Walt Geer of Zuhoo: 5 Things a Business Should Do to Create a Wow Customer Experience

Personalization — Anything that makes a customer feel special is a contributor to a Wow! customer experience. By asking parents and grandparents to provide information ahead of time, Santa can greet each child by name, be prepared to answer personal questions, and surprise children with the knowledge of what they want for Christmas. By keeping the magic of Christmas alive, we’re also able to deliver a perfectly tailored experience to our guests.

As part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Walt Geer.

Walt Geer is the co-founder and CEO of Zuhoo, a digitally native kids and family entertainment platform whose mission is to entertain, enrich and inspire. In 2020, Zuhoo launched its first virtual experience, becoming the world’s most popular virtual Santa platform serving customers from all 50 U.S. states and 35 countries. He’s been a Venture Capital-backed founder as well as bootstrapped a successful closely-held company to scale. Walt resides outside of Atlanta, with his wife and Zuhoo co-founder, Sarah Blackman.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I’ve led an entrepreneurial life since my college days when I would start little businesses to make a few bucks so I could pay tuition. I had no idea what I was doing and learned a lot of hard lessons along the way. I had my first big breakthrough during the Web 1.0 era when I became a VC backed Internet founder and CEO. Being in Atlanta, far from the eco-system of Silicon Valley was really challenging back then. Atlanta still doesn’t have much of a Consumer VC scene but thankfully VC’s from out West and in New York are willing to look at deals pretty much anywhere.

I stumbled (nobody plans for this sort of thing) into the retail character business in 2009. I started off as a turnaround consultant at PictureU and eventually became CEO and a co-owner of the company. Our team built the second largest Santa and Easter Bunny retail business in North America, serving over 30 million people since 2008. The company supports over 2,000 retail seasonal associates who serve 3+ million customers annually at nearly 200 locations in 6 time zones across the continent.

In 2020, my wife Sarah Blackman had the amazing idea to create a virtual Santa experience. A problem presented itself with the pandemic, so we used our life’s experiences to do something really hard, really fast. We had the backgrounds in entertainment and technology, and we understood the global demand for a cherished family tradition. We launched JingleRing (now Zuhoo) on a proprietary video platform and served customers in all 50 states and 35 countries for the 2020 holiday season.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

When you’re in the moment none of the mistakes are too funny, but in all seriousness, I don’t mind mistakes. I embrace failure and encourage our team to take risks. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing hard things fast, and speed really matters. We all make mistakes all the time. The key is recognizing it quickly and moving on.

At Zuhoo, we’re big on using data to tell us when something is or isn’t working. We’re even bigger on having the guts to admit when we’re wrong and taking corrective action. When I was younger I didn’t quite get this, but something I’ve learned over the years is this: There’s almost nothing more powerful than a leader who owns up to mistakes and apologizes when he or she is wrong.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many that to point out just one is really hard. I’m a self-professed life’s-learner who’s always trying to figure out where things are going and how I can get better.

I can certainly point to one of my early mentors who invested over $20 million with me during the Web 1.0 era had a profound impact on my thinking and development as a leader. This guy was in his early 50’s at the time, had created multiple billion-dollar businesses, and yet still had mentors he went to for advice. That always stuck.

To this day I seek out advice from others, read, watch videos, you name it — whatever I can do to learn something new, stay relevant, be the best leader I can be. Don’t ever think you’re too old, have taken enough classes, have done enough of anything to stop challenging yourself to get better.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?

Technology is so commoditized now. It wasn’t that way 20 years ago when I built my first Internet business. But now, it’s never been easier, faster, or cheaper to launch a technology platform. So, what you’re left with is much less about technology and a lot more about dreaming up innovative products and creating new business models that are customer focused. The customer experience is what defines and differentiates us. It’s all that matters.

Everything we do is built back from the customers perspective. We believe what we’re really selling is trust. We want parents and other customers to believe as deeply as we do and that they can trust us to be reliable, safe, and fun! We want to be in their lives as their children grow up and out of the “belief years.” We think if we get this right, we can build the most trusted digitally native kids-and-family business in the world.

Zuhoo is an experience. When customers visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus, they have certain expectations, and rightfully so. What distinguishes our brand from other virtual Santa experiences is our unique online platform. We want consumers to experience a visit to the North Pole from the second they open the website until the second their browser is closed. The effect of our brand would be diminished if the entire experience of logging on to our website was any less magical or immersive than the visit itself. It’s comparable to visiting an amusement park. The reason they’re so enjoyable is because the illusion is never broken. We strive to create the same effect.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

It comes down to leadership. If the founders/leaders of businesses make the customer experience their top priority, it will be. Tech companies are rarely great with customer experience. There’s probably a reason for this and it’s probably tied to so many of these companies being founded by engineers thinking that all it takes is building a good product. But the marketing, branding, and especially the customer experience is the real differentiator. Zappos came along and showed that you can be a tech business and focus on the customer, but there aren’t many of them that have been that good at it.

We had our own problems when we launched last year. The tech came in late and buggy. We were cancelling and rescheduling orders by the thousands. That was painful but we worked through it. Our mantra became All Grit, No Quit.

Every single person on our team took it personally when we failed a customer. As the CEO, I set that tone because I take it personally. We did whatever we could do to make it right, to keep our promises to customers. We did things like giving away thousands of free Santa visits using Zoom which, of course, isn’t even using our own platform! We would give people their money back and reschedule them for free, again by the thousands. Once we worked through the problems and started serving thousands of customers a day it was magical and all worthwhile. Now they’re coming back in huge numbers. They know they can trust us to do the right thing.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

One of the great advantages of a service model is that you can truly differentiate your customer experience. What we create and sell here isn’t a commodity. We keep an eye on competition, but frankly we spend our energy on creating products that our customers love and can’t imagine not using. We take it very personally when we fail a customer’s expectations. We hate letting people down. That’s enough external pressure to keep us focused on building trusted and memorable customer experiences.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

2020 was a really hard year to launch a new company with a complex tech stack designed to serve customers all over the world, 24 hours a day! Our team was (and still is) fully distributed and scattered around the globe. The tech came in late and buggy, and we were up against a very finite timeframe of serving customers during the Christmas season.

We were so excited to offer ASL Santa for children who are hearing impaired and sure enough, early on, we had orders coming in for ASL Santa. We had one customer who we had to reschedule maybe 2 or 3 times because the product wasn’t quite ready. Finally, after a few failed attempts we served the family with ASL Santa. The little girl was probably 6 or 7 years old, her mom told us she’d never signed with a Santa.

The girl’s mom was slightly off camera standing over the shoulder of her daughter. I sat at my desk and monitored the visit in real time. By now I had been in contact with the mom and had personally committed to making the magic happen.

I sat here watching the joy in that child’s face as she signed with Santa. It was so powerful and compelling to see how we impacted that one little girl’s life in that moment. Her mom had tears running down her face. I had tears running down my face. It was a moment I carry with me every time things get a little hard or we have setbacks.

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

Our entire team is emotionally invested and inspired by the unique opportunity we have to bring people together, create amazing experiences for them, and give them memories that will last a lifetime. On the hard days I always look back on that little girl signing with Santa. She’ll probably never know the impact she had on my life and how she inspired me to build something the world really needs.

Startups are really hard. We’re doing something special here at a time when the world could use a little extra joy in their lives. Internet technology has turned into a culture-war weapon of divisiveness and it’s tearing us apart.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience. Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Creative touchpoints — This reinforces my earlier mention of an immersive experience. By upholding the same fun language and festive graphics that we use on the Zuhoo platform across all of our social channels and email blasts, we ensure that the experience extends beyond a visit with Santa. These creative touchpoints also give customers an idea of what to expect for their first Zuhoo visit. Maybe they recognize our mascot Jingle from an email campaign or an Instagram photo. Inversely, once the visit has passed, the magic of the experience lives on through the other ways we establish contact with our customers. We have an incredible team of technologists that complements our creative team in order to bring Zuhoo to life to thousands of people during the holiday season.
2. Demographic appeal — Zuhoo strives to create both an inclusive and accessible experience by employing a diverse cast of performers. From Black Santa and Mrs. Claus, to ASL- and Spanish-speaking Santa, to sensory-conscious Santa and Santa in a wheelchair, we ensure that every person who reserves a visit will experience Santa in a way that is most meaningful to them. Creating an inclusive customer experience will make the difference between just a visit to a website and an experience the customer will remember for years to come.
3. Personalization — Anything that makes a customer feel special is a contributor to a Wow! customer experience. By asking parents and grandparents to provide information ahead of time, Santa can greet each child by name, be prepared to answer personal questions, and surprise children with the knowledge of what they want for Christmas. By keeping the magic of Christmas alive, we’re also able to deliver a perfectly tailored experience to our guests. And a perfect example is the ASL Santa mentioned above.
4. Ease of Use — Ease of use, along with flexibility, is a two-pronged approach that help make customers feel welcomed as they begin their experience by reserving a visit. Zuhoo is a web-based platform with no downloads necessary. All you need is a link and a web browser with a camera. By making our platform as straightforward and accessible as possible, it becomes easier to join, and allows programming to run smoothly and more quickly. With just a quick invite, grandparents can join in to watch their grandchildren meet Santa from across the country. We also provide risk-free reservations. Kids will be kids, and they might not always be in the mood to take a seat in front of a screen. We want clients to know that we understand, life happens and allow customers to take control over their reservation and reschedule as needed. It truly goes a long way
5. Leaving a lasting impression — Lastly, we want all customers to remember their experience after their reservation concludes. To keep people thinking and talking about Zuhoo, we provide users with a photo and the full recording of their experience to re-watch and share on social media until it’s time to book again.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

We live in an era where people have the tools to become brand advocates, so we want to make it easy for them. We give our customers an awesome shareable video and photocard from their experience and they get it almost immediately after they’re done. We want them to have these artifacts while their emotions are still high from the experience, and they’re super fired up and excited. They can enthusiastically share and spread the word for us.

Everyone everywhere wants their kids to be happy and feel the magic of childhood. The photos and videos posted from our experiences are so powerful and touching. Everyone knows a personal recommendation is far more meaningful than an ad so it’s something we think a lot about.

My particular expertise is in retail, so I’d like to ask a question about that. Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise retail companies and eCommerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?

Given the nature of Zuhoo as a service, this question is not pertinent.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I feel like we have started a movement! We’ve tapped into something that people everywhere are looking for. We use technology to bring people together for their most treasured family moments. It’s safe, fun, easy, and we create memories that people will cherish and look back on forever.

I feel immensely lucky to be in the business of spreading joy. Even as we get older and stop believing in Santa, the feeling of Christmas joy never subsides. If I could launch any movement, I would hope people of all ages and all walks of life find that magic and spirit again. I like to think that Zuhoo is one step in the right direction to achieve that goal.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Visit us at www.Zuhoo.com or follow Zuhoo on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

About The Interviewer: Orlando Zayas is the CEO of Katapult, an award-winning omnichannel payment platform. Zayas is known for his revenue growth strategies and visionary leadership in the eCommerce and retail space. His future-forward expertise has led companies such as GE Capital, Safe-Guard Products International, and DRB Capital. Zayas is also highly committed to providing educational opportunities to underprivileged communities through his philanthropic endeavors. Zayas’ business insights are regularly featured in publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Retail Insights, and more.