Clare Muscutt talks about Employee Experience in CX with Carolene Méli, Ex Cirque du Soleil.
Episode #212 Show Notes
Clare Muscutt – host:
Hey, Carolene.
Carolene Méli:
Hi! So happy to be here.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Welcome, welcome. Welcome to all the listeners at home, as well. So, I’m so excited that you’re here because we’re going to have a conversation about how to use employee experience to drive customer experience, but you’ve got a really, really interesting background because you worked for Cirque du Soleil.
Carolene Méli:
Yes, I did. 10 years, 10 years…
Clare Muscutt – host:
10 years!
Carolene Méli:
… on the road, on tour with Cirque du Soleil all around the world.
Clare Muscutt – host:
That is absolutely incredible. So, I think the first question our listeners will be thinking is, ‘How did you end up joining the circus?’
Carolene Méli:
It’s a good question and always the first one, and as I look at your background and you have, ‘She loves adventure’ in the back, I very much resonate with that. I grew up travelling. I grew up in Australia, but neither of my parents are from Australia: my mother’s from New Zealand, and my father’s French. And so, there was always an element of travel, especially outside of Australia. They were huge travellers, and so they instilled in myself and my two sisters just this love of travel and curiosity about the world, and about different cultures, and languages, as well.
So, I grew up a gymnast; I was a gymnast for most of my life, actually. So, I always knew of Cirque du Soleil from that performance side. I was never anywhere near as good to be in that kind of an environment at Cirque du Soleil. But when I left school and I started studying at university – I did a science degree in nutrition, actually, which has nothing to do with what I do now, as a lot of people – but I started, as you do when you’re young, working hospitality jobs, and the way that Cirque du Soleil works is that each city that we go to, we hire local. So, our teams that are running the front of house, they’re all local for two main reasons: obviously, we want to support the community and the economy that we are going into and provide employment for them, but also, it’s very important that the guests are interacting with people that speak the same languages as they are. So, obviously, when you’re touring Australia, North America, everyone’s speaking English, but when you start getting into other territories such as Europe, Asia, it’s very important, obviously, that you’re changing countries every six to eight weeks, so you have to speak the language of the guests, which as a team of supervisors – there’s a team of 10 supervisors, more or less – and we run all the different business units within the front of house, and then we have our local teams through there.
So, that’s how I started in Brisbane, Australia. Cirque du Soleil came – they used to come every two years or so – and they came, and I worked in the bar, like I ran the bar, and it was the best. I always remember that first kind of gig with Cirque du Soleil because I had not a care in the world, just running the bar for this incredible show. Then, I travelled to a couple of cities with them. Eventually, I went back to university, but when they came back two years later, I did the same thing again, but I had the opportunity to apply for a full-time job, which at the time was the food and beverage manager on tour, and that began my kind of love affair and my entry into 10 years on tour with Cirque du Soleil.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Wow! And just thinking about what you said there about the languages, so for your guests being able to speak the language native to them, but then that would mean your teams would be made up of people that perhaps you didn’t speak their language, or…?
Carolene Méli:
Yeah, so they had to – the prerequisite was that they had to speak some form of English because that was our main communication language along with French because Cirque du Soleil is from Quebec. However, you know, in the local staffing agency, I’m sure the question was, ‘Do you speak English?’ and then the answer was, ‘Yes.’ I don’t think there was any further investigation into the language skills of the local staff, so we got the full array of language skills really from people that barely understood us all the way up to people that were fluent. In saying that, most of the supervisor teams, especially the ones that were touring in Europe, we all spoke at least two languages ourselves. So, between all of us, we were able to communicate.
It’s very interesting from a guest’s point of view – and I’ll give the example of Switzerland – you know, Switzerland’s a very interesting country because they have many languages that they work within. And so, I was running the VIP tent at the time, and I always did the announcements to say kind of, ‘There’s 10 minutes left. Make your way into the big top,’ or ‘Welcome to the VIP.’ And at the beginning of each service – so, we would open one hour before the show – and as the guests were coming in, I would be in contact with my door guys, the ones at the door scanning the tickets, giving the lanyards, to see what was the majority, what was the language majority in the tent that evening. And then, we would do the announcements based on that. So, if there was a lot of French speakers, we would do a French and English; if there was a lot of Swiss German speakers, we’d do German, English; if it was just a huge mix, we’d do all three languages, English, French, Swiss German, and then it was just an announcement that went on forever. But that was the case a lot of the time is being very aware of all these different languages coming in and out, and I personally loved it. It was very fulfilling from that point of view.
Clare Muscutt – host:
And I guess with language difference, also I guess comes cultural difference. So, a Quebecan/English-speaking production company working all around the world with different languages, I guess from an employee perspective, an employee engagement perspective, did you come across many cultural challenges in being able to understand each other that went beyond language?
Carolene Méli:
All the time! And I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m in the position I am and I’m able to share a lot of expertise and help my clients and people that I work with because I was put in the situation where every six to eight weeks, I was basically in a new language or culture, and some of course are very similar, but some are very different.
So, I would know when I was working in a Belgian city, when I was in Belgium, I would know that for the most part, my guests would arrive on time, they would be very well-behaved, if you want to say that, and it would be almost a little bit quiet, the atmosphere. If I’m in Spain, it’s almost the complete opposite: it’s very lively; it’s very loud; there’s a lot of people coming last-minute. And so, that’s just two examples of really different, from a behavioural and cultural point of view, that you just kind of learn as you go and get used to. And then, in Russia – I was in Moscow for three months – and my staff did not speak English at all, like at all! And my Russian extends to about 10 words.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Mine too.
Carolene Méli:
I had a translator with me at all times, and so even in terms of leading a team, that was very challenging for me because I didn’t have the automatic kind of visual feedback that I would get if I was kind of cracking a joke in my meeting. You know, I would crack the joke, laugh at myself, and then wait for it to be translated, and then they would laugh.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Brilliant.
Carolene Méli:
So, it was the strangest, strangest experience. I mean, it taught me a lot about communication, you know, and about patience and about being very intentional with how you speak with the staff and also, I was able to be very aware and watch their reaction because I was not watching their reaction to me and what I was saying; I was watching the reaction to the translator. And hopefully, she was translating everything that I was saying, but I just had to trust her in that. So, it was a very interesting process, back and forth, of constant learning, you know?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, a lot of adaptability, as well.
Carolene Méli:
Absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
It just made me think of two things. I did a talk once in Poland, and it was a very similar situation: everyone was wearing headsets, and I was being translated. So, that feeling of like cracking a joke, and then a couple of seconds later…
Carolene Méli:
It’s the strangest experience.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, so, so, so, so strange.
So, let’s talk about the guest experience, then, at Cirque du Soleil. So, I first went to Cirque du Soleil for Quidam 20 years ago when they arrived in Manchester, and I remember it being very special, very spectacular. There was so much – I can’t think how to describe it. I didn’t know what to expect when I went, but I knew the name of Cirque du Soleil, but every moment of the show, I remember being absolutely amazing. And all the stuff that was going on kind of around the show very much stayed within the theme. And then, in 2016, on the way back from Burning Man, we stayed in Vegas and we saw – I can’t remember the name of that – but it’s the permanent one that was fixed in Vegas. And again, I just remember it was really special.
So, in terms of how Cirque du Soleil is organised and orchestrated – obviously, there’s the stuff that’s going on on the stage – what is the guest experience like around that? And how do they design that?
Carolene Méli:
Yeah, so there’s many elements at Cirque du Soleil, for example you have the Vegas shows, like you said, that are permanent fixtures that are in hotels. Me personally, I always worked on tour, so I always worked with the big top. It was a very interesting process because we were almost – if you think almost like a traditional circus – we were subjected to all the elements that were, you know, the weather, the local community, the actual location of the tent within the city: sometimes we were in not a very safe space at all; sometimes we were in the city centre, which meant parking was an absolute nightmare; sometimes – I remember in New York City – you know, we just had constant issues with the trains being cancelled and a lot of people arriving late. So, that’s the first element is that you’re very much at the mercy of the space around you and the city around you, and you have to learn very quickly how to adapt. When we’re in stadiums, sometimes we’re in the car park of a stadium, then you have to – they do a lot of pre-work, the marketing team, with the stadium because if the show is on at the same time as like a football match for example, that’s just…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Chaos.
Carolene Méli:
… a disaster waiting to happen. So, that’s the first element of it. And then the second is, like you mentioned, the goal was always to have the entire experience from the moment that they walked through the gates the same level of service and of wonderment as the actual show itself.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Wonderment! That’s the right word: wonderment.
Carolene Méli:
There you go! The majority of people are going to enjoy the show to some extent, right? There of course are a couple of people that don’t, but for the most part, it’s an incredible experience that people will remember for many years to come, just like you have alluded to. So, it really started from that first moment, whether you went to the box office or the security going through, how can we bring that magic of Cirque du Soleil into those different elements? And so, that was always one of our biggest challenges.
And me, in particular, for the most part, I was running the VIP experience, and so my goal with the VIP experiences was always, ‘How can we make the VIP so great that they’re going to talk about the show, but they’re also going to talk about the VIP?’ It’s achievable, but it’s a very high standard to try and match the level of experience that someone will have at the actual show itself. So, that was always the goal, and we were always working a lot with our head office in Montreal and for me in particular with my local staff because I think often, a lot of people underestimate the expertise and the value that local teams can actually bring to an experience because they’re used to working in such environments. They’re used to working with these kinds of guests. And they have a lot of different insights that you…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, of course.
Carolene Méli:
… even if you’re the leader – me, I was never local to any of the places, even if I had repeated the cities many times; there’s a couple of cities I did three, four times – but again, it was that local kind of insight and ideas that actually helped me really propel the VIP experience forward. So, we were almost working together in this kind of local–leader dynamic, which was really amazing. It was a great experience to have that element thrown into the mix, as well.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Okay, so, then thinking about the employee experience, then. So, we’ve run across some challenges, as you’ve said, you know, they’re temporary roles, being led by somebody who perhaps doesn’t understand your culture and your language… there’s some risks there, isn’t there, for like disengagement potentially? So, what kinds of things did you do at Cirque du Soleil to engage these teams as you arrived and throughout their experience of working for you?
Carolene Méli:
So, the first thing was to understand the motivation behind the staff, and depending on the city or country culturally, it was very different kinds of demographics that we would get working for us. So, in some places, it would be very much these young students; this was like their part-time job just for a bit of extra cash. They love Cirque du Soleil, and they were young, as well; they were like 20 years old. Other cities, even countries, this was their third job, they had four kids, you know, they cared about the pay cheque. They didn’t care about Cirque du Soleil necessarily, or that magic of Cirque du Soleil was not what bought them here; what bought them here was they were going to get paid. So, that was, for me, very important to really understand what was the motivation behind these guys? Because then, that was how I would lead them. It would help me lead them in a way that was going to almost be successful for the entire experience.
And I have many examples of – for example, I rolled out an incentive programme in the merchandise boutique to help reach our sales goals and to help reach our kind of costs per head, and I created this, and it was amazing. The staff loved it. We were just – it was so great. It was like this fun – every day, we were like checking the results, and it was just this incredibly competitive, fun environment. I was so hyped about this project, the next city I took it to, which was a new country, it completely bombed. They hated it. They absolutely hated it. They didn’t want to be kind of pitted against each other. They wanted to have no part of it. So, myself as the leader trying to lead an experience for the employees, that was my constant reality is that sometimes, I would create something incredible and be like, ‘Wow! I’m so good at this. This is awesome. This is one of the best things I’ve ever created.’ And then, I would try and roll it out in a new culture, a new language, a new environment, and it wouldn’t work at all. So, it was a really interesting learning curve, like how can I really show up for these employees to help them perform? Yet, there’s so many different unexpected elements that are going to be thrown at me that I need to consider.
So, for me, it was really important from day one, and my training was about a two to three-hour training, and then we would have the premiere of the show. So, in terms of onboarding, this was quick. So, I really focused on onboarding around really bringing this excitement, this magic, this ‘This is what the guests are coming for. This is what we are. We’re a part of this experience. We’re a part of an evening that potentially will live on in the guests forever.’ And that was always my angle to get into almost like the minds, the imagination of my staff and to help them that feel that ‘Wow, we’re part of creating the most incredible, magical, memorable experience.’ And then, based on the feeling that I got from them, that would kind of dictate, then, how I would move forward. But to be honest, it was always different. I had to be very adaptable, I had to be very quick, and I had to really communicate really effectively with these teams no matter what the language barrier was to make sure that from day one, I was able to give them an incredible employee experience.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Now, how many people are we talking about on a team?
Carolene Méli:
So, each city, we would hire 100 to 150 employees, and they would work across numerous teams from the janitors to the bar to the VIP to the box office, and so my team, depending on what area that I led, it could be a team as small as five to six people; the biggest teams that we had were 40 people or so.
Clare Muscutt – host:
And did you get much say in the recruitment, or did you – that bit was done before you had a say?
Carolene Méli:
So, we always partnered with a recruiting agency. By the end, we had some global partnerships. So, what was really interesting about that was that the global partnerships that we had with hiring agencies, they really knew us: they knew Cirque du Soleil; they knew what we wanted. A lot of the time, our focus was, ‘We want to hire personalities; we don’t care about their skillset,’ because we can teach anyone how to use a cash register; we can teach anyone how to fold shirts; we can teach anyone how to check tickets and rip tickets; what we cannot teach is that environment, that how are they going to add value as a great personality? And, you know, this is Cirque du Soleil, people coming know that they’re going to get an experience that is going to be high energy, so that’s what we always looked for.
In cities where potentially we were working with a hiring agency for the very first time, that was always a huge challenge because all of the lead-up was us on the phone talking with our new partners, but until they actually came onsite and saw it for their own eyes, it was very hard to describe. So, often, we would invite them to the city before, the previous city, to come and experience a night at Cirque du Soleil and then they’d be able to go around, and we would show them the different business units, ‘Okay, here’s the food and beverage team. Here are the bars,’ or ‘This is the VIP.’ Once they were able to make that connection between all of the information that they had been receiving for months and the experience itself, then usually it was quite a seamless process after that. But it’s very hard to describe sometimes, you know, you have to really – you take for granted that it’s a very easy thing to grasp, but if you’ve never been to a show…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah!
Carolene Méli:
… or if you’ve never even – sometimes, they hadn’t even heard of Cirque du Soleil; this was their first introduction. So, then, it was a big challenge to kind of get those teams the way that we wanted them from day one because, like you mentioned, they’re very short – we’re talking about short-term teams here. Sometimes, it’s five weeks; the biggest, the largest is usually three months. But that’s a very short amount of time to train and get these guys ready to go and providing great experiences every single night for thousands of people.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah. I think when I’ve experienced something similar, it would be like Christmas temps. So, when businesses take on a huge amount of people for a very short period of time, but there’s a limited amount of time to train them, to get them engaged. Like you said, the motivation is probably different: students wanting to earn a bit of money over Christmas, say, or perhaps older people coming out of retirement to help out. And some of the challenges in being able to get people onboard at pace is tough, and I think with something like Cirque du Soleil, as you say, if you don’t know it, and you’re not kind of enamoured by it already – so, obviously me seeing it 20 years ago, I was so excited to speak to you because it’s something that’s stayed in my mind for that amount of time as an experience.
Carolene Méli:
Of course.
Clare Muscutt – host:
But I thought it was really interesting to say, like, getting them to come and experience it as a guest themselves first to feel that magic is such a great way to demonstrate that and to get the buy-in, I guess, initially, right?
Carolene Méli:
Yes, and…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Where you could do that.
Carolene Méli:
… I used that strategy myself. So, whenever I was feeling complacent, whenever I was like, ‘I’m over this. Just… oof,’ I would actually go and step into the big top, and I wouldn’t watch the show necessarily because I would have seen it many, many times, but I would watch the guests. The feeling that it gave me, it was almost like a renewal because I would watch them, and I would see their eyes widen or they’re gasping for air as they see something crazy happen before them, or in the clown parts laughing their heads off and hearing the sounds of children laughing. And sometimes, I would take for granted what an incredible experience it was. And so, I used that strategy myself: I would come on my night off and enter the front just like a guest would and go through the whole experience. And A, that brought that energy back for me personally, but it also allowed me to walk through the experience as a guest, and I was able to correct a lot of things, even just the next night after that, based on that.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, so like, passive wonderment. I like that.
Carolene Méli:
Exactly! It’s like a secret shopper, but everybody knew who I was, you know?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carolene Méli:
All the staff, anyway.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, I guess, why did you leave?
Carolene Méli:
Yeah, I mean, look, 10 years on tour, it’s a very long time. In total, it was 17 countries and over 50 cities and changing every two months or so. And for me, personally, I just felt like I had outgrown the roles that I was in, you know? And I didn’t see the next step for me within that company. When I was on tour, I was always creating my own – almost like at school – extracurricular activities, where I would create leadership workshops because we had a lot of young staff, right? And a lot of times, maybe it was their first job, or if we hired them as an assistant or a team leader, maybe it’s the first time they’ve ever been in a leadership position. So, I really took that upon myself to say, ‘Okay, these young guys, even though we’re with them for a short amount of time, there’s so much potential that we can actually have an influence on them, and we can impact them in a positive way so that when they leave this job, we can leave them with something that is going to help them in their next position.’ That was always my goal no matter what my teams were.
So, I was doing that on my own because I was kind of bored in a way, you know? Even though we were traveling, and we were moving, and we had different teams and different guests, when it comes down to it, I was doing the same job every day, just in different departments, in different environments. So, after a while, it was time for me to leave, but it is such a huge part of my story and one – I’m sure you can tell and the listeners can tell – that I absolutely love talking about and I always will. It was an incredible experience to be a part of for sure.
Clare Muscutt – host:
And have they been affected by Covid, I guess, this year?
Carolene Méli:
Oh yeah, they got completely wiped out. It was actually very interesting at the beginning of this year, I was with Cirque du Soleil in Sevilla in Spain, and we were transferring to Lyons in France, and we didn’t know what was going to happen. And we finished the city with, ‘Hm, okay. I think maybe something may happen in Lyons. We’re not really sure,’ but we went ahead as usual. And then, I had five days off in between the two cities, and day two, we got told that it was completely shut down: there would be no more Cirque du Soleil. It was really very devastating, actually, because it’s not just a job, like you live there…
Clare Muscutt – host:
A lifestyle…
Carolene Méli:
… it’s your livelihood. Yeah, you are a part of that life, you know? So, I actually ended up spending the whole four months of lockdown in France with the tiniest carry-on suitcase ever. I had about six items of clothing. I didn’t even have my laptop. Like, it was the most incredible minimalistic journey, if you will. But yeah, so Cirque du Soleil unfortunately really got wiped out because they could no longer perform any show pretty much in the entire world, and they kind of dropped like flies one after the other. Now, they’re on the mend, and they’re on the way back, but it was a really shocking thing to go through for us because the shows…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Your life.
Carolene Méli:
… rely 100 per cent on the guests, right? There’s no other way around it; there’s no other way of, ‘Oh, let’s create a different kind of experience where we’re going to charge our guests.’ That’s the experience, the live experience. So, yeah, like other live experiences, it took a huge hit, but hopefully they’ll be back within 2021.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, I hope so. And then, I think my final question is just really around having such a transient lifestyle must be quite difficult personally. How has it been being able to, I suppose, fashion a life where you feel like you’ve got some grounding? With having travelled all over the world, obviously there’s the glamour and the excitement, and you said you got a bit tired of that. How did that feel?
Carolene Méli:
Lockdown for me has been interesting because it’s made me really realise that I need a base, you know, and I’m yet to have that. I’m currently living in Montenegro, but it is a very – I’m still transient. I actually have a storage unit in Bordeaux in France, and I call that my apartment. The guys that work the front desk – I mean I haven’t been back for a while because of lockdown – but I joke that they must think I’m a spy or something because I’ll always arrive with a different suitcase, and then I’ll potter around in there for maybe an hour, and then I’ll leave with a different suitcase, maybe I’ve even changed my clothes. So, they must be thinking, ‘What on earth is this girl doing?’ But that’s basically been where I’ve stored my belongings. For me, it’s been – it’s kind of normal for me. Moving so much, it’s very, very normal for me, and I do love it very, very much. I can’t – usually, when I get to about four months in one place, I start to get jittery…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Itchy.
Carolene Méli:
… I start to get, ‘Ugh!’ And I know that I need to get that out of me. At one point, I’m going to have to stop moving so much, but it’s a huge part of my life. For me, it’s kind of a normal day-to-day thing. Even this year, throughout 2020, I started the year in Spain, then I was in France, then I was in Greece, and now I’m Montenegro. So, I’m…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Still doing it.
Carolene Méli:
… travelling, not necessarily for the vacation side of things, you know, I am working; I’m working remotely. For me, it’s very normal, and it’s not that normal for a lot of other people, so I love having those conversations about what that actually looks like, but I love it. I absolutely love it. It gives me so much energy. It keeps me curious, you know?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah.
Carolene Méli:
I’m in Montenegro right now, and man, there are some crazy things here that I never would have expected to – as I was talking to you – there’s no Amazon here. So, me trying to get anything is very, very challenging. The language is different. I don’t know any of the language at all except for a couple of words. There’s a lot of different customs and traditions here, so it’s just this constant evolution of being curious, and learning, and then being thrown into a new place, and then learning more. And that’s just how I live my life, and I absolutely love it.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, I did 25 countries in two years before lockdown because I was living as a digital nomad, and I miss it so much as well. But that constant change and adapting to your environment, I love that, and the different cultures and the experience, so I completely understand why you want to live that way. And I miss it, and I can’t – I want to go back.
Carolene Méli:
I think for me, the way that I almost stay sane, if you will, is really around daily routines: no matter where I am in the world, I have a morning routine. When I was at Cirque du Soleil, I was living in hotel rooms, so I would always have some things in my suitcase that I would kind of put up around the place, whether it was some lights or some pictures or something. So, my number one goal, no matter where I live – whether it’s an Airbnb or a hotel – is to always come in and actually just make it feel a little bit like it’s where I live…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah.
Carolene Méli:
… even though I don’t live there. So, yeah, that’s been key for me, and that’s my number one piece of advice for people who travel so much is try to create a little bit of structure within that chaos of constantly moving, and I think that’s been the key for me in thriving in such an environment.
Clare Muscutt – host:
No, that’s awesome. So, what’s next for you then? What are you doing in the next few months?
Carolene Méli:
Yeah, so now, very exciting times for me. It’s a really – and I’m sure you’ve gone also through this process this year – is how can I take all the skills and the expertise and all of the passion that I have and turn it into something that I can then offer as a value package? And that’s what I’m doing right now.
And it’s been a journey of, you know, six months working, ‘Okay, how do I want to create this next step for me?’ And what I realised is I really want to focus on creating experiences, creating exceptional experiences, and I call myself an experience strategist, so I really work all the way from guest experience to employee experience. And what I’ve found here, for example, in Montenegro has been a really interesting lesson for me because I was very much focused on the physical experience and the guest experience side of things, and what I realised here… the staffing culture here is not the best. It seems very – there’s not a lot of excitement around jobs, I don’t think. It’s just kind of, ‘Ah, we do this to live,’ which is obviously a reality in some countries.
But what I found through that is, what I learnt very quickly is you could have the most incredible experience on offer, but if your teams aren’t able to execute on that, if they aren’t able to bring the energy to that position, you’re never going to be able to have that vision, the experience, the way that you want it to be. So, that’s when I started to focus, as well, on that employee side of things, as well, because I see it on a day-to-day basis here. So, kind of marrying the two. So, that’s why I love to work specifically with companies that have short-term teams – obviously, from all of those years of running with running with teams for five to eight weeks – to really creating that experience, so really understanding how the guest actually journeys through the experience. And my focus is on creating micro-moments because if we take Cirque du Soleil show, for example, there’s going to be one defining moment in that show. I’m sure when you watched Quidam 20 years ago – and by the way, that was the first show I worked on, as well…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Ah, no way!
Carolene Méli:
We have that in common.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I didn’t say it right. So, it’s Quidam rather than ‘kwee-dam’. Sorry, my French is awful. Carry on!
Carolene Méli:
That’s okay. It’s a Latin word. It means like a passer-by.
Yeah, so in a show, there’s going to be a defining moment for everyone, and it’s going to be different for most people, of course. There could be this one like ‘wow’ moment, but for the most part, people are going to connect with a different part of the experience. And so, a lot of the work when I’m working with clients and I’m working with companies, that’s what I focus on: how can we create the most amount of opportunities throughout the experience for these defining moments to happen?
So, a lot of times, I believe that we focus too much on the main event, you know, the big thing, we put all the money and the focus onto that, yet all of the leading up to that and what happens afterwards is a lot of the times forgotten about. And this is where I see that disparity, and if we can actually create that same level across the entire experience from A to B, the opportunity for a defining moment for a guest will be elevated so much more, and so that’s really what I’m focused on. So, that’s what I’m doing right now as an experience strategist working in that way.
I’ve just launched, also, a YouTube series called ‘The Experience Creators’…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Nice!
Carolene Méli:
… and the reason I did that was because I don’t want to lose that magic of how incredible an experience can be. And obviously this year in 2020, there’s a lot of isolation, there’s a lot of negativity, and that idea of live experiences has been removed in a way. And so, this is almost a way to celebrate incredible live experiences around the world, and so The Experience Creators is all about interviewing those that create incredible experiences for their audience.
So, I’ve just launched that now, and that’s such an amazing way to bring that back to life, to bring that magic back into experiences while we’re all kind of sitting here in this bit of a ‘blah’ state, if you will.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah. Yeah, no, I get you. So, thanks so much for coming on the show. I think you gave so many great insights that are relevant and applicable to multiple industries. And I think if I was going to summarise what I heard from you, it’s listening to your employees, being able to adapt to what they need from you is critical in creating experiences. The last point that you made about identifying where those moments of opportunity are for both employees and customers to create some magic that will engage them beyond the functional stuff in a world where – you’re absolutely right – in the last year, it’s become very practical. It’s going to come back, these live experiences, and how we can engage employees to the best of our abilities, so they feel like they want to bring the magic to the customers is absolutely what it’s all about.
So, thank you so much for coming on the show. I can’t wait to tune into your new YouTube series, and we’ll make sure we put some links to it in the newsletter, as well, to help you get some new followers hopefully.
Carolene Méli:
Thank you so much, Clare. This has been an awesome conversation. I’ve loved it.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yay! I can’t wait to see what you do next. And thank you to all the listeners, as well. We’ll see you next week. Bye!