implemented,” she says.
“If you’re spending £5,000 on a bag, for example, you usually want a lot more hand-holding and interaction than if you’re buying a £20 lipstick.”
There is still variation in how comfortable people are with using these tools.
Marketers have to remember that while AI is a high-growth and important area, not everyone will meet brands where they want them, Goldwyn warns.
“The fundamentals are still the same: understand your customers, meet them where they want to be met, and serve different segments appropriately.
“We can’t just get carried away thinking, ‘Gen AI is everything – we’ll close all our call centres.’ For some brands, that might work if they serve a very homogenous audience, but for others, it definitely won’t.”
For Goldwyn, while a lot is changing, the core of good marketing – understanding your customer, knowing what they need and what they are up to – remains fundamental.
“We still need experiences like the one I had with my wedding suit. We may just need to approach them in a slightly different way.”
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