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Beyond the Game: Elevating the Customer Experience
72 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we are joined by Justin Wood and Gabrielle Klockau at Dimensional Innovations, as they discuss
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Transcript
Introduction to Dimensional Innovations and Podcast Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
This week on the Facility Playbook we got to sit down with Justin and Gabrielle from Dimensional Innovations and we were down at their headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas just outside of Kansas City Metro and what's really cool about it is having this amazing company here in my hometown here of Kansas City and the things they do nationally and globally for companies like Disney, The Raiders, Sorry Chiefs fans.
00:00:20
Speaker
and all these really cool brands out there, including J. Rieger & Co., who we've also interviewed in the past, their focus on customer experience and everything that goes into the thought process and really helping the customer understand what goes into a customer experience without even knowing they needed it. So it was really cool to walk around their amazing facility where they have this giant 3D printer, printing things we couldn't tell you about, and all the way down to their design team and architecture. It was amazing to sit there and talk to them about the ideas behind customer experience. Hope you enjoy.
00:00:53
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Do you own or manage a facility while you are in the right place? Welcome to the Facility Playbook. I'm Luke Wade, founder and CEO of Facility Ally, and this podcast is about helping facility managers and owners learn from pioneers and veterans in the industry who have built and managed successful sports facilities, entertainment venues, and clubs.
00:01:12
Speaker
Did you know that most of those facilities I just mentioned use between four and six different softwares to manage their rentals, lessons, memberships, leagues, and more?
Introducing Key Guests: Justin Wood and Gabrielle Clockow
00:01:21
Speaker
Facility Ally to the Rescue. Revolutionize your facility with Facility Ally's all-in-one system. Learn more at facilityally.com. And today, we are in a giant facility, but not in a facility. We're here at Dimensional Innovations with Justin Wood.
00:01:36
Speaker
You're the principal and you're the director of sports practice, is that correct? And Gabrielle Clockow, one of the program directors. Thank you so much for joining us today, I really appreciate it. Before we jump in, will you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to DI?
Personal Journeys at Dimensional Innovations
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, let me go first Gabrielle.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So I went to school at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and really was interested in manufacturing technology, have a degree in furniture design, and I looked for a job everywhere. And I loved all the work that DI was doing and just all their cool projects that they were doing. So I was really interested in working here. And now I've been here for 10 years.
00:02:14
Speaker
Oh wow. That's awesome. Congrats. I'm feeling super old. I came to know DI about 20 years ago. I'm coming up on 19 years and I got to know DI when my previous company was hired to do some large-scale water features and at one of our
00:02:33
Speaker
theaters down in the Caribbean, down in Calgos, Puerto Rico. So I went down there, spent about a month working alongside DI, got to know them a little bit, sold my company, came back here and quickly fell in love with DI and the rest is history. Well, 19 in 10 years, I think that speaks to how awesome it is to
Company Overview and Community Projects
00:02:52
Speaker
work here at DI. So maybe tell us a little bit about what is DI, how did it start, and what is it now?
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, we're an experienced design, build, and technology firm and we're very unique in our space in that we have, you know, designers and strategists all the way through engineers, all the way through implementers. Well, when I say implementers, you know, that's as builders, technologists, installers, etc. to really bring great brand activations into the built space.
00:03:19
Speaker
We work very heavily in sports, professional sports, collegiate sports, also retail, corporate storytelling, cultural entertainment, and a couple of other spaces. Yeah, and you guys, you've worked with some amazing companies. I've got a list here because that's how cool it is. You've got the Chicago Blackhawks, Denver Nuggets, Disney, Universal, Garmin, Jay Rieger. What are some of the coolest projects you've gotten to work on?
00:03:43
Speaker
Oh gosh, I think my favorite projects are the ones where we really get to be what I call of the community, where every facility should feel different. So an NBA facility in Los Angeles should feel different than an NBA facility in Atlanta or in Miami.
00:04:04
Speaker
and getting to get into those teams, getting to get in with our sponsors, working with the hospitality team, et cetera, to really bring those to life and make them feel like they belong to those fans, to that community is my favorite work for sure.
Creating Immersive and Relevant Experiences
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. Cause every fan's a little bit different, right? And so making sure you have something that kind of focuses on their experiences is really important. So do you have any favorites that you've worked on?
00:04:25
Speaker
I'm just thinking of the sports ones that I worked on. I loved working with the Vikings. We had a really amazing activation at US Bank Stadium where you can be the player. I think it was fun there. It started as kind of a traditional Hall of Fame experience.
00:04:42
Speaker
and evolved quickly into more of a, hey, let's get dirty and sweaty in here. Let's tell the story of the Vikings who are, by the way, very, very speaking of fans, very passionate fan base. How do you tell the story of the Vikings through engagement and experience, not just through looking at cases and looking at relics? You know, let's talk about a 40-yard dash. Let's talk about how high you can jump. Let's compare your handprint to some of the Hall of Famers, et cetera. Sure. You know, it's about making the experience just immersive.
00:05:12
Speaker
So today we're talking about elevating a customer's experience and I feel like that's all you do here is focus on the customer experience depending on the brand or company you're working with. Is there anything that you believe that customer experience boils down to? If you could put it into a couple senses, what do you believe that customer experience should mean to these facilities or these companies?
00:05:33
Speaker
I think what is becoming more and more important is what maybe I'll just say the word relevance. So everybody needs something different. And what were maybe a handful of offerings in customer experience, you know, let's talk about suites and premium offerings and, you know, whether it's a, whether it's a amateur or collegiate or professional venue.
00:05:58
Speaker
Not that many years ago, there were a small handful of offerings for what you could have if you wanted to pay extra for a premium experience. Now those offerings are almost infinite. We laughed at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles how there were 21 different premium offerings with different places, seven different VIP levels.
00:06:21
Speaker
you know, the ability to have exactly what you need for your experience to be awesome is what's becoming more and more important. So when you say options, you're maybe talking about like a suite, right? So maybe in the past, you used to just have, hey, we've got one suite, we've got 20 of the same suites here, and we've got 10 over here. And when you say the different offerings between VIP, can you maybe dive a little bit deeper into what that means exactly?
00:06:42
Speaker
Sure, it can be, you know, the size of the sweet, how many times a year you're going to use it? How many seats will be in it? Is it shared? What are the food offerings in there? Do you want to be all inclusive? Do you not want to be all inclusive? How do you make it when you're sharing a sweet with other groups? How do you make it feel like it's yours? So if you're taking your
00:07:06
Speaker
employees or team members to a game? How do you make them feel like this is their suite for the night, not just a suite?
00:07:13
Speaker
So in things like VIP, you may have to cater some things depending on whether you're going to have all-inclusive food or not. And some of that may change in the suite depending on those offerings. Yeah. That's awesome. Completely changes your experience. So a lot of these facilities, some of these sports facilities are either barely scraped by or they're just getting started. Why do you feel like it's important to invest in the fan experience?
Investing in Fan Experience and Historic Renovations
00:07:33
Speaker
It keeps them coming back. I think some of the leagues out there also are having a challenge with
00:07:41
Speaker
We'll say avidity. There are not the avid sports fans that there were in years past, and you're having to do other things. We didn't end up doing this project, but one of my favorite projects that I'm aware of, and we'll get to the tee real well on, was a project that the San Francisco Giants did, where they blew out, they had three suites at the end of their suite corridor that had a horrible view of the field.
00:08:07
Speaker
And they blew the walls out, turned it into a club, and the club was positioned strictly for people that wanted to be seen, see and be seen, but didn't care a lick about baseball. But they wanted to be at the games, they came to the games, they wanted a great food experience, they wanted a great social experience, but a lousy view of the field. I think you're seeing more of those kinds of experiences happen.
00:08:31
Speaker
So more about the experience than maybe the action that's going on at that facility. Yeah. Yeah. You still have to cater to the, to the, to the rabbit sports fan. There's certainly still out there, but, but I think it's becoming a more broad demographic these days. And there's just more distraction than there used to be in terms of what you can spend your time with, whether it's something like you're going to watch on your television or it's something like chicken and pickle or top golf. There are just lots of places to, um, spend your entertainment energy.
00:08:59
Speaker
these days and that's a great point you know top golf and chicken and pickle is an experience you know those things didn't exist i don't know how many years ago top golf but you know chicken and pickle is seven eight years old and so before that to your point it's like oh we could go to a baseball game we could go to a chiefs game we could go to you know x y and z and now it's top golf now it's chicken and pickle now there's so many other options jay reger um which is you know one of the facilities we had on this podcast i'd love to hear a little bit about that process and how jager you worked on that directly right
00:09:26
Speaker
I'd love to hear about how did that project come? Since you've been here for 10 years, it probably came in while you were here. And what was that like talking to them, coming up with that idea and maybe executing on it?
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, so they came to us for a full service solution. So we really designed, built out, and fabricated all of the elements for their historic renovation space. And we worked with historians. We wrote all of the content for all the panels. And then we fabricated them and installed them. So it was a really full service.
00:10:00
Speaker
experience for Jay Rieger. They had no idea what they wanted when they came in and then at the end we were able to deliver something really pretty full. That's awesome. Is that a bit of a challenge I feel like when somebody comes in and is like here's our idea but they have no idea what they want? Like maybe how do you hone that in to make sure it's a good experience?
Defining Success and Storytelling in Customer Experience
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think we have really talented designers that know how to ask the right questions and hone into how is this going to be successful. We ask them directly, you know, how are you defining success when when we're done with this project, we want you to feel like it's you've got return on investment. And so we're asking that directly at the beginning of the project and all the way through checking in with them. Hey, is this still on the right track? Are we still meeting your goals? Are we
00:10:44
Speaker
are we delivering this best experience that we can? That's awesome. I think that's one of the most important things that a lot of people don't ask is how do you define success? They just think we need this really cool history museum to tell our story. Well, what makes that successful? Or my favorite is start with why. If you don't know your why, then you kind of get taken off the track and you're never going to end up at the where you want it to be if you don't always know your why to come back to. So that's really cool. What was one of your favorite things about the Jay Rieger project that maybe you didn't know when it started, but it turned out to be at the end?
00:11:13
Speaker
I just loved working with Andy and Lucy. They're just awesome clients to begin with, but I learned a lot about, you know, the different spirits that they offer. We had some activations, kind of like photo ops, basically, for different of their liquor offerings, Gin and Cafe Maro, and just learning about what goes into making those. You know, they work with master distillers, and I had just no idea the depth of the
00:11:42
Speaker
experience that it takes to create liquor. That's a project that got away from me. I had to get buried in the world of sports and I did not get to participate in that one. It was just the opportunity to bring it back to life in that kind of way and be a part of that was really special for DI. They know how to do hospitality and
00:12:07
Speaker
client experience very, very well. We've done a couple of small group Christmas parties there where you're in the back room, you're surrounded by all the barrels. They do it very, very well.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yep. Yes, they do. And that's where we shot the podcast was in the battle room. I was like, can we do it in here? This place is awesome. So and to your point, storytelling, in my opinion, is one of the most important things that comes around customer experience. Is there anything that you would say to a facility how they should find that story to tell? Or when you're working with these new projects, is there anything you do to help them find that that customer experience story that they need to project?
00:12:39
Speaker
Storytelling to me is one of my favorite words that we use around this place. I think regardless of what the nature of the project that we're doing is, whether it's, you know, it could be a simple signage package, it can be a museum experience, it can be a Hall of Fame, you know, whatever it is, storytelling's at the root of it.
00:12:56
Speaker
I think the answer is be authentic. Back to that idea of being of your community and make sure you resonate with who's using you, who's coming into your facility and the use of the facility. I spend a lot of my day at youth soccer fields because of where I am in life. I know that when I go to the right facility who understands that
00:13:23
Speaker
Parents are held captive there for hours and hours, sometimes entire weekends, and they understand that, appreciate that, and then step up to it to give you a great experience, not only watching your kid play soccer for a couple of hours, but the rest of the experience as well is, I think, really, really important.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great point. I tell this story a lot when I talk about Hy-Vee Arena. When I grew up as a wrestler and I used to, you know, we'd go to wrestling meets and we'd sit in the stands with our family and we'd be eating out of a little cooler and nobody, everybody hated it. Your whole family didn't want to be there. You didn't want to be there except to wrestle. And so Hy-Vee Arena and places like that now have food and beverage and games and track and, you know, a haircut place. And so how do you make the experience? Because they're going to be there. They're going to come play. But how do you make it well, good enough so that they either spend more money or they enjoy their experience enough to come back more often?
00:14:11
Speaker
I find that really, really important. And one of the things I talked a lot of facilities about, I gotta ask about a 12 foot tall, 500 pound functional electric guitar. And did I hear right? Did you do it in five weeks? Is that accurate? Did you run that project? I didn't run it, but yeah, it was really tight. I don't know if you can see it. It's back over here, but
00:14:31
Speaker
It was produced very last minute as kind of the opening. We used the phrase wild moments, you know, hold my beer moments, whatever you want to call it, Instagrammable moments, but a place where you can stop, take a picture, or hey, meet me at the 12th of guitar. It was at the entrance to Boulevardia, lived there for a couple of years. It is playable, it is tuned and playable.
00:14:54
Speaker
We've got a guy in our technology department that can play play a whole song on it while holding a beer in the other hand is quite quite impressive. Yeah, that's amazing. And so to your to your point, it was at the front of a festival and that's I didn't even think about it being wayfinding. That's really, really cool.
Iconic Designs and Technological Capabilities
00:15:09
Speaker
But, you know, how did that project come to be? And how does, you know, a festival or how does a facility justify the cost of that? And what how are they looking at it? I'm always amazed.
00:15:18
Speaker
I am not a social media expert, but I'm always amazed at some of the elements that we have an opportunity to do here at DI and how much they show up in social feeds. You know, the number five out at the Royal's Hall of Fame, sometimes uses the word iconic place making or intuitive way finding instead of traditional signage. You know, and again, back to the nature of that, meet me at the blank and then the number of people you see taking their picture in front of some of these elements is just, I think that's how it's justified.
00:15:48
Speaker
So sometimes it's hard to quantify that but at the end of the day now you guys have some examples right so we built this guitar it would look how many exposure and impressions it's got and so maybe that's used a little bit but I always find it really hard to justify something like that especially when it just comes from an idea like we should build a giant guitar well what's it going to do how's it going to impact us you know those sort of things are really hard to see until it's in front of you and you see it so that kudos to boulevardia and you guys were able to accomplish something like that. Well I think every facility
00:16:14
Speaker
Most major facilities have some kind of element like that. The Atlanta Braves have their big baseball that hangs out in the battery. The Raiders have the giant torch. The power and light has the clock tower. There are a number of elements that are sort of these defining elements in that intuitive wayfinding that make a place.
00:16:36
Speaker
Can we talk about the torch? Sure. So you guys developed the Raiders torch, correct? We, uh, so, so mannequin architecture, also based here in Kansas City, mannequin architecture, conceived of it really as an anchor for the, for one of the end zones for Elysian Stadium. Um, well, the, the bowl sort of wraps around it and you've got one huge glass window looking out onto the Vegas strip and this kind of lives right in the middle of it.
00:17:02
Speaker
And was it 3D printed? I know we walked through earlier and you guys have this mega 3D printer and that's where it was made? Yeah, 3D printed right here, right here at DI. The design team came to us with a very, very unique challenge. It was an interesting geometry, very hard to make by any other traditional methods.
00:17:21
Speaker
We had never 3D printed anything near this large and we asked them to take a leap of faith with us, obviously proved it in baby steps along the way, but take a leap of faith with us that this was the best way to do this and it was going to create a great result. How did you get it out there? Lots of little pieces.
00:17:41
Speaker
Well, I have to say as a Chiefs fan to all you Raiders fans out there, your torch was built by Chiefs country. Don't forget. But yeah, thanks again for that. That's awesome.
Personalization and Technological Integration
00:17:50
Speaker
So looking to the future, what are some of the trends you see around customer experience? I think again, personalization, you know, giving people what they want to need and not assuming that everybody wants and needs the same thing. Is there an example of a project that you've worked on recently on where you can give like a specific example to where that made a difference?
00:18:08
Speaker
I can't think of one. There's a hospital that we recently worked with. Kids go in there for dialysis treatments and we were hoping to create a positive distraction for them. So we created this world avatars that they can build on their phone and basically drop into this world where you can pick out.
00:18:27
Speaker
you know, what the avatar looks like, what skin color it has, what, you know, what little features it has, and it's a positive distraction for kids when they're going in there, but definitely personalized experience because you can see your own little avatar running around in there.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, it really didn't talk about our experiential health care, but that's a great example in it that when Gabrielle is talking about positive distraction, it's the notion that kids that are in the hospital are largely helpless completely. Everything around them is out of their control. So let's give them something that they can own, they can have control over, and hopefully that's in a fun way. Is that something, and this specifically, because I love that story, did they come to you with that idea, or did they comment saying we need something and you guys came up with it?
00:19:13
Speaker
I believe we came up with it completely from scratch and we built out the whole activation. Like we built out the world and all the characters that live in the world, all of the features that you can add to the characters. So it was, again, full service. DI, you guys can continue to blow me away. I love it. I didn't even know you guys were in the health care space at all. It's so amazing.
00:19:31
Speaker
So if you start all over today, I know that it started before you, but if you were to start all over today, what do you think when you would focus on for DI? I don't know that we would change much. I think my answer, my perspective would be we would get heavier into tech earlier. It has become such an important part of how we go to market and how we customize. Speaking of customization of experiences, that is one way to make a space feel like it is of the day.
00:20:00
Speaker
So, so many of these arenas of facilities are, you know, a basketball game one night, a hockey game the next night, a lobster jam the next night, usually a couple nights in between.
00:20:13
Speaker
But how do you make that arena feel of the day? And technology is a great way to do that. It also provides us the opportunity to stay fresh with content, give positive distractions, lots of different things. It's been an important part of our story for the last five to 10 years. If we had started it 15 years ago, 20 years ago, maybe.
00:20:38
Speaker
I think that's always the thought, right? I wish I would have started sooner. Well, before we head out of here, what's one podcast or book you'd recommend for readers at home maybe thinking about experiences? Or in general, any podcast or any book that you'd like to recommend this spine to? So I never knew myself to be a stoic, but I've gotten super into Ryan Holiday, if you know. So we just finished, we just did our first version of the DI Book Club.
00:21:03
Speaker
And it was the obstacle is the way, which basically is embracing the hard stuff. We talk about that all the time we're out here. Don't shy away from the hard stuff. Don't shy away from the hard conversations. Embrace and lean into them to make you stronger and make it better at your job. And so obstacle is the way of the way is the first one I read of his, I'm now listening to.
00:21:26
Speaker
Stillness is the key, which I'm the worst person in the world at being still, but I'm trying to lark. And that's mine right now. And he's got a great podcast, great Instagram feed, and boats are fantastic. Awesome. I was also going to suggest that. Rarely. Yeah. But I'm going to try and think of another one on the spot.
00:21:47
Speaker
probably like lean in. That was a really great book. Just being a woman in this environment really helped me have a different perspective of how to navigate professionally. I read that myself a few years, but yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today. We're Dimensional Innovations. Thank you so much for having me. If you're looking to focus on customer experience, please, by all means, reach out to DI. If you're looking to automate your facility or your entertainment venue, check out facilityallie.com. Thanks again for having me, and we'll see you next time on the Facility Playbook.