What if significantly scaling revenues didn’t require more spend on marketing, capital, or customer acquisition? Sometimes the most powerful lever for business growth sits right in front of you, hidden in how you service the people who already walk through the door.
Tom LeClair, an award-winning executive and international consultant, has spent over 25 years transforming luxury resorts, wineries, and brands worldwide, showing that service excellence can multiply revenues faster than any capital investment.
Using a Service Reboot To Drive Revenue
As a Six Sigma Black Belt and leader in efficiency, LeClair was selected to turn around a stagnant winery. A year later, the winery was vastly different. Nothing about the facilities had changed. The marketing budget stayed flat. But something remarkable happened when the approach to service altered. “When we raised service to a five-star level, guest spend didn’t increase by 10 or even 15%. It rose by 315%,” he recalls. Guest spending tripled in record time, just by elevating the guest experience through his strategy. The wine didn’t change. The tasting room looked the same. What shifted was more intangible. “We built an emotional connection so strong that guests didn’t just buy wine. They bought the experience of belonging to something special,” LeClair explains. Success hinged on the deep understanding that emotional connections drive purchases.
Under his leadership, the winery quickly became one of the Top 10 Wine Estates in the World, and is celebrated as the only winery to have achieved a Forbes Five-Star, AAA Five-Diamond, and Michelin Star designation.
Understanding True Five-Star Service Excellence
People have misconceptions about what five-star service really is. Leaders might think their businesses need upgraded lobbies or fancy amenities, but LeClair spent years repositioning luxury resorts across Europe and Asia, and says that is not what really moves the needle. The marble floors and high-thread-count sheets? They miss the essence. “True service excellence isn’t about your facility or your product. It’s about the feeling you leave behind,” he says.
Even Forbes and Michelin, the firms that literally define what service excellence looks like, credit more to human connection than technical standards. “Guests and customers aren’t buying what you sell. They’re buying how it makes them feel.” LeClair states. You can only achieve such top levels of service by understanding that a unique and powerful emotional connection must be made with every guest.
The Strategy That Improves Touchpoints And Experiences
The most compelling aspect of this approach? The most powerful services cost nothing. LeClair talks about anticipation, connection, and personalization as the real drivers. These aren’t budget line items. They are things your team can start to deploy immediately if they have the tools.
Consider all the tiny moments that happen during a customer interaction. Someone’s tone during a greeting. The timing of a follow-up. The small details that show someone’s actually paying attention. Each of these has an immense impact. “When you can optimize all service touchpoints, from the first impression to issue resolution, you increase not just satisfaction, but perceived value,” he points out. And, it is that growth in perceived value that instantly changes how much people are willing to spend.
Engaging Teams To Drive Change
Business leaders are often spread too thin to focus on enhancing service, and the aversion to change is everywhere. “True leaders don’t settle for good when great is possible,” LeClair states. Getting buy-in isn’t about forcing people to change. That is why the type of change LeClair recommends is positive for all stakeholders. Especially for employees, it’s about demonstrating the benefit and articulating the process. When your team sees the connection, it drives motivation. This is when excellent service stops being something management wants and becomes something everyone’s working toward.
Customer Loyalty Provides Protection
Markets get shaky. That’s inevitable. But LeClair’s strategy for volatility looks different than the usual playbook. Instead of chasing new customers or slashing costs as an initial response, he focuses on the people already buying from you. “You don’t always need more customers. You need deeper loyalty from the ones you already have.” True, implementing five-star service should drive new customer interest, but what would it mean if every one of your current customers instinctively spent just 5% more? What about 10%? What if it turned out to be even more than that?
Customer value (especially lifetime value) goes up when people feel connected to your business. Profitability climbs with loyalty – this is when customers start buying extra items, returning more frequently, and recommending you more often. LeClair’s consulting work centers on this philosophy and focuses on building systems for sustained elevated service. It is a strategy that creates the loyalty-protecting revenues you need when markets trend downward.
Economic pressures affect everyone. LeClair’s advice for those times: “Don’t just cut costs; increase perceived value. Nothing raises perceived value faster than world-class service delivery with authenticity, consistency, and heart.” A person’s need to feel important and connected doesn’t change during economic uncertainty. Even in a downturn, it has been proven that we are willing to pay for the brands and experiences we feel connected to. This means businesses that prioritize value can retain revenues and hedge against other market constraints.
“Markets will always test you. Trends will come and go. But the human desire for connection, care, and meaning will never change,” he says. Legendary service is about meeting this desire, and according to LeClair, “it helps protect revenue, multiplies brand value, and turns businesses into movements.”
If you make five-star level service your standard, he assures, “you won’t just survive the next market cycle – you’ll thrive”.
Connect with Tom LeClair on LinkedIn for more advice on leveraging world-class service to drive profitability.
