The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast · 2026-06-16 · 39 min
Is customer experience dead? No - but the way hospitality leaders have been managing it is. Rick Denton, host of CX Passport and a 30-year corporate customer experience veteran, joins Michelle Pascoe to explain why CX as a discipline isn't dying, but the branding around it is - and what hospitality leaders must do differently to stay ahead. Are your venues investing in the right things, or are you cutting the very people who make the guest experience worth returning for? In this conversation, Michelle and Rick get specific about what hospitality leaders are getting wrong right now - from over-relying on data dashboards without acting on them, to cutting frontline staff in the name of efficiency and wondering why revenue is falling. Rick's view is direct: CX will never die because customers and experiences will always exist. What's dying is the version of CX that couldn't prove its value in dollars. Key Takeaways Why the branding of customer experience is fading and what hospitality leaders should focus on instead. How AI is freeing frontline staff to spend more time with guests - and how companies are getting that trade-off dangerously wrong.
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