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LRA Worldwide, Inc., a leader in the consulting discipline of Customer Experience Management (CEM), announced Rick Reilly has joined the firm as an Account Director. Reilly brings a unique combination of skills in customer experience management, luxury hospitality operations, strategic planning and performance analysis to the firm; he will work with several of LRA’s highest profile hospitality and travel accounts immediately.
Reilly comes to LRA with three years of service at the Four Seasons Hotel Boston under his belt, where he served as the Hotel Assistant Manager; he also held a variety of operations and management positions within Housekeeping, Front Desk and Telecommunications at the property. Before his stint at Four Seasons, Reilly had earned the Front Office Manager position at the Statler Hotel (Ithaca, NY) while still a student at Cornell University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree at the prestigious School of Hotel Administration.
Most recently, Reilly served as a Manager, Live Channels at Digitas, a leading provider of interactive marketing, digital communications and direct marketing services. In his role at Digitas, Reilly was responsible for the planning and execution of brand experience and customer retention strategies, including product design and launch, customer segmentation, operational audits and customer feedback tools. He worked with a range of multinational clients including industry leaders such as FedEx Corporation, Time Warner, The New York Times and American Express.
“We see Rick and his combination of skills as the next step in the evolution of our account management teams and the value we bring to our clients,” explained John Roberto, an LRA Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the firm’s Quality Assurance practice. “With real-world operations and management experience in luxury hospitality, customer analytics and marketing, project-based analytical and strategy-building work, and a top-flight hotel school education, Rick will help provide our clients with valuable insights to further shape the customer experience.”
LRA created the Account Director role to ensure that each client was gaining the maximum insight and counsel from the quality assurance and customer satisfaction and loyalty research data that LRA gathers. Three additional LRA associates (listed below) were shifted into Account Director roles.
Jill Jennings has spent seven years with LRA as a field consultant, project manager and, most recently, managing two large accounts, Choice Hotels International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Prior to joining LRA, Jennings worked for Omni, Sheraton and Radisson; she graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) with a Bachelor of Science degree.
Jeff Gurtman has been a member of the LRA team for nearly two years, spearheading the development of LRA’s enterprise quality management technology, TouchPoint Manager.™ Before joining LRA, Gurtman was the Vice President of Business Development at Coyle Hospitality; he graduated from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.
Shannon Pruce has headed LRA’s custom accounts division for nearly two years, and has worked on a variety of QA and research projects with ARAMARK, Hilton and Hard Rock, among others. Pruce spent three years working as a Guest Services Manager with the Walt Disney Company prior to joining LRA; she is a graduate of Duke University.
“The Account Director role underscores the importance of providing our clients with higher levels of client service, responsiveness, best practices, and insights into our research findings.” said Rob Rush, CEO of LRA Worldwide. “We are always searching for new ways to ensure our clients gain the maximum value from their relationship with LRA, and these new positions will help us achieve that goal.”
In all, LRA conducts nearly 13,000 site visits and evaluations each year, as well as collects and analyzes thousands of customer surveys, either as a stand-alone offering or as part of an integrated Customer Experience Management project. In addition to its lodging clients such as W Hotels, Choice Hotels, Hyatt Hotels and Westin Hotels & Resorts, LRA provides performance measurement services to giants in sports (Troon Golf, the PGA TOUR), Leisure (Stowe Mountain Resort), Conference Centers (ARAMARK), the National Park Service (Yosemite National Park, Kennedy Space Center), Gaming (Churchill Downs, Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos), Homebuilding (Toll Brothers, Inc.) and Travel (The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey).
About LRA Worldwide
LRA Worldwide, Inc. (LRAworldwide.com) is a leading consulting, organizational development and research company that specializes in Customer Experience Management (CEM). LRA helps companies and brands design and deliver the optimal customer experience across all key touch points using an integrated suite of services that measure and improve service quality, customer satisfaction, employee performance, loyalty, customer advocacy and profitability. LRA specializes in “operationalizing the brand” – turning brand promise and customer strategy into operational reality. LRA’s CEM practice areas include Customer Experience Strategy Consulting, Standards Development & Content Management, Organizational Development & Training, Research and Quality Assurance & Mystery Shopping; these are either deployed together in a strategic manner to continually monitor and improve the customer experience or deployed individually to address a specific tactical client need.
LRA’s clients include some of the world’s leading companies and brands, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos, the PGA TOUR, Albertsons Supermarkets, the NBA and First Niagara Financial Group.
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