Product Leadership in High-Touch Industries
Learn how product leaders from Phillips, Princess Cruises, and Wynn Las Vegas navigate industries with highly personal experiences, including travel, art, and luxury CX.
Happy Friday, product leaders!
Some industries are built on trust, touch, and timeless tradition. Think art auctions, luxury resorts, or cruise lines. But even the most high-touch experiences are being reshaped by digital experiences.
This week, we’re spotlighting three leaders who are redefining what “product” means when the product is an entire experience:
Elizabeth Van Bergen on blending gallery trust with digital reach at global auction house, Phillips
Raul Parquet on transforming cruise bookings into data-driven journeys
Mauricio Prado on emotion-driven customer experience at Wynn Las Vegas
Happy reading,
Imane Rharbi
How Product Leaders Navigate High-Touch Industries: 3 Cast Studies
1. Leader Spotlight: Creating a seamless digital experience for luxury products, with Elizabeth Van Bergen
Elizabeth Van Bergen is a Lead Product Manager at the prestigious auction house, Phillips. Her work is a masterclass in bridging the physical and digital divide, demonstrating how to replicate the in-person trust and experience of a gallery experience online.
In her interview, Elizabeth talks about:
How Phillips operates for a clientele of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, seasoned collectors, and sophisticated art professionals accustomed to a high-touch, relationship-based model
When “product” is not merely a physical product, but an entire ecosystem of trust and expertise. For Phillips customers, this includes verification of an object's history, expert curation of sales, discretion of private transactions, and seamless handling of post-sale logistics
How the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a global shift away from in-person interactions that forced the centuries-old business model to accelerate its digital presence
2. Making creative decisions backed by data, with Raul Parquet
Raul Parquet is the Director of Ecommerce at Princess Cruises, where he is leading a full-scale digital transformation of Princess.com. He is focused on simplifying the complex cruise booking process and unlocking new revenue by enhancing web merchandising, personalization, and pre-cruise planning for guests.
In this interview, Raul talks about:
How the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a catalyst for digital transformation in a slow-to-adapt industry like cruises
How he uses analytics to navigate high-consideration purchase journeys with multiple customer segments (e.g., those new to cruising, those new to the Princess brand, and returning customers) with different needs
How the digital strategy extends across the entire customer lifecycle to build long-term relationships and loyalty, including a mobile app that becomes an onboard planner for booking excursions, spa treatments, and dining reservations
3. Rethinking luxury through emotion-driven CX, with Mauricio Prado
Mauricio Prado is the former Vice President of Digital Technology at Wynn Las Vegas. His role highlights the challenge of infusing a world-renowned luxury hospitality brand with a digital layer that enhances the highly personalized guest journey through user-centric design.
In his interview, Mauricio covers:
How Wynn Las Vegas operates at the apex of the luxury resort market, where the “product” is the total guest experience, and how this affects every touchpoint, from the initial booking process and pre-arrival communication to the in-room environment, dining reservations, and post-stay engagement
The balance between sophisticated technology and personalized guest relationships, so there isn’t a digital disruption, but an integration
The need for a deep understanding of the guest journey and identifying points of friction that technology can solve
ICYMI: LaunchPod
Jeff Wharton sits down with Elizabeth Van Bergen, who leads product experience at Phillips, a global high-end auction house, to cover:
Creating a product experience for both tech novices and early adopters
How the traditional auction industry went digital overnight
Why the digital experience is as important as the functionality itself
🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week
I Believe in Interim CPO Roles, But Not in Fractional CPO Roles
Context-aware design systems, AI-first design principles, and PMs as strategic orchestrators
Is half of product management just cleaning up organizational debt?
The distinctions between CTOs vs. CPOs: Who leads who?
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