Why Great Experiences Feel Effortless

2KW Bar & Restaurant, Adelaide

Several years ago, as a budding hospitality professional, I was fortunate enough to be part of the opening and first four years of trade of a trailblazing rooftop bar in Adelaide called 2KW.

It was the place I first really felt like I was part of creating something amazing, and the venue today still continues to go from strength to strength over a decade later.

I used to watch my manager come out into the venue every hour or two. He’d pick up the iPad which controlled music volume and walk through the venue, pausing in certain spots, getting a feel for the crowd and adjusting as necessary.

He so creatively referred to this as a “walk through.”

As I progressed to a management role, I focused heavily on doing these walk throughs with him, and it opened my eyes to the tiny nuances which can vary every day within a business and affect the customer experience.

The idea is that you gradually raise the volume and tempo of the music alongside the volume of the crowd, and what happens is it starts to create an energy shift, where the two work in harmony and build that amazing feeling you get when you’re in a venue and everything feels just right.

Reading a Room Without Words

I started to expand on this idea by watching people’s body language and subconsciously tapping into their senses. If people had closed body language, arms folded, that sort of thing, it meant the temperature was too cold and needed adjustment.

If you could see people leaning in too close to talk to each other, the music was too loud.

The impact of lighting was something I had never considered, but as the sun went down, the lighting needed to be dimmed in sync with the sunset, so it felt like an organic transition between day and night. You’d then continue lighting adjustments throughout the night, so by the time the bar turned into a dancefloor, it felt naturally more like a club.

You could actually control how long people stayed at the venue, and continued spending money, by tapping into their senses and creating an environment that felt fun, energetic, safe, comfortable.

The Job Nobody Wants

The next thing incorporated into my walk throughs was a bathroom check. Less than an ideal job, I know, but ensuring the bathrooms are clean, stocked with toilet paper, and any plumbing issues are reported immediately means every guest who uses your bathrooms has a far higher likelihood of liking your overall product, simply by having a nice experience when exercising their human right to relieve themselves.

I know if I was having an average meal somewhere and went to the bathroom and there was no toilet paper, it would certainly increase my likelihood of making a complaint.

The interesting knock-on of these walk throughs was that you always had a gauge on what was going on in the venue at all times. As it was a large space with two bar areas, a restaurant, booths and a private event space, it was important to keep a helicopter view at all times.

Watching people’s body language meant I could identify disgruntled customers and recover their experience before it was too late, slow or stop people drinking before they had to be cut off, know that the staff were all performing at their best, and divert guests between the bars to ensure there was an even service flow.

What Alchemy Means

I guess this is the first time I had really considered what I now refer to as alchemy, all those tiny individual ingredients which come together to create an outstanding overall experience.

It turns out the food and service are only 50% of the customer journey. It’s all of the things they don’t notice which add up to the rest.