Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. It could be argued that the discipline of customer experience started from the hospital, hospitality industry. Without labeling it as such, the hospitality industry required a relentless focus on customer experience from its early origins. That's one of the many reasons why I'm so excited to talk with today's guest, Alec Dalton, currently with Marriott, but with a wealth of hospitality experience, including creation and leadership of the hospitality Leadership Academy. I've heard Alex speak at webinars and followed his content on LinkedIn and have come away with a key nugget each time I've heard from him, you're gonna really enjoy this one today. Oh, and folks, he is also smack dab in the middle of an iconic American road trip as he experiences the country and many of the hotels inside of the Marriott suite of brands. You know, I want to talk more about that trip. Alec, welcome to cx passport.

Alec Dalton: 1:26

Rick, I'm delighted to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Rick Denton: 1:29

I'm glad you pulled over on the side of the road and was able to have this conversation with me. I'm glad that we're getting a chance to talk here. So let's start just talking about the hospitality industry in general, right? So we all know it has been whipsawed by the pandemic and, and might go through another round of disruption. As we're talking today, here in August of 2021. First travel absolutely disappeared in 2020, then it came roaring back in some regions Well, before companies were planning for that volume. Now we might see another disruption that has massive operational impact that is well discussed. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on how companies are thinking of cx through those wild swings, and how they're thinking about it once we come out of the pandemics.

Alec Dalton: 2:09

There are tons of things that we're focused on right now as we recover and respond in many ongoing senses to this whiplash, like you acknowledged. You know, I think back to when this pandemic began, we saw inklings of things happening from our counterparts in the Asian regions of the world, as things happened in the United States around I think, was what, march of 2020 or so almost overnight, right? Our hotel occupancy dropped from the 60s down to the 20s or lower. There were a couple things that we learned first, that there are actually very few instances in which hotels saw zero occupancy. You know, we still had opportunities, for example, to provide housing to healthcare workers, right, in some communities to house homeless individuals, in some cases to turn hotels into hospitals.

Rick Denton: 3:00

Yeah.

Alec Dalton: 3:02

You know, I think, at the end of the day, we operate space, we have beds, we have bathrooms, we offer great warm meals or cold meals, depending on your preference, right. And, you know, we can provide that hospitality, regardless of whether you're the traditional business traveler, or leisure guests on a vacation, somebody's going to a wedding or a reunion, or, or somebody in the midst of this pandemic. You know, that said, we also learned that there are costs with running a low occupancy hotel. Right. And at the same time, it can be really expensive to close a hotel, you still have to service your debt on your real estate, you still have to pay for the utilities and bring those back online after the hotel reopens which can be expensive. So we certainly learned a lot about, I think what capacity means in a hospitality since it's often talked about from a manufacturing standpoint,

Rick Denton: 3:54

right?

Alec Dalton: 3:55

But But really, capacity is something that we've grappled with. It's a term I've used almost every day for the last year and a half. It's still relevant today, as most of our hotels have reopened as we think about the current labor shortage, and the fact that capacity isn't just about having rooms and beds, but also about having a great service professionals available to assist our guests to write in their rooms to check them in, to provide them their meals in the restaurants to cook those meals etc. And so, I think all the while this is just to say that we've kind of realized the limits and constraints of an industry that has been around for time immemorial, right? This isn't the first pandemic, but it's certainly the most profound one in the last 100 years. And in those 100 years, that's really when the hospitality industry that we know today emerged, large hotel brands, the growth of the asset light management model. And so I think we're all just kind of being conscious of the fact that we're learning from it day by day. We're doing a pivot As quickly as we can, and we're leaning on the empathy that's so critical in hospitality, and this is something I'm sure we'll talk a lot about today, we're leaving on that empathy to deliver as best the customer experience as we can, you know, even as conditions are changing in terms of what we can offer, and even guest expectations are evolving, as we go through this new normal together.

Rick Denton: 5:25

It is, it is very true. And empathy is going to be an absolutely vital part of that, you know, I think of, I'd like to talk a little bit about that talent, availability challenge, because it's universal, right? We hear about it's not just hospitality. I had a LinkedIn post a month or so ago, how a restaurant chain handled, even advising guests as they walked in the door of look, we all know that there's a labor shortage. So please be patient with us. You're cool that you're great. Let's have a good time together. And so how beyond you know, signs in the lobbies, or whatever that might look like? How are companies in the hospitality industry really handling that talent, availability shortage, not just, you know, how can we more aggressively recruit and hire great talent? But understanding what we may be short of our ideal talent level? What does that look like from a customer experience? And how do we deliver an ideal customer experience?

Alec Dalton: 6:17

From a cx standpoint, I think one of the biggest things is trying to make up for that, that lost capacity in different ways. And this is where technology has been a saving grace. Right? You know, I look back to pre pandemic in many companies, Marriott Hilton Hyatt and so many others. were deploying mobile apps, you could check in via the app or online, you could use your phone as the room key, their RFID technology. You could do mobile dining, mobile chat, etc. But because of the contactless aspects of hygiene, that really have proliferated throughout this pandemic, guests have more and more gravitated towards those digital options. Maybe not all of them, maybe some of them, it depends on their needs and their preferences and what they're trying to do their comfortability with technology, their generational aspects that there are cultural aspects of that, right.

Rick Denton: 7:09

But with the technology, we don't need necessarily somebody standing at the front desk to initiate a mobile check in some of the services could be centralized more regionalized and hotel clusters in back office operations. We're looking into the use of a chat technology, how can we make sure that there's a person responding or that a system is responding at least in a personal manner. And I think the pandemic has expedited a lot of this technology by years, some people say as much as a decade, and that's that that the ball is rolling, we're going to be seeing more and more uses of technology as time goes on. And it's, I think it's beneficial for guests who want a convenient option or who prefer a contactless option, if they want to go to the traditional contestant more than welcome to and we'll look forward to welcoming them there. But if they prefer to connect with us in other ways, we've just opened those different channels. And at the same time, to the point of the question, we've expanded our capacity a bit to serve guests through those different means. Yeah, and Okay, so that makes a lot of sense to me that it is still delivering on a great experience, through the use of technology and allowing guests that self select into the technology channel to enjoy that those that don't want to be in that channel to, to choose the human channel. But there's still something about, you know, warmth and humanity when it comes to hospitality that I imagine you still want to deliver through your digital experience. And so how do you keep the humanity in that digital experience?

Alec Dalton: 8:42

That's it's such an interesting challenge. I think at the end of the day, a lot of it comes down to language, especially in a digital environment where you're not seeing somebody's face, you don't have a sense of body language, and a challenge of written languages that you very rarely get the tone correct. You can use words and their colloquial expressions and things like that. And you can use exclamation points galore. And so what we try and do is use phrases that are familiar in a hospitality setting. At your service, it'll be my pleasure one of them, of course, to be authentic. We never want a rote, but, but we can use phrases like that we can use punctuation. We also I think, just depart from from the linguistics of it. I think we need to lean on the essence of what empathy means. And it's acknowledging a guest understanding their needs, anticipating needs that they haven't expressed, fulfilling on them. And if there's something that goes wrong along that very human process, it's recognizing a problem and correcting it. And I think at the end of the day, that's that's the formula for hospitality. It's not more complicated than that. But at the same time, as any of us know, it can be very complicated as humans

Rick Denton: 10:00

Oh, my goodness, yes. You know what I'd like about this? So I've asked that question a lot, because that's a conversation that's come up with a lot of folks, how do you bring the humanity into the digital experience, because that's right, just like you said, a decade is maybe even an understatement of how fast things were accelerated because decisions in the boardroom have. And I know we really want to do that, can we afford it right now it was more of a we have to do it to survive, and to accelerated that. But what I like is how you brought it down to the simplicity layer, like a lot of times the conversation gets into, you know, very user focus groups, and all those kinds of things. And those are important they are I'm not demeaning those or in any way. But I love what you're saying, look, even like the use of a friendly exclamation point, if you think of the evolution of bots, and the responses that we get through the digital assistants that we've used, how sterile they've been in the their origins, and how people get more comfortable with bringing that humanity in there. Now, I will say that I've seen some gaps there. And so you're right about this is not in the hospitality space. It is in fact in the financial services space, but I was engaging with an online but it was clear, at least they were up front, hey, this is a bot. I hate it when it's hidden, like I interact with the human but I'm not. Right. And when I asked eventually, it came to the point that it was unsolvable by a bot. And so I asked for an agent. And the bus response was, I'll get you an agent. I hope they can help with that. And the tone of that, yeah, I hope I can help with that. And I could I bet the person who was scripting that was their, their heart was in the right place of look, you know, I hope we can help with that. But it came across as this salty sort of, yeah, oh, we can help with that. Good luck, man. Best see later. And so those language choices, those small language choices really are what can help bring that humanity to digital. So I really appreciate how you brought that in. I like hate sometimes just the simple stuff to make it feel human.

Alec Dalton: 11:49

Exactly, exactly. And you know, I think across industries, this is something that's going to be so interesting over the next couple of years. I mean, frankly, probably forevermore, the use of artificial intelligence to simulate humans. Many of your listeners might be familiar with the concept of the uncanny valley, the idea that in a human context that if we try and simulate humans, to a certain extent, there's always going to be that degree with which we know they're not a person, like you said, you knew eventually, you weren't talking to a person who were talking to a bot. And it's trying to make sure that we're not creepy.

Rick Denton: 12:22

Yes, right. Yes.

Alec Dalton: 12:24

You know, some hotels, for example, I saw a concept in Japan, a hotel that checks in guests using robots, and they had like, one check in was with a dinosaur and another check. And I forget the other character, it was kind of fun. And then there was a human there was a human robot almost like a Disney animatronic and, and I say that lovingly as a former Disney cast member, right? But I guess like talking to the dinosaur, because that is what was cool and novel, same with the other character, but when they were talking with the humanoid robot to check in, the facial expressions, were off just enough the movement of the mouse, in relation to the words being said was peculiar, the scripting of the language, you know, within the lines of some parametric code. Unusual, and it just became a little creepy. Yeah. And so we have to be conscious of that. We have to avoid that. And I think that's where the role of CX is so important, and bringing that human aspect into experience design, and also thinking from a behavioral lens. Yeah, about what what a customer might be going through.

Rick Denton: 13:23

Boy, that's brilliant. And yes, I'm going to check in with a dinosaur rather than the humanoid. So I need to maybe we'll talk after we finished the recording, I put that in the show notes of which hotel because now I have a new aspirational travel point to go see the other you got a dinosaur check in So speaking of travel, though, I can't I can't wait any longer. You have been on a month long, iconic American road trip like this is the kind of stuff that novels were written in the yet in the mid 20th century. The dream of many. So how did you decide to launch this trip? And then I just want to sit back, turn my mic off and listen to you tell us about all the experiences that you've had on this trip?

Alec Dalton: 13:59

Yeah, well, you can't work for a company like Marriott with athletic travel. Right. And frankly, that's the reason why I work for Marriott to begin with. I'm not the chicken versus the egg. I have been on a quest to hit all 50 states by age 30. I started the year out west celebrating New Year's Eve with friends in Tahoe and then I being able to work remotely decided, well I'll spend the month on the Pacific Northwest weeks in San Francisco. I'll drive up through Oregon, spent some time in Portland, while I was over there, supposed to go back to DC but ended up in Idaho at one point and then take flight delays found myself in Denver. So you know things just happen. There's a bit of spontaneity. As it became clear that Marius office was going to delay its reopening a few months I decided well, I'll go home to Rhode Island where I grew up. I'm ordinarily based in DC. But rather than taking my usual eight hour Trek, you know, along the Philadelphia New York corridor, I thought well, I'll get to Rhode Island by way of The deep south.

Rick Denton: 15:00

Oh gosh.

Alec Dalton: 15:02

And so I drove from DC down through Richmond hit the Carolinas, Georgia, part of Florida wrapped my way through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. And the plan was then to go up to Tennessee and then back through Appalachia. Well you know, spontaneity is going to be a theme here. I was supposed to do two weeks in New Orleans I ended up leaving a week early because I realized I could hit Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and God. Oh, man, I did that. And and you know, spent spent a good part of the summer in Rhode Island. And so right now I'm essentially on the return trip from Rhode Island back to DC by way of Chicago. I did the Great Lakes. I'm in Chicago and Marriott's reopening was slated for September 7 after Labor Day. And just the other day, two days ago, it was announced that we're going to move to October. And so I figured well, instead of going back east, let me just keep going west next week. We were talking before she's calling from the Dakotas. And then I'll head south from the mountain states to Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and then wrap around the South again for a bit of nostalgia. And I think by the end of September I'll have hit all 48 contiguous states within the year and then it's just a matter of trying to fit in Alaska and Hawaii between November and December and trying to convince my family that both or either would make a very good Christmas trip

Rick Denton: 16:29

well I like the thought something tells me I guess Alaska technically could be a road trip boaters and COVID I realized complicate that a bit but Hawaii you may have to go away from the iconic road trip on that one maybe the road to ohana could be your your road equivalent there in Hawaii. So by the end of this we you have hit all 48 is this is this going to get you this year?

Alec Dalton: 16:51

This will get me Yep.

Rick Denton: 16:52

Oh my gosh. Oh, okay, so So what's the Tell me like just one because obviously we could consume hours with all your stories. Give me one interesting little nugget from your trip what's what's a particular surprising or fun or shocking go that path?

Alec Dalton: 17:13

You know, my favorite thing to do is to find those holes in the wall attractions. I love the idea of Route 66. And I wish it was what it used to be. So what you know, being a travel junkie, I tend to follow a bunch of travel accounts on Instagram. And here's a tip for you in the listeners. What I do is as I find places I want to visit over the course of my life. I bookmark them or save them on Google Maps, you can essentially kind of flag different places. I said if I were to show you right now, you'd see a couple 1000 pins all over my map. It's it's hard to kind of live my daily life using the app as I navigate from place to place, but at least I get inspiration wherever I go. Right. And so that that kind of serves as my guide. But the more unusual the better. Last week I was in Wisconsin, I went out to visit tally Essen, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright, and had a beautiful tour there. And down the road is another House Museum called house on the rocks. And from the pictures it looked Frank Lloyd Wright asked, I guess one would expect that it It looked like a house perched on a cliff side. Very cool, you know, very instagrammable type of place. You go in, and it again seems FL Ws low ceilings, seating along the floor, lots of Cherokee red, and then things start to get weird. The other classic white stenciled stained glass turns blue. And then tables become uplit stained glass. It's beautiful. Imagine like a cathedral stained glass panel, but that's your table. And as you move through this house, then you start to interact with even more peculiarity. They had rooms multiple plural rooms filled with instruments that played themselves. Or they had an animatronic orchestra life size robots going back to the robot thing about you know, 50 100 piece orchestra, there was a sculpture of a whale being attacked by a squid that was the size of the Statue of Liberty. It was the most peculiar place to find in Wisconsin. And here I am thinking oh, I'm just gonna go in as one hour tour of a house on a cliff. But you know, I think that's the best thing about road trips. You can see so many places over the course of time, you can have some highlights that you want to see. And every step of the journey, you find these surprising nuggets that just stick with you and stay with you and you want to talk about with other people. And so I will never do this. This destination justice you have to check out the house on the rocks you have to trek out to spring green, Wisconsin. You'll make it worthwhile visit tell us and while you're out there too but we've just lived in such a beautiful country and And I hope everybody enjoys it.

Rick Denton: 20:08

Okay, that's quite a trip. You must be exhausted. Now I don't know how this manifests on a road trip, but we're going to find a way to get you into the first class lounge. I'm going to let you come join me here in the first class lounge we'll move quickly and hopefully have a little bit of fun. I have no idea how you're gonna answer this first question. But what is a dream travel location from your past?

Alec Dalton: 20:29

Oh, from my past place I've already been Yes. New Orleans. My favorite city. All the food, the music, the culture? Fantastic. You can't beat it.

Rick Denton: 20:37

Oh, that's good. It's been a while since I've been there. And yes, exactly. That good reminder of how and yes, the food brings sweatpants because you'll need them when

Alec Dalton: 20:46

you do. Exactly, exactly. Luckily, it's a walkable city. So

Rick Denton: 20:49

you burn off a little bit. You get burn off in one beingnet. Yay.

Alec Dalton: 20:54

I was just gonna say the exact same thing.

Rick Denton: 20:56

What's a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Alec Dalton: 21:00

I would love to go and see the hot air balloons rise over Cappadocia in Turkey.

Rick Denton: 21:06

That's, that's, oh, this is brand new. I don't know anything about this. Tell me

Alec Dalton: 21:10

Oh, you're going to have to check it out. So it's a destination. It's, I believe semi central within the nation. And essentially built into the cliff side of this city Really? Are these houses. It almost reminds me of like a mountainside version of like the Greek coast, right? Instead of looking at oceans, though, you're looking at this beautiful landscape. And they're known for hot air balloons that essentially rise and cover the skyline. And it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful sites on Earth.

Rick Denton: 21:43

Wow, that does sound nice. Oh my goodness. Oh, well, there I just added a pen to my mental Google. There we go. So we talked about New Orleans, but in general, hey, what is your favorite thing to eat?

Alec Dalton: 21:54

Oh, goodness. I love fusion cuisine. I think it's so cool when you can take one of my favorite restaurants in DC is Chinese and Chilean combined. Alright, and you get such interesting flavors. You know, there's that beautiful spice. There's the sweetness. But there's so many cool ways in which you can bring people together literally and through cuisine. And sometimes fusion is the best way to do it.

Rick Denton: 22:21

Well that sounds like somebody who is a traveler. I hope that answer fits the the traveler. So now let's go back a little bit. So what is the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you hate it as a kid?

Alec Dalton: 22:31

Oh, goodness. Yeah, as a Rhode Islander. I feel guilty saying this but fish

Rick Denton: 22:37

Uh oh. Somebody just lost the state citizenship.

Alec Dalton: 22:41

Right, exactly. So luckily, we know the four other people in Rhode Island will have to hold down the fort for me. But yeah, growing up, I was not a huge seafood fan, despite living so close to the ocean. And that's probably why I think there was so much of it that eventually I was just I don't want anything to do with this anymore. But in the time since I've moved away from Rhode Island now I can't get enough seafood.

Rick Denton: 23:02

Funny how that works, isn't it? Exactly, exactly. So we can't You can't answer with the phone. Right. But aside from the phone, what is one travel item you will not leave home without?

Alec Dalton: 23:14

Oh, I so I traveled very light as minimalist as possible. Yeah, apart from the phone, I would probably have to go with my air pods. You can take a call while walking, even listen to music. They're great on a plane if you need a little bit of noise control. And they're just so conveniently small they fit in your pocket. You don't have any back problems worrying about the cords and the wires.

Rick Denton: 23:43

Alec I've heard you talk about the showmanship of customer experience. Delivery of this has to be across many dimensions of cx would you unpack what you mean by showmanship of cx.

Alec Dalton: 23:56

I think back to my time when I was working with the Walt Disney Company, the concierge with Disney parks. I was a recruiter for the company for over a year. And at Disney there's such a culture of entertainment that carries over into the hospitality experience. But frankly, it's not one that Disney necessarily invented in that sense. So often, even with Marriott, hotels, Ritz Carlton and others. We talked about being on stage when we're in the presence of a guest right being backstage or back of the house. We're in the heart of the house when we're not. At the end of the day. There are many different types of experiences. There are static experiences, we want to see something beautiful there are educational experiences. We want to learn something I encourage anybody listening to read the experience economy, perhaps the most foundational book and customer experience and my personal favorite.

Rick Denton: 24:47

It's a great one I'll put in the show. Yeah.

Alec Dalton: 24:49

And and the author's talk about another dimension of experiences and that's entertainment. And so in hospitality I think part of what we're offering part of our value proposition is engaging guests. And providing hospitality if that weren't that, that friendliness, it's that sense of welcoming and homecoming. And part of that is also being a good host being an entertaining host. It's about finding ways to create connectivity with our guests. It's about being polite, and and not necessarily proper or polished, it depends on your brand, right? You know, if we were at the Ritz Carlton or St. Regis, we might expect a bit more white glove service and panache, if we were at the W, I would want a bit of funkiness in my stay. That's right. And in the branding of the experiences, in many ways helps to play that entertaining role. We invite customers into these brands stories, to play a part, to co create the experience in some sense. And altogether we put on this show, and it's a lot of fun. And when you think that way, as a hospitality professional, it makes your job infinitely more fun. Because I'm going to work and I'm going to act, I'm going to be myself, but I'm also here to be my best self.

Rick Denton: 25:57

Yeah, I like it that from its origin, right? hospitality is gonna say putting on a false show, but just putting on this warmth, this this, this experience for your guests, whether that was someone traveling to the desert, and please come into my tent and enjoy that. Because I know you are a traveler out in the middle of nowhere from the millennia ago, or what we have today is you walk into the Ritz or into the W or you know, I was thinking of a little bit of Moxie when you were thinking of so that side of the house to Moxie definitely hits high on the funky meter there. So, yeah, I'm actually a little curious here. And so I've introduced at companies that aren't hospitality companies that front of house back of house sort of thing. Have you seen showmanship play into other industries from a customer experience perspective? And what's that look like?

Alec Dalton: 26:46

Sure, I think the other best example this would be in retail, you have, I mean, in many cases, it's literally called the showroom, where the customers come in and participate in look and observe. And then there's the back of house space. And just like in a hotel, you can imagine your inventory rooms and boxes galore and shelves, and anybody who's been into Ritz Carlton knows we've got marble and mahogany all over the place. But I can tell you, it's not behind the scenes, spoiler alert. But but the same is true in retail. And I think that in some cases, having the elaborate seeming or the elaborate branding is part of what customers go there to buy, they go there to affiliate with, with that brands that experience, they go to see it for themselves. It reinforces the proposition, you look at a Disney Store, for example, versus any other traditional toy store. Right? completely different experience. Right, right. And in some ways, that's how they're able to charge higher price points and how they cultivate loyalty amongst their fans to they're so consistently authentic. And so consistently themed,

Rick Denton: 27:47

yeah, yeah, that's, that's very true. And we all know brands that we pay more for, I'll keep some of those out of my speaking words here. But we can all think of it, some of the brands that we might pay a little more for that because of the brand itself and the brand experience. So let's go. I've enjoyed my time here, Alec, but unfortunate, we're getting close to the end of time. But I'd like to close with an interesting phrase you said to me before, and it may be been kind of related to the showmanship aspect, but you've spoken about co created experiences between the customer and the professional. How does that manifest?

Alec Dalton: 28:22

Sure, there's something that we call the service triangle in hospitality. And it's the idea that one Pinnacle is the customer. The other is the service professional, the other is the brand. And so the customer relates to both the employee represents and works for the brand and ages the customer and the brand is enlivened through the employee and delivered to the customer. Hospitality is all about a moment in time hospitality. We say it's infinitely perishable, the moment that now is gone, we can never have that now again. In other words, if a hotel room goes unsold tonight, we can't make up that cost ever. We can sell another room night tomorrow, but we can't make that without, if a seat goes into a restaurant, the same thing I see in oftentimes we think in in denominators of time. Same is true in in the entertainment world in arenas, unsold or flight seats in airlines. So in time, the employee is delivering service, they're engaging, they're responding, but that requires the customer to also participate. Yeah, you cannot be in a hospitality setting as a neutral vanilla blank slate, and not have any form of engagement or transformation, good or bad as part of that experience. And so it's up to hospitality companies and frankly, anybody in the service business to think about what degree of engagement interaction Do we have between our business and the guest? What is the flavoring of that was the theming the branding, and how do we be conscious of emotions along the way, so we deliver the best possible emotion and wins spire loyalty in the longer term as everybody the customer and the employee both take away the memory

Rick Denton: 30:08

wow okay i folks because this is an audio podcast right won't see my face but I've just been sitting here with kind of my eyes wide my mouth and around shape just sort of wow and that immediacy of now and the fleeting nature of now you can tell my synapses are having a little trouble firing because that short circuited me in a really good way my brain is is chewing on that Alec and so I thank you for letting us close on something like that What a great conversation I've really enjoyed and I've learned a ton from you. I always do learn a ton from you. But then I've also just been fascinated by this thought of the road trip and so I envy it and may need to replicate it sometime in the future maybe just a little portion it's kind of like instead of doing the thru hike on the Appalachian Trail, maybe just do little chunks but but your your spirit to capture all of the states. What I look forward to is maybe talking to you in a decade and you saying I've done this through all of the European countries or I've done this through let's let's expand and let's let's talk to you here and see what the Alex journey is ongoing. Well, it's been a brilliant conversation with you Alec enjoyed every bit of it. Safe travels, get back on the road, and I wish you the absolute best and the greatest of stories that you collect and experiences that you'll have for the rest of your life.

Alec Dalton: 31:31

Likewise, Rick, thanks so much for having me. This has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you to everybody listening in as well. Hopefully you've taken away some some good notes and possibly some ideas for your own bucket list.

Rick Denton: 31:45

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport..