MEP Meetings & Exhibition Planners

This episode comes straight from The Meetings Show floor in Singapore, as Georgie chats with Richard Soo from MEP talk about this client experience, and explore what “great customer experience” actually looks like when clients are stressed and timelines are tight. They go beyond buzzwords into the real-world habits that keep relationships strong and teams steady.
 
Kindness is the centre of the conversation, but not as a vague value statement. They talk about the long shadow of tough, pedestal-style leadership, what it does to early-career confidence, and why those experiences still show up years later in the way teams respond to pressure. From there, they dig into boundaries: how we stop bending over backwards, how we protect our people first, and why that protection is often the fastest path to better client satisfaction, repeat business, and trust. 

If you care about customer experience, employee experience, and sustainable event delivery across Asia and beyond, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who’s always “saving the day”, and leave a review with the one boundary you wish you’d set sooner. 

Georgie Stayches, host of The Art & Heart of CX, brings a human lens to how businesses design Customer Experience (CX). She explores how every little detail impacts how a customer interprets, experiences and recalls a situation - from our senses to the built and natural environments - and how this can impact brand loyalty, word of mouth marketing and revenue.

Each episode she invites a special guess from all works of life and industries to share what they consider the art and hear of CX.

Want to hear more from Georgie? Her keynote presentations inspire audiences with real-world strategies to elevate CX, understand human behaviour and build lasting audience loyalty. 

Find out more at georgiestayches.com 

Transcript

Welcome From The Show Floor

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome directly from the event show floor at the Meetings Show in Singapore. I'm Georgie Status, as you know, and I'm very pleased to welcome a special guest all the way from Malaysia. We're rendezvousing in Singapore, which is my good friend Richard Sue. Welcome, Richard.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Thank you. Thank you, Georgie, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And we're sitting in the hosted buyer lounge at the moment. So listener, you can probably hear some click clanging behind us because it is lunch, so it's a hive of activity. But Richard, we met last year at the meeting. No, we I stand corrected. We met at PCMA, which is the Professional Conference Managers Association. And we met at the Business of Events Conference in Singapore. And I think we had a shared passion for good customer experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I think generally the experience of uh of a business events person with partners and with the audience, the target audience, as well as with the clients and also with our team. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

And this year you spoke, and we've spoken a little bit, we spoke a bit last year, we've spoken through the years on LinkedIn about that experience with clients. And when we talk about customer experience, it's it's such a general term, but it's you know, sometimes I talk to retail operations and we're we're purely talking about the consumer. But you did a fantastic session yesterday, at which was absolutely brilliant about kindness

Why Kindness Matters With Clients

SPEAKER_01 1:28

and kindness in business. And why is kindness so important, particularly when we think of dealing with clients?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I think it stems from my own experience dealing with difficult clients. Back in the days when being the boss, like from the Devil's West Prada, or you know, from all these kind of shows, people tend to admire to leave us on the pedestal. And everybody wanted to be that that person because they believe in the tough love. But to be on the receiving end as a young person, where your ego is so fragile, when you're still trying to find your footing in the industry, is very damaging. It takes a long time for us to recover from it. And I think just this morning we were saying that all these bad experiences, even when we call it now, we it still affects us, it still rises our temperature. So I feel kindness is something that is a basic human property, you know, that that you need to have. And it shouldn't have to be forsaken for the sake of efficiency, for the sake of speed. If we remain kind, I think at the end of the day, we motivate people, we people will find affinity with us, lose that trust, and they will want to continue doing well for us as well as for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

And I love that um about the power of kindness in experience. And you talked a lot yesterday, and there's two things I want to kind of draw on with you is that how you deliver that customer experience to your client with that kindness and because clients sometimes you know they have their own demands that they've got KPIs they've got to meet, they've got return on investment they've got to meet, and so sometimes the demand of a client slows down onto us and then onto our staff. So I want to sort of check in with you around who delivered that customer experience to your clients. So it creates a good experience for everyone and they keep coming back to work with you, but you also set the boundaries that in turn enhance that good customer experience.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I think in the past, when we think about customer experience, we bend backwards. I think a lot of us in the event industry, we bend backwards so much, sometimes we forget where the boundaries are. Uh and because of that bad experience that I've had, or more than one bad experience that I've had, what I've learned is instead of protecting the work, I think we need to protect our own people first so that they will feel protected and they know when they go out there to represent you, they they will also treat other people kindly as well. It just flows through. And that's how you retain customers because when you are kind to your customers, you you are thoughtful of them, you think for their benefit, and in turn, they will feel that you are giving them the support that they want because you understand their needs. When you think about them, you're being thoughtful of them, you tend to try and understand and empathize with their needs.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And that was a good segue. Actually, my next point that I was going to bring up, because one of the things you talked about yesterday ties in exactly with KPMG, talk about the experience pillars, and one of them is empathy. And I always talk about, you know, when in order to deliver good customer experience, whether it's to your guests, your delegates, your patients, your clients, your passengers, whoever it is, you need to understand them in order to create that empathy. And you talked about empathy mapping in your session yesterday. Do you want to talk a little bit about why that's important and how you use that?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

I think I qualified empathy mapping before I started explaining what it was. Uh, generally, it's a tool where you use it to measure customer sentiments and their thoughts about how they feel about your product or your service. And in that case, they start thinking, talking about what they're thinking, what you hear in the market about your product or your service, uh, what are they telling you? And I think there are four of it, but I can't remember the last one. But generally, what it surfaces is all are all the pain points.

Boundaries That Protect Your Team

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, and that pain points actually allows you to tailor a solution for it. Now, in the same token, when you apply it to your own team, you are able to know what uh what are the stress points that they are facing, uh particular, particularly at very critical points in your in your project or in the work that they're delivering to you. Uh, you are able to know if they feel that the runway is too low, or if, say, for example, or too short, I mean, or that you know they are overloaded with work. So then at the end of the day, you will realize that you will not you look at it and you say, Okay, I can actually spread out the work so that that person can deliver and be focused and deliver what's necessary. Uh, and you actually find a solution so that your team can operate at its best.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So I'm just taking a drink. That's so important because we talk about in customer experience about removing those friction points. So there's kind of two elements the surprise and delight, but the removing the friction points. And I don't think we think about it enough, perhaps with our clients of where they're coming from. You know, we obviously want to service our clients well, often over-service. We want to read their needs, you know, we have the scope, but it's truly understanding their behaviors, what they need, what their pressure points are to not only be able to deliver the right customer service, but then inform our team. I remember I worked in media operations for years at the Australian Open Tennis and the Olympics and the Pog Games and so forth. And before it was a 24-hour news cycle, it you know, it was for days, the old days where the the journey had a deadline in order for it to go into the newspaper the next day. And so we would always talk to our staff about the why that the why, why the media might behave the way they do, and what we can do to enhance their experience, whether it, you know, and and understanding that, you know, there'd always be food served at a certain time because in reality they wouldn't be able to get away to their desks to queue up in a cafe when they're on deadline after an event. So it's so important that kind of giving context. How do you do that with your staff around when you bring on a client, you're planning an event? What sort of briefing do you do to your staff to communicate to them the pain points that your client might have?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

I think generally the debriefing, especially the temporary staff who may not understand your culture, the way you work, it's really important to let them know what the boundaries are. Who are they dealing with? What kind of behavior can you expect from them? What are the things they do not want to see from the star? And in so doing, you are actually setting the boundaries for their behavior. They know what is allowed and what is not allowed. And I also think we need to let them understand uh as a

Empathy Mapping To Find Pain Points

SPEAKER_00 8:55

temporary staff that they're to, apart from doing what they've been employed to do, to also enjoy the experience of learning what the event is all about. So I think it's all about preparation. Yes, right? Like in a meeting when a client gives us a new brief, your question should be about what are your competitors doing that you think is they're doing right. How do you think you want to do it? What is your approach to counter that? Yeah, because then all of these considerations can go into the messaging that you want to weave into your event. Because you can't just take a single messaging from your client and expect that to be something meaningful in an event, right? I think it's all about trying to understand the deeper workings behind every series scenario.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yes. Because when you're working on an event and you work across all over Asia and the world, really. So I want to touch on that in a minute because there's cultural differences when it comes to customer experience. But you've sort of essentially got three customers. You have three stakeholder groups. You've got the client, you've got your delegates attending, you've got your staff, and then you've got your speakers and suppliers, yeah. Partners, yeah. But you're basically needing to think about that design experience for your client, then how it gets rolled out for the delegates, but then how your staff are experiencing it too. So, are there any tricks you've got on managing those three groups?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

It's actually going to be quite tedious if you have to look at them in a blob. But if you weave them into your work processes, it becomes part of your work, right? So, for example, if I were to think about my client, I would ask the right questions that I just talked about. But I would also create that customer journey. What are the pain points that the customer the audience will feel as they arrive into your event from the invitation all the way to the time when they leave, yeah, or and even after. Yes, right, with your partners. For example, you gave a very good example of making sure your AV gets fed because they will never be able to leave the AV console. Yes. Those are things that we think about. Preparing a quiet area in the event space so that they get to rest without any harassment from the clients.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

And that's just got me rethinking the whole how we look at things because we sat in a really good keynote on Monday at PCMA where it was around the power of community and people want to be part of a community, and that often brands look at demographics of you know 25 to 30 year olds, you know, grocery buyer, high income. But that we need to be looking at it more as adrenaline junk. And there was a Lululemon example of instead of going to women in this age group, men in that age group, sort of stereotypical demographics, they actually looked at people who were adrenaline junkies or people who were high achievers. And they so they completely re-looked at how they categorized their audience. And it got me thinking about when I've chatted to Karen Clydesdale, the head of CX at the Australian Open Tennis. Now they don't look at necessarily at their their um customer groups in ages. There are some because they have the sort of the twins and they've got the the kids with ballpark, and then they've got top court to find that teen element, but they look at, you know, the ones that are there to watch the tennis, the ones that are there for social. And so they'll go to Grand Slam Oval to sit at the bars, watch the bands, have that kind of thing. Whereas the tennis tragics, let's just call them, you know, want it their priority is to go and see the tennis. So when you're talking, it's got me thinking that yes, we have categorized speakers, delegates, five, but it's actually there's a completely different way we could be grouping them together. Yeah, fantastic. Oh, I love this. Now with your staff, how do you ensure a good experience for them? Because events is tough, it's stressful. I think it's in the top eight. I think it's the top five. I think it is the top five. It's above air traffic controllers, I think, or very close to air traffic controllers.

Designing Journeys For Every Stakeholder

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I think just below surgeons. There we go. For a stress level, how do you create an environment and an experience for your staff? Yes, that is enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Okay. So I think in the process when we are doing client servicing, I will always push for them to negotiate for a longer, more comfortable working timeline wherever possible. I know sometimes, especially now, clients give us very short run wait. Yes, right? But generally, we try to negotiate. If, say, for example, they need us to submit within the next three working days, and we know that day is on a Friday, they will never look at it after that. I will try to negotiate over to Monday at least. Yes. Then at least we have an extra time to look at something. During the event or when we are setting up, I I remember I shared during the presentation. We always have an hour of quiet time. No matter what, I'm very strict with the quiet time. So everybody gets back to their own scope of work, check through everything while resting their minds so that when they actually execute, they can execute with a calm mind, very what's that called, settled mindset, yeah, and they don't make decisions. Yeah, like you say, you know, when you when you are stressed, it's worse than when you're driving like a drunk. Yes, yeah, right? Yeah, so I think generally that's what I try to incorporate into my workflow.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

I love that because there is so much to meet. Once you're on the shop, we'll call it the shop floor. Once you're on the event floor, whether it's a meeting for 80 people or an expo for 5,000, once you hit that floor, you're on. And the client's there and they want things and things are being changed, and it's very hard to get that quiet time. When you were speaking, it reminded me that oh my gosh, yes, we talked about this at such an event and we haven't instilled it. So I quickly messaged the team going, don't forget to build into the run sheet. So you know, the fact that we need this quiet time. But what I really loved is that not only do you quarantine that time and you give your staff that exhale, that time to breathe, that time to reset, you tell your clients, but you also tell your clients why. Because I can imagine, and we've all been there before, when that's like, we're at the start. I mean, I've done it at an A V box when there's no A V team, and we're about to do a sound check and everyone's disappeared. And you're like, where are they? Where are they? Where starting? So the fact that you not only set the times, you tell the client in the lead up, so it's not a surprise to them, but you tell the client why. And it I would imagine it's very hard for a client to argue back to say to argue back against a

Quiet Time To Reduce Event Stress

SPEAKER_01 15:45

rationale of this is going to get them in the best mindset to deliver your event.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I actually rationalize with them. I tell them why. I said you will want everybody to check through everything to make sure that it's as in the best uh way set up for your events, and also to give time for people to be more confident about what they're delivering. Yes. So it's to your benefit. So if you want anything changed or anything done last minute, do it before that time.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yes, I love that. And what has been the impact from can you see the difference from when you didn't used to do that practice to when you do it now?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Okay, so I would qualify that and say there are times when you have chaotic clients and they will insist on changes. Yes. And they will tell you it's necessary, you you have to do it. And I think that's when we sacrifice that quiet time, unfortunately. Yes. But I see the difference in that people get very flustered. People who are sitting at the A V console, people who are doing registration, they suddenly think they have to rework everything in their minds, right? It can be on paper, but in your mind, you need to be prepared about what are the steps you need to take, what are the things. And once you are confident of that, then you can do it in a subtle way. Yes. But once you have all these last-minute changes that they need to incorporate, everybody gets very jittery because they're not sure if I remember it correctly. Will I miss that?

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Yes. And as you say, like we're getting people to make key decisions at their most stressed, at their most tired, which goes against everything we know about it. And there's so much that I want to bring into our events, and I think there's so much that a lot of agencies can learn. And as you say, you're flexible, it's not, you know, you know there's times where it's not going to be suitable. But you have to plan for it. Exactly, yeah. And there's so much research around happy. I mean, uh, you know, Richard Branson says happy staff, happy customers. But it's also the reverse. So, you know, if your staff are happy, they're going to deliver a better service. If they deliver a better service, the customers are going to be happy. And in turn, the experience back to the star of the customers is going to be better. And then you get better attention, lower attrition, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, because your staff enjoys what they're doing, they're no longer stressed out necessarily. So why would they even think about changing the career or going somewhere else where they think you'll be less stressed?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yes. Whereas, you know, we know like airports, everyone's stressed at an airport, and I can't imagine what it's like working on those counters. But when an airport does it well, you know, you see everyone's karma, there's just uh a different vibe. And there's an airport that there's an airport in Australia that is my least favorite airport, and I've never been able to work out why. But whenever I'm in there, everyone feels stressed. Every I can hear families fighting, it's just there's angst. And I was telling someone, and they said, Does it have low ceilings? And I said, Oh my gosh, I think it is the ceiling height. And there's research around what impact the ceiling height can have. So, you know, to work as a staff member in that airport is going to be very different to a staff member at Changy Airport in Singapore, where there's biophilic design, there's snooze rooms, everything is around built around the customer experience rather than that transit transactional kind of relationship.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Right. I I think especially when when you're in a high stress situation, you get diff people who get irritated with you. It's a double whammy. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Absolutely. Yeah. And there's research around customer experience. Not only can it increase revenue, it can increase loyalty, repeat business, but it actually lowers cost because you have a lower turnover of rate, a turnover of staff because they're enjoying what they're doing because the experience is it just the benefits keep flowing.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, it's it's it's something that you should really invest in. It's yes, yeah, it's just a small amount of consideration. You're being kind to your staff, they're gonna be kind to your customers. Your customers will also be in kind, be kind to you. So it's a nice circle.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And as I say, it's a small investment. So the things that we've talked about today aren't monetary, they're not big budget things. It's and that's what I think the misconception around customer experience can often be. That's got to be these big moments, it's gotta be these expensive bells and whistles, but it's actually the small moments

The Business Case For Small Moments

SPEAKER_01 20:05

that and the authentic personalized moments.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

I think a lot of times, especially if it's spontaneous, it's even better. Yes, because then people feel it's really genuine. Yes, right. But after a while, you as a business owner, you will start thinking about ways to improve the work conditions of your staff. Because if you're not doing it, then you shouldn't be a business owner. Yes, yeah. So I think once you start doing that, you know you're doing that. May not be a selflessness thing, but you're doing that for the benefit of the business. Yes. For it to be sustainable. And I think any business owner out there, regardless of whether you're in business events or anything, needs to do that. I think so many of our the guests at my talk shared their experiences, and I that was a great takeaway for me because it went beyond what I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yes, and and to the listener, Richard had to throw his slides out because it created such a safe space in this session around kindness that everyone was just sharing and opening up about the good and the bad and when they've been called out. And but I think because you created that atmosphere that we could do that, so you created a great experience for us as delegates delegates in your session.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Text two to tango.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

So um I'm conscious we both have a meeting. I think our next meeting with the venue on the um event show uh the meetings show floor. So if people want to find out more about you, if they want to follow you, where can people find out about you and your agency?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

They can find out about me on LinkedIn. Yes. Just look for Richard Sue Azaba. My company is called MEP, and we are based out of Kuala Luco, but we operate anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Fantastic. And I didn't get to talk to you about cultural differences, but we might have to do a follow up because I'd love to do a session around customer experience and the cultural differences when you're working either across the world or with um multicultural uh groups.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Oh, yeah, that's a totally different experience.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Yes, we'll save that for another episode. Well, a big thank you. Richard and uh it's always great to chat.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yes, thank you. Okay.