June Checks inn...

Going into this summer, I assumed I would do one project.

You know… like a normal person.

Then I thought about it slightly too much, which historically has never caused any problems for me whatsoever, and somehow decided to do two. Considering I barely survived doing one project last summer, this may not be the strongest strategic decision I have ever made.

But here we are.

Last summer, JunesJune started with a question about AI and consulting. I sent handwritten letters to executives across Norway because I wanted to understand how AI might change the way companies use management consultants. Somehow, that turned into 20+ interviews with executives from companies including Orkla, Storebrand and Telia, before eventually presenting my findings to firms including McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group.

This summer, the first project, June & The Juniors, continues that work by looking at what happens to entry-level talent when AI starts doing more of the work juniors traditionally learned from.

But after last summer, another question kept bothering me.

If technology keeps making execution easier, faster, cheaper and more automated…

What actually becomes more valuable?

Because AI can increasingly:

• build presentations

• write code

• automate analysis

• optimize operations

• personalize communication

• make companies more efficient

  
  

And if every company gets access to increasingly powerful versions of the same technology, then being “more efficient” may not be enough to make you different. So what does?

I think part of the answer is people.

More specifically: understanding people better than your competitors do.

That means understanding customer experience. And customer service.

Not in the fake “customer-centricity” way every company suddenly adds somewhere around slide 47 of its strategy deck. I mean genuinely understanding:

• how people move through experiences

• where they hesitate

• what creates friction

• what makes them feel looked after

• what creates emotion

• what they remember

• and why two companies offering almost exactly the same thing can leave you feeling completely differently

The more I thought about it, the more interesting customer service became to me. Because great service is one of those things that can look almost invisible from the outside. A receptionist notices that someone is confused before they ask for help. An employee remembers a tiny detail from a conversation the day before. Someone breaks the standard process because, in that specific moment, the process is clearly not what the customer needs. A problem is handled so well that the customer leaves more loyal than if the problem had never happened. None of these things necessarily look revolutionary on a spreadsheet. But they create value and shape whether someone comes back.

Whether they recommend the company. Whether they forgive a mistake. Whether they trust the brand. Whether they are willing to pay more. Whether they remember an experience six months later. And I think that value is often massively underestimated. Which became the starting point for my second project:

June Checks Inn :)

This summer, I want to travel across Europe studying hotels that create memorable customer experiences.

Why hotels?

Because I wanted to study one of the most customer-centric industries I could think of.

Hotels are almost ridiculous when you start counting the number of customer touchpoints.

The booking platform.

The confirmation email.

The pre-arrival communication.

The journey there.

The entrance.

The first person you meet.

The check-in.

The lobby.

The lift.

The corridor.

The room.

The bed.

The bathroom.

The Wi-Fi.

The breakfast.

The gym.

The bar.

The housekeeping.

The way a problem is handled.

The check-out.

The follow-up afterward.

A guest can interact with a hotel dozens, potentially hundreds, of times during a single stay. And every one of those moments is an opportunity to create friction, remove friction, build trust, create emotion or become memorable. Very few industries allow you to observe the entire customer journey so physically. So hotels felt like the perfect place to study customer experience. There is, however, one fairly significant problem with this plan:

I know absolutely nothing about hotels.

Until fairly recently, my main framework for evaluating a hotel was probably somewhere between “nice bed” and “good breakfast.”

So naturally, I decided to spend my summer researching the industry.

But I actually think knowing very little might be part of the point.

I am not going into hotels to evaluate whether they follow industry best practice. I do not know enough to do that.

I am going in as an average customer, looking for the things that make one hotel stand out from the fifty others you could have booked instead.

The unexpected ideas.

The weird little details.

The service moments that catch you off guard.

The things you photograph, tell someone about, or somehow still remember six months later.

And for me, this project is really a combination of three things I want to get better at:

Creativity. Taking initiative. And challenging myself.

Getting better at noticing things others walk past.

Having an idea and actually doing something about it, even when I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

And putting myself in situations where I have to ask questions, talk to people I do not know, and learn about an industry completely from scratch.

Because by the end of this summer, I probably still will not know everything about hotels.

But hopefully, I will be a little more creative, a little braver at taking initiative, and a lot more comfortable doing things I have no idea how to do.

And honestly, I think that might be the whole point.