The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast

When AI gets a hospitality booking or guest promise wrong, the venue still owns it, and the fix falls to the person standing in front of the guest. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert, explains why venues must train staff to know when to trust a system, when to override it, and how to recover gracefully. If your booking system promised a guest something your floor couldn’t deliver tonight, would your team know they’re allowed to fix it? Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Description In this solo episode, Michelle wraps up October by bringing together three conversations: customer experience and loyalty strategist James McIntyre, executive mindset and performance coach Danica Smith, and Tracey Boeck, Executive Manager of Hospitality and Customer Experience at Maroochydore RSL. Every booking platform, loyalty app and chatbot you put in front of a guest is making promises on your behalf. James McIntyre calls this promise governance, and he argues it is a leadership question first, a training question second and a technology question last. Danica Smith shows what happens when leaders chase AI rankings and lose sight of the guest, while Tracey Boeck shows what it looks like when a club gives its young team real knowledge and a reason to care. Service recovery works because a person with permission can fix the moment before the guest walks away. Michelle shares a recent Hunter Valley dining experience where an online booking for an outdoor table couldn’t be honoured, and a complimentary drink in the bar turned disappointment into one of the nicest parts of the day. Good customer service isn't about the tools you buy. It's about whether the person in front of your customer has what they need, right then, to make a good call. Key Takeaways Every booking system, loyalty app and chatbot makes promises to guests on the venue’s behalf, so leaders must decide what those systems are allowed to promise. AI should handle predictable, transactional tasks, while people own service recovery, special occasions and anything ambiguous. AI is never set and forget, because it only knows the information the venue keeps feeding it. Frontline teams now need a new skill: knowing when to trust the system, when to override it and how to recover gracefully when it gets something wrong. Giving young staff the reason behind the service, plus product knowledge from local suppliers, turns a standard expectation into a memorable experience. Chapters 00:00 - Welcome to the October wrap-up01:13 - Three guests, three angles on hospitality customer service02:54 - Where AI belongs in the hospitality guest journey04:01 - What AI should handle and what humans must own05:10 - Promise governance: who owns a broken promise when AI gets it wrong05:42 - Why AI in hospitality is never set and forget06:43 - You can’t automate your way out of overwhelm08:12 - How IKEA retrained staff instead of replacing them with AI08:32 - When a staff member saved the sale after the tech failed09:27 - How Maroochydore RSL equips young staff to deliver great customer service10:07 - The Splendour in the Grass syndrome and exceeding guest expectations11:18 - Supplier education: the difference between expectation and experience12:40 - A booking mishap turned into a great guest experience14:19 - The new frontline skill: trust the system, override it, recover well15:20 - Your November challenge for hospitality leaders15:36 - How to train your team for service recovery Next Steps - Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast - Join Michelle’s newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog - Book customer service workshops, the Middle Management Movement and the Executive Leaders Movement, tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms Work with MichelleMichelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Her customer service workshops, Middle Management Movement and Executive Leaders Movement give your people what they need from the frontline through to your senior leadership team: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms

AI in hospitality improves efficiency, but internal customer experience, how supported and informed your team feels, is what drives guest experience and revenue. Certified Speaking Professional Michelle Pascoe and guest experience coach Danica Smith explain why leaders must protect the human basics before chasing new technology.What happens when a hotel CEO is focused on ChatGPT rankings while breakfast scores sit at 2 out of 5?Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Description In this episode, Michelle chats with Danica Smith, an executive mindset and performance coach and founder of Morningstar GX, with nearly 15 years across hotels and hospitality technology. Her philosophy is simple: you cannot automate your way out of overwhelm, and guest experience is revenue. She shares how one hotel group she advises was fixated on its AI search ranking while its breakfast scored 2 out of 5 on the OTAs, and how a client chose a new property management system by letting her staff judge which vendor's leaders sat at the bar and got to know the team.Can technology support a hospitality team without replacing it? Yes, because the leaders who get it right use AI to free their people up, and they talk openly with staff about what is changing. Psychological safety works because it sits alongside revenue and guest experience strategy rather than being handed to HR as a tick box.The conversation also covers leading five generations at once, why middle managers are burning out, and the one thing an overwhelmed GM can do tonight.Key Takeaways Chasing AI visibility while service basics slip creates overwhelm for leaders and their teams. Internal customer experience depends on leaders having transparent conversations with staff about AI and job security. Psychological safety belongs alongside revenue and guest experience strategy, not in a separate HR program. Hospitality businesses should test technology vendors inside their own venue before signing, as one of Danica's clients did when choosing a PMS. Leading multigenerational teams requires mentoring, knowledge sharing and more flexible rosters. Chapters00:00 Welcome and introducing Danica Smith01:26 You cannot automate your way out of overwhelm02:51 The hotel chasing ChatGPT rankings with 2 out of 5 breakfast scores04:14 What AI productivity tracking misses about hospitality staff06:33 Will AI replace hospitality jobs? Retraining versus replacing staff10:57 Why hospitality teams need emotional intelligence training11:54 The mindset shift that separates leaders who adapt from leaders who burn out13:07 Why fewer women step into hospitality middle management15:49 What psychological safety looks like for hospitality leaders18:03 How to talk to your team about AI and job security19:24 How to lead multigenerational teams in hospitality22:01 Hospitality staff shortages and losing middle managers since Covid24:54 What AI cannot read during a wedding show round26:51 Flexible rosters for Gen Z and Gen Alpha28:24 The gap between hospitality tech promises and team readiness30:12 The bar test: how one hotel group chose its PMS vendor32:13 Why hotels need a strategy, not just the tech capability35:11 One shift for an overwhelmed GM this week36:59 How to connect with Danica SmithNext Steps - Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast- Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog- Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogramsAbout Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally, including Customer Excellence and Engagement Programs, the Middle Management Movement and the Executive Leaders Movement. Find out more: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogramsAbout DanicaDanica Smith is an executive mindset and performance coach specialising in guest experience, business growth and human behaviour, and the founder of Morningstar GX. She spent almost eight years at ReviewPro and Shiji Group, becoming global director of partnerships, and now advises hotels and hospitality technology companies on guest experience strategy, positioning and leadership performance. Danica is co-host and European correspondent for Hospitality Daily and lectures in strategic management at CETT Barcelona School of Tourism, Hospitality and Gastronomy. Website: www.morningstargx.com

AI in hospitality should stop where the guest journey stops being predictable. Customer experience strategist James McIntyre tells Certified Speaking Professional Michelle Pascoe that AI belongs in the functional layer: wait times, routine requests and standard upsells. Service recovery, moments that matter like birthdays and anniversaries, and anything ambiguous must stay with a human. What happens to guest trust when your chatbot makes a promise your team can’t keep? DESCRIPTION In this episode, Michelle is joined by James McIntyre, creator of the ACTIVATE Framework, to work through where AI earns its place in the 2026 guest experience and where it needs to stay out of the way. Keeping a person in charge of service recovery matters because a guest who is only mildly disappointed can drop from a seven out of ten to a one when they reach a chatbot with no phone number and no human to talk to. James introduces promise governance, the idea that every commitment an AI agent makes about your brand needs the same guardrails as a commitment made by your team. He treats it as a leadership question first, then a training question, with technology last. The conversation also turns to loyalty and membership programs. James estimates the average Australian belongs to between eight and eleven loyalty programs. He explains that trust breaks the moment a brand forgets something a guest has already shared, whether a person or an AI was meant to remember it. KEY TAKEAWAYS AI should own the predictable, low-impact layer of the guest journey, including wait times, routine requests and standard upsells. Service recovery, moments that matter and anything ambiguous need a human leading the interaction, not just a human in the loop. Promise governance makes leaders accountable for every commitment an AI agent makes to a guest, backed by ongoing training and current data. The ACTIVATE Framework is an eight-step method for deciding where AI belongs in the customer journey, starting with an audit of the real journey. Loyalty programs build trust when venues remember what guests have shared and prompt members to redeem their rewards. CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introducing James McIntyre, customer experience and loyalty strategist01:23 - How to use AI in hospitality without losing the human touch06:36 - Who owns the broken promise when an AI chatbot over-promises09:24 - The risk of AI tools over-informing and over-promising to guests13:03 - Does AI build or erode trust in loyalty and membership programs?16:42 - Why reminding members to redeem rewards keeps them loyal18:52 - How to reward long-term customers, not just new ones22:12 - How to reactivate disengaged customers using AI and test-and-learn25:56 - The ACTIVATE Framework for AI-enabled customer experience29:57 - The first guest moment a club CEO or hotel GM should hand to AI NEXT STEPS - Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast - Join Michelle’s newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog - Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms WORK WITH MICHELLEMichelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Explore her Customer Excellence and Engagement Programs, the Middle Management Movement and Mystery Shopping Business Insight Reports: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms ABOUT JAMES MCINTYREJames McIntyre is an Australian-based customer experience, loyalty and growth strategist specialising in customer journey mapping, lifecycle marketing, retention, loyalty strategy, CX design and AI-powered personalisation. He has held senior consulting and leadership roles across Wesfarmers, OnePass, Flybuys, Medibank and Cash Rewards. James created the ACTIVATE Framework, an eight-step methodology for AI-enabled CX transformation, which comes with a free three-minute diagnostic. Learn more about the ACTIVATE Framework™ and take the free diagnostic: 8 questions, 3 minutes, for a personalised assessment of where your CX is leaking commercial value: https://jm-cx.co/activate-framework/

Customer experience beats customer expectation when a hospitality team understands the why behind great service, says Tracey Boeck, Executive Manager of Hospitality and Customer Experience at Maroochy RSL. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional, explores the exact systems, from hand-picked middle management to in-house market research, that get a 130-strong multigenerational team genuinely invested in the guest experience.What's the one thing about customer service that even great leaders still get wrong?In this episode, Michelle sits down with Tracey to unpack how a 130-strong, five-generation team gets pulled onto the same page about customer experience.Tracey's answer works because it's built on mechanics, not motivation. She hand-picks middle managers to shift culture from the inside, runs her own small in-house market research groups rather than outsourcing the work, and deliberately gathers what she calls "staff influencers" for honest feedback, even when it's not what she wants to hear. Her supplier education sessions turn nervous young staff into confident upsellers who can talk a customer through a rosé or a gin like they've been pouring it for years.The conversation lands on the idea that will stay with you: the difference between expectation and experience. Michelle and Tracey also cover why decor and fabric choices shape how a venue is remembered, and the one Monday-morning fix any hospitality leader can make before spending a dollar.KEY TAKEAWAYS Why hand-picking middle management is the fastest way to shift culture across a multigenerational, 130-person team. How running in-house market research groups, rather than outsourcing them, keeps a venue ahead of changing customer expectations. Why gathering honest feedback from "staff influencers" matters even when the feedback isn't what you want to hear. How supplier education sessions turn nervous young staff into confident, natural upsellers. Why the gap between expectation and experience is the one thing most hospitality leaders still get wrong. NEXT STEPS - Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast- Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: michellepascoe.com/blog- Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogramsABOUT MICHELLE Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogramsABOUT TRACEY Tracey Boeck is Executive Manager of Hospitality and Customer Experience at Maroochy RSL, overseeing hospitality operations, marketing, loyalty, sponsorships, donations, customer journey, and promotions. With almost 30 years across hotels, restaurants, and clubs, including executive operational roles with Parkroyal Hotels and the SPHC Group, Tracey built her expertise in customer behaviour, loyalty, and the psychology of the customer experience. Website: https://maroochyrsl.com.au/

Baby boomers aren't universally heading for retirement in Australia's hospitality and club industry, and overlooking their experience is a leadership mistake, not a succession plan, says Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years' hospitality experience. Many senior team members stay for financial, social, and purpose-driven reasons, not ambition. So if your senior team members aren't clocking out for retirement, what are they actually still showing up for? In this solo episode, Michelle draws together four conversations from across the month, with Kenny Ridgell, Cassie Davison, Patty Aubery, and Phillipa Fuller, to challenge the assumption that older staff are automatically on their way out. Leading a genuinely multigenerational team works because it treats resistance to change as a leadership design problem, not a generational one. Michelle explains why the experience sitting inside your most senior team members is often the exact knowledge your emerging managers need, and why some of your longest-serving people may be entering the most capable chapter of their working life rather than approaching the exit. The episode also names the real, practical reasons senior staff choose to stay: not wanting more responsibility, the financial reality of retirement, the social connection a shift provides, and the simple need to feel part of something. Michelle Pascoe closes with a direct challenge to club CEOs and GMs: stop sorting teams by age, and start planning succession years before it becomes urgent. KEY TAKEAWAYS - Why treating resistance to change as generational rather than a leadership design problem holds teams back- Why decades of hard-earned experience make senior staff a hospitality leader's best resource for protecting emerging managers from burnout- Why some long-serving team members are entering their most confident, capable chapter rather than winding down- The real reasons senior staff choose to stay, from financial necessity to social connection and a sense of purpose- Why the hospitality succession gap is closer than most clubs are planning for, and what keeping the ladder down actually means NEXT STEPS - Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast - Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog ABOUT MICHELLE Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry and Disney Institute Alumni credentials, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book the Middle Management Movement, Executive Leaders Movement, or leadership coaching: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms