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Urban Air CEO: Retail success is all about loving the customer
Michael Browning, founder and CEO of Urban Air Adventure Park, shared his brand’s secrets to success during a keynote talk at this week's annual ICX Summit/Connect: The Mobile CX Summit.
June 5, 2019 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
The secret to retail success, whether it's as a restaurant or entertainment venue, is simple, according to Urban Air Adventure Park CEO and Founder Michael Browning.
It's about knowing your customer and loving your customer. And the key element to gaining that knowledge is data, data and more data, Browning shared during the opening keynote at the ICX /CONNECT: The Mobile CX Summit, taking place this week in Dallas, Texas.
(The annual event, sponsored by the ICX Association and Networld Media Group, is also host to the annual ICX Association Elevate awards.)
Getting to know the guest
During his 1-hour session, Browning detailed Urban Air's strategy when it comes to the customer experience and why it's been a crucial aspect to the brand's nearly meteoric success.
Urban Air, a family entertainment destination launched eight years ago in Texas, was named one of Entrepreneur magazine's top 100 franchise companies in the U.S., has 240-plus locations open and aims to have 300 across the U.S. and abroad by 2020. Its focus is healthy, active entertainment for both children and adults.
Browning, a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year 2019 Award in the southwest division, attributes his company's growth and success to its business model.
"We look at the total customer ecosystem, all in an effort to deliver the highest possible customer experience," said Browning, explaining the ecosystem not only includes the young customers but parents and family members visiting the indoor park venue.
In that regard, the restaurant/food quality and experience are as important as the athletic activity and gaming experiences, he said. What his customer ecosystem does during a visit is data and insight that is driving a better CX.
"You have to understand your customer and know why they visited," he said, as well as how their experience was. He offered up a slide on building the business model featuring six elements: what, who, why, how, when and where, and told the standing room only audience that "you can't be everything to everyone." One of his favorite business axioms is an Einstein quote: "If you can't explain it to a six year old then you don't understand it yourself."
It's all about data, data and more data
In its intense data dynamic approach Urban Air has identified its distinctive customer lifestyle segments as part of its understanding of the customer. It's no small feat given the franchise is on track to serve 48 million guests this year.
The top customer lifestyle segments are customers who love theme parks, enjoy home video games, enjoy vacations and are big lovers of Target. The typical new customer is a female, ages 27 to 44 with children and seeking safe fun in a clean environment and a good value, who is also in charge of discretionary spend.
"You get one shot to win that mom's business," said Browning, who added that social media posts of sleeping youngsters after a day at Urban Air gives him a satisfactory feeling that his company is delivering on its customer experience.]
Urban Air guests are typically either looking to celebrate a life event, such as a new job or birthday, or escape from a tough reality, such as a job loss or illness or loneliness.
"We create a customer experience; we create a memory. We're shooting for the wow," said Browning.
A key element in creating that 'wow' factor are employees, he shared, and driving engagement between staff and the customers is a big reason
Urban Air revised its employee training approach. No tiny effort given that are 10,000 teens working across the Urban Air footprints.
Employees, he explained, play a huge role in "creating new stories, experiences that last a lifetime," and are trained to be aware that many customers are enjoying one of the most fun or important days of the year — such as the birthday event.
How innovation plays in
When it comes to technology within the CX equation, Browning is not shy.
"Don't innovate for the sake of innovating. A unique product and business model can generate high consumer adoption, and you need both," he said.
Urban Air, he related, first began as a simple trampoline park and soon realized survival meant having to expand on that one product offering and taking an experiential approach. Urban Air now offers sky diving experience, go karting, laser tag, and even rock climbing as well as food and drink. There's even an immersive reality arena for game play — content which Browning described as "the wave of the future."
"We looked at that [initial trampoline] model and decided to go and create a complex recipe for success," he said.
The complexity is necessary as a barrier to competition, yet the business model must be simple enough for the customer to understand. The venues offer self-serve check-in and even café ser serve. The focus is on reducing friction in every aspect of the venue for the customer. Parents and family members are given video footage of party events and activities.
This April, Urban Air deployed a national rollout of a new membership program, called Endless Play, which provides customers unlimited monthly access to its indoor parks for as low as $6.99. The membership program, said Browning, is a win-win as families pay upfront and can then enjoy the experience, and it drives increased customer frequency, which benefits the business.
It's obviously been a big win given 1,100 memberships a day since launch, with 46,000 members at latest count.
About Judy Mottl
