Innovation is creating new customer experience (CX) benchmarks

It's no longer the case that your location-based entertainment customers will be comparing their experiences with you to those of your out-of-home (OOH) entertainment competitors. Instead they'll judge you based on the best customer experience they receive anywhere, whether at IRL brick-and-mortar businesses or their screen-based digital experiences. Customer expectations have been elevated by the glut of choices available today. Innovation in customer experience across the entire spectrum of consumer businesses has a ripple effect that impacts all industries and raises the stakes, raises the bar for all businesses.

One area where many OOH entertainment venues fall far short of customer expectations is with food and beverage. Too many venues continue to operate with the snack/concession stand mentality. Based on the high quality and highly appealing food and drink even fast casual restaurants offer today, those OOH entertainment venues are now seen as inferior places to visit.

Another area where centers fall short is with the interior finishes and décor. Fast casual restaurants, moderately-priced hotels and most other consumer businesses have all raised the standard for design, finishes and overall ambiance.

OOH entertainment venues should no longer be benchmarking themselves against direct competitors, most of whom are behind the eight ball. They need to be striving for their own innovation of a total elevated customer experience based on today's customer high expectations.