Recording studios and top hotels cater to different industries, but they share the common goal of providing exceptional customer service and an unforgettable experience. After a recent trip to one such hotel, it made one of our team wonder if recording studios could learn from the best in customer experience?
Three Hours To Heaven
It was a late trip as a final hurrah for the summer that my wife had booked. The destination was Artà, a city on the Spanish island of Majorca. It was a short four day trip so it had to be good. I have the tendency to need a few days to wind down from the stress of work before I finally feel at home. My wife is obsessed with the weather and had been monitoring it for weeks before our trip, just in case she decided we needed to move location should the weather turn bad. When you live in Ireland, you don’t need to pay for the rain, it comes free… daily.
We boarded our flight from Belfast International at god-isn’t-even-awake-o-clock, it seemed to be full of pensioners and the drunk (that’s a story for another day), suffice to say, British tourists don’t cover themselves in glory when travelling. As we came into land at Palma the sky was overcast, we seemed to descend through grey clouds forever, and as we landed we were met with that pissy drizzle type rain we know so well from home, perhaps my wife had been right?
We collected our bags, used the toilets and then waited for the driver we had arranged to take us to the hotel. To our surprise as we left the airport we walked out into blazing hot sun and stunning blue skies. Within 40 minutes we had arrived in paradise. A stunning converted farm with grounds like Eden and a backdrop of blue skies and rugged Spanish mountains. Within 10 minutes every care in my world had fallen away and I drifted into a relaxed state for the following few days.
Back To Reality
Three days later we were back in a car heading back to the capital Palma for a last night in the city before flying home the next day. I turned to my wife who had felt equally impressed by our stay and said; “within a few hours someone else will be sleeping in our hotel room, calling it theirs, and we won’t be given a second thought of again!” She agreed. It got me thinking, for three days we had been treated like royalty, had been put at ease and didn’t want for anything, I must have commented several hundred times to my wife about how amazing the place was. Nothing was too much trouble, and it felt like home. In reality all that was an illusion, but so good, we never felt it happening.
It goes without saying there are already some ‘top hotels’ in the recording space; Abbey Road, AIR, Blackbird, Capitol, to name a few, the same can be said for post. There’s also some not so well known studios that offer equally impressive experiences, and perhaps it’s this that makes the difference?
The same weekend I was in Spain, a friend and his partner were visiting a high-end hotel in the UK, as they arrived at the front door, they were greeted with “what are you doing here?” What followed, he told me, was a catalogue of issues that left them with a poor lasting impression. On the other hand, as we pulled up to our hotel in Spain, the Manager came walking out the door to greet us, smiling and asking if there was anything we needed after our journey.
It got me thinking, great commercial recording studios need to have the top gear, talent, and rooms, but is that enough? Are there things studios can learn from top hotels to take the experience to another level and cement a reputation as a go-to place to make records or mix post?
Some Things Commercial Studios Could Consider
Here are some aspects where recording studios can learn from top hotels:
First Impressions
Just as high-end hotels invest in plush lobbies and courteous staff, recording studios can focus on a clean, inviting entrance and friendly reception. First impressions go a long way in setting the tone. Walking into a studio to be greeted by a grunt, or a vacant stare isn’t a great first impression. Even worse, I’ve walked into studios where you have to play ‘hunt-the-staff’ to even start to find out what is going on. I get it, not everyone has the money to pay for reception staff, times are hard. However, perhaps learn from the world of AirBnb, where you tell visitors in advance what to do on arrival. That first few minutes can make a huge difference to the person about to use your facility.
Attention to Detail
From room amenities to concierge services, top hotels are all about the details. In a studio setting, this could translate to providing excellent seating, chargers for phones, an easy way to find the Wi-fi password. When I ran post facilities in Soho, London, the first question any client would ask was for the Wi-fi password. Up-to-date equipment, should go without saying, but right down to small perks like pads and pens to get notes down with. Some of these things don’t have to cost much, but they show a level of care that clients notice.
Customer Service
Staff training is crucial. Recording artists should feel attended to, just like hotel guests. This includes quick problem-solving, excellent communication skills, and a generally good attitude. I’m afraid to say that I’ve been in too many music and post studios where the staff seems to confuse the idea that because they sometimes work with stars, that they are too. I love it when I’m in a facility and someone magically appears in minutes of arrival asking if I’d like a coffee or tea. I normally decline and ask for a glass of water, but the intention speaks of caring about the clients.
Personalisation
Luxury hotels often personalise experiences for their guests, from favourite snacks to preferred room settings. Before we arrived in Spain, they emailed my wife saying they had noticed we had an 8 year old daughter and asking what special meals would she like. Good studios adopt similar strategies by understanding the artist's specific needs in advance, such as favoured instruments, mic choices, or recording settings. It can be as simple as asking preferred working times, some people prefer to work from midday to midnight, others from dawn to mid-afternoon. I recall mixing an album in a UK studio and sitting for 2 hours each morning waiting for the mix engineer to arrive. I partly wanted to say something, but at the same time didn’t want a grumpy engineer mixing my tracks.
Upselling Services
During our trip to Spain the hotel offered a massage. My wife booked me one for the first afternoon. I nearly didn’t bother, but I did and it was one of the best massages I’d ever had, so much so I booked an even longer one the day after - I think they cost me around £200 all in! Just like a hotel might offer spa services or a top dinner as an extra, a recording studio can offer additional services like mixing, mastering, or even marketing support. All of these can be upsells that can often increase the overall profit of the client visit. Remember, that as with hotels, you have a captive audience. I wouldn’t have visited that hotel to get a massage, I certainly wouldn’t have sprung that kind of money for massages when back at home, they captured me in the moment, and it worked!
Cleanliness and Maintenance
This is a big one. Just like hotels, studios should maintain impeccable hygiene and make sure all equipment is in top-notch condition. The amount of studios I’ve visited over the years and the toilets are indeed a sh*thole. Remember also, for men, bad toilets are less of an issue, for women it’s an entirely different matter. I was visiting Kore Studios in London some months ago with female talent and crew. They both commented that there were sanitary towel facilities in the toilets and how rare that is! They even said it would make them visit again, simply because they had taken the time to consider this. I grew up using studios in the 80s, in those days it was almost a given that they would be dimly lit, smell of cigarettes and that you would stick to the carpet. You won’t find that in many of the top music and post facilities.
In Closing
It has perhaps never been tougher to make money from a commercial recording studio, everyone thinks they can get the same results on a laptop at home… we know that’s a false equivalence. Setting that aside, the upkeep of a facilty versus the profit to be made is mindblowing, it takes a brave person to try and do it. The old joke goes; “How do you get a million pounds after running a studio for a year? You start with two million!”
However, a lot of the things I’ve outlined in this article, and often displayed in the best music and post facilities, are not all about spending more money. They are about attitude and imagination, there’s a lot we can learn from a trip to Abbey Road or Capitol that goes way beyond the gear, the people or the spaces. I recently visited Air in London, going to Air is like visiting Hogwarts, it’s a converted church and the grandeur can be unsettling. As we walked in the door we were greeted by this huge beared Kiwi who within seconds was laughing and joking with us and putting us at ease. He was brilliant, in fact all the team at Air were the same, it’s all about culture. It’s set at the heart of an organisation and then flows out to everyone else. Air seem to have nailed it!
You may be reading this and be thinking that the studios mentioned have megabucks and so it’s easier for them. I’ll let you into a secret, my wife and I don’t stay in big brand hotels, we find small boutique places with fewer than ten rooms. These are where the magic often happens, giving a level of service that the big named brands can’t come close to. Size has no bearing on the client experience, and if it does I would argue that the smaller ones have the edge on it.
As I mentioned at the outset, during our time in Spain we were made to feel like Royalty, it was all part of their culture and service, and it worked. Certainly enough for us to want to stay there again! I would go back to Air in a heartbeat too.
Drawing parallels between the two industries might offer interesting insights for improvement. After all, the devil is in the details.