To compete for customers, luxury brands are borrowing a tactic banking and hospitality have been using for years
- Luxury brands are "obsessed" with building relationships with their clients, as The New York Times reported.
- Companies such as Gucci and Prada are creating new job titles like "chief experience officer" and "store connector" to try to connect with customers on an emotional level.
- It's a tactic that hotels and banks have used for years.
From Moët Hennessy to Gucci and Prada, luxury brands are hiring people to build relationships with customers and offer them unique experiences - and they're creating brand-new job titles to do it.
"Luxury brands today are focused - obsessed, some headhunters and luxury insiders say - on building personal, emotional relationships with clients. And to deliver on that strategy, many have created jobs with titles like chief consumer officer, chief experience officer, and chief digital and client officer," Astrid Wendlandt wrote in The New York Times.
At Gucci, "store connectors" were created to "connect clients to Gucci in a new, emotional way to discover the house's latest products and collaborations," according to the Times.
Nicolas Sala, an "omni-channel and client experience director" at luxury French jewelry house Boucheron, told the Times that his objective "is not a sale but the story we are going to create with the customer."
Luxury brands aren't the only ones to realize the importance of cultivating emotional relationships with the customers. It's a strategy the banking industry and particularly the hospitality world have employed for years and continue to streamline.
More and more financial institutions hire "chief experience officers" to improve the customer experience in both the digital space and in-person, according to The Financial Brand. Some banks have been giving hipster cafés a run for their money by refurbishing their spaces to include things like rainbow furniture, coffee bars, and grand pianos, as Business Insider Singapore reported.
And on the hospitality front, some five-star hotels allow their employees to spend to spend up to $2,000 per guest - without consulting a manager - to resolve a customer issue or make their stay even better, Inc reported.
"One reason the service you receive at a great hotel is so positive is that people are essentially conspiring there to give you a good time," Peter Economy wrote in Inc.
Companies often borrow tactics from vastly different industries in order to stay competitive. Business Insider's Hillary Hoffower previously reported that some colleges, for example, have started offering to match the cost of tuition of competing universities to incoming students, a strategy retailers have used for years.