We are proud to announce that, as of 1 June, Bernard Lensink will be joining the Amplixs team. With his extensive and highly-valuable experience in the hospitality industry, Bernard’s main focus as a strategic consultant will be on intensifying Amplixs’ proposition and further developing the hospitality mindset among our clients. In this blog, you’ll learn more about Bernard’s background and his role within Amplixs.
A long-awaited collaboration…
For Bernard, studying at Hotelschool The Hague shaped his passion for hospitality. The following 25 years can be described as a great adventure in the hospitality industry, partly abroad and in beautiful locations and challenging workplaces. From a graduate internship at the Radisson Hotel in Brussels to Food & Beverage Director with the renowned Palace Hotel in Berlin. Back in the Netherlands, Bernard was soon employed by Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg, where he worked for 15 years of which nearly 13 years as its Managing Director. In 2021, he found a new challenge as an interim hospitality professional, and can count the founding of Holland Norway Lines as one of his main successes. He has been partnering with The Hospitalist since mid-2022 and is now also eagerly taking on his role as a consultant with Amplixs!
“How do you improve the touchpoints in the customer journey?”
“We’ve been working with Amplixs at Duin & Kruidber since 2008,” explains Bernard. “It triggered my interest in the customer journey. How can you enthuse people before they arrive? What upsell opportunities can you tap into? How do you create as many contact moments with your guests as possible during their stay? With the rise of platforms like Tripadvisor and Booking.com, and the powerful way they present reviews, we phased out our partnership with Amplixs around 2016. We had no way of displaying the information we extracted from Amplixs anywhere, no matter how valuable it was. Still, Paul and I always stayed in touch about how we could continuously improve those touchpoints. And recently, he contacted me again to remind me of what he once predicted in 2008, that we would be working together on something one day. The time has come, is what he said. And he was right, the time has come indeed.”
Taking the next step in hospitality
Amplixs’ approach aims to give customers/guests a voice in the boardroom. According to Bernard, there are myriad options. “Our surveys provide a lot of valuable data. By translating information into what you see happening within organisations and recommending follow-up steps with possible outcomes, you can optimise the results of the satisfaction surveys. It’s all about making sure that theories are also translated strategically, tactically, and operationally.”
“Hospitality should be part of everything you do.”
“I love the term ‘hospitality mindset’. To me, it means that hospitality is part of everything you do. According to the high-tech & high-touch philosophy, this should also include automation wherever possible, but nothing beats personal contact in any guest or client experience. Thinking from the perspective of the triangle of excellence, creating a guest-centric culture is key. A culture in which the employee journey is just as important as the customer journey. You have to treat your employees the same way you treat your guests. When everything works well, you also add optimal value for your shareholders. If we, as Amplixs, can make the results reproducible and measurable, we truly make a difference. I look forward to engaging our clients in our approach in the coming period while embedding the hospitality mindset even deeper into the DNA of our company!”
Would you like to know more about our approach? We would be happy to schedule a meeting to discuss it.