At Stephen Spencer + Associates, we believe the best visitor experiences start long before someone steps through the door, and live on long after they leave. To mark our 10th anniversary, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the ideas, insights and stories that have shaped our journey.

Our new 10 Questions with… series is a chance to get to know the friendly, collaborative team behind our work, starting with our founder and Ambience Director, Stephen Spencer. In this candid Q&A, Stephen shares his punchy take on consultancy life, creativity and what makes us tick, from rethinking supermarkets to launching London’s cable car.

If you’re curious about what it’s really like to work with us, and why we approach visitor experience the way we do, this is the perfect place to start.

Stephen and Lauren, Ambience Architect and COO of SS+A

What’s the one insight about visitor experience that you think everyone misses?

I think it’s very simple, but it is missed, I think, by the majority of attraction operators, hoteliers, hospitality business proprietors. It is the fact that the experience does not take place in those venues.

For every visitor, for every customer, it takes place in here, in their head, and it is different for every visitor, and it’s because it’s how they perceive the experience and how they ultimately feel about it that is the difference.

And so, we need to understand how those experiences are created, how those perceptions are created, and understand, just to repeat, the experience doesn’t happen in your venue. I mean, it does, but where it actually happens for every visitor is in here, in their head.

If you could redesign any public space tomorrow, what would it be and why?

Well, this might be surprising, but it’s the supermarket. Part of the reason for this is because doing so or the thought process behind it would actually illustrate quite a lot of the other things that I believe in, not least the fact that I would love supermarkets, certainly in the UK, to sell more interesting, fresh, homegrown produce, and also persuade people to cook with real ingredients and not just buy processed foods. I believe part of the reason that they don’t do it is because we don’t make it easy or attractive for them.

An American architect whom I admire greatly and have got to know a little bit is Kevin Ervin Kelley, who wrote an amazing book called Irreplaceable, and I do recommend it. He talks about the fact that why is the supermarket laid out as it is? Part of the reason is that in the ’60s and ’70s with the explosion of choice, when suddenly there were thousands of options that people could buy, the logical thing was to lay out the store in the same way as the warehouse, so they could just bring out the trucks, the pallets, and just stack the shelves, and it was efficient.

But of course, it was counter to how people actually want to experience, certainly want to engage with anything new. So, this is why people tend to go into the supermarket, home in on the things they came in for. Yes, they might stumble across a couple of impulse products, but basically, they want to get in and get out as quickly as possible, which isn’t really conducive to maximising their spend and definitely not the way they feel about the supermarket.

If you go to France, you’ll find, as I’m sure many of you know, supermarkets laid out almost like a series of rooms with different textures on the floors, on the walls, a different ambience, maybe even different lighting levels, reflecting the different types of product, whether it’s cheese, charcuterie, butchery, vegetables and fruit, bakery and so on, wine, of course. This means it’s much more interesting, and of course, the French famously love their food and drink, but I think part of the reason that supermarkets are as they are in France is because they want to discover new things, they want to find what’s fresh this week or even what’s affordable this week because the prices reflect availability, which reflects the fact that a lot more of the produce is seasonal because it’s grown domestically.

And so what you find is that their cuisine endures, whereas very often our cuisine is all about going to a restaurant and choosing a cuisine. And of course, we have fantastic restaurants, but when we’re at home, opting for the easy option, the microwave meal.

I honestly believe that we could help our farmers, we could help our health crisis, we could make life better, if we made our supermarkets more interesting, more attractive, and more inviting to people taking bold decisions to try something new.

Why is the supermarket laid out as it is?

What’s the boldest idea you’ve ever suggested to a client and did they say yes?

I’m going to suggest two answers to this question, and the first one is, they’re both actually things I suggested to our employers. And one came off and one didn’t.

The first one, a lot of people know this, but when I was at The Royal Collection, I was Head of Retail when it was decided to open Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time and for five years only to help pay for the restoration of Windsor Castle after the fire in 1992.

It was assumed by the organisation that we would have a small tent at the bottom of the garden at the end of the tour and sell guidebooks and postcards. I wanted us to have a totally unique, totally bespoke range of products that would reflect the experience that people had had and would be exclusive, and I believed that we would make a lot of money if we did that.

I managed to persuade my then boss, Ted Hewlett, and he should forever be acknowledged for having the faith to do this, that we should spend hundreds of thousands on this totally bespoke range, dated, so we couldn’t even potentially shift it in subsequent years if we got it wrong. We did it with an amazing set of UK suppliers, designers, makers, and it was hugely successful, and it showed that retail could be an amazing extension to the visitor experience. A lot of people followed in our footsteps and it helped to raise the status of cultural retail. So I’m very proud of that.

The second one, I was Director of the British Music Experience at The O2, which is Britain’s Museum of Rock and Roll. It’s now in Liverpool. We had a number of challenges, not least of which was you couldn’t see the British Music Experience because it was upstairs in The O2, and it was called the British Music Experience, which meant that people didn’t really understand what it was.

It was aimed at daytime visitors who were not there, and also music fans who were there in the evenings when the museum was shut. So what I wanted to do, and I teamed up with a wonderful architect friend, was to extend what was called The Bubble. It was a top half really of a geodesic dome, like the ones at The Eden Project, the biomes. It was why the exhibition space at The O2 was called The Bubble. But it didn’t come down to the ground floor.

What I wanted to do was bring it down to the ground floor, and my architect friend showed how this would be done, and turn it into the best music store in London. It would also have the box office for the British Music Experience upstairs. Therefore, it would form a dual purpose of being a source of revenue and a source of prestige for The O2, the home of live music, and then it would also promote the museum.

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t go for it. And so we’ll never know if it would have been a success, but I honestly believe it’s one of the best opportunities that I ever identified that wasn’t taken.

In your opinion, what’s the biggest single mistake organisations make when designing retail or visitor experiences?

I’m going to be bold here and say it’s not employing somebody like ourselves.

What I mean by that is, it’s not focusing as much or even at all on the operational, the commercial, and ultimately, the visitor experience, which if you’ve listened to all of these, is actually how people experience it in their heads, when designing the envelope. The envelope is maybe the building or the refreshed spaces, the cap ex that’s being invested and potentially a refreshed or a new exhibition space or experience as well.

So what you have is a fantastic vision realised through an outward, wonderful envelope, but that doesn’t actually fulfil the potential. In many ways I’d say it’s not the single biggest mistake, it’s the single biggest opportunity that organisations miss, is not doing that.

I see a lot of organisations now quite rightly involving members of their teams, whether it be retail or operations, in that design. But then I do argue that you need also a specialist in how the whole thing works from a visitor perception, visitor experience point of view as well, because it really will make the difference as to how much money they spend, which is about how they feel about you.

So I hope that answers the question. Single biggest opportunity: not involving Ambience Architects.

Which project you’ve worked on taught you the most about yourself and why?

Well, I think every project teaches you something and I think it’s really important to reflect, whether it’s been a success or not so much. Many projects that I’ve worked on have taught me something, and maybe I’ve regretted what I’ve had to learn, but always try to learn.

We do learn from our failures, maybe more than from our successes. But I think it’s important to learn from success as well because you want to be more successful and have more of it.

The project I’m going to choose was opening London’s Cable Car in 2012. It was a remarkably short run in, appropriately enough, because it’s really quite a steep trajectory that you set off on across Docklands when you go on the cable car.

We had to recruit, train, motivate, organise, manage, ultimately about 140 people. They’d come from the host boroughs, Newham and North Greenwich. But they were definitely not versed in operating a cable car, and many of them had no public-facing experience at all.

We created a passenger charter, like the charters that we create for many organisations, codifying the values, the business model, roles, and responsibilities so that everyone can be on the same page and deliver the vision. The vision for the cable car was “Inspiring Journeys.” We co-created that with the client, and “Inspiring Journeys” was what it was all about.

It was a simple, easy to deliver, easy to measure, guide to the experience that we must deliver. It was probably the most significant demonstration up to that point of the power of a charter because within three months we were carrying 30,000 passengers a day. We were top of the TfL Passenger Survey for satisfaction.

But more than that, it taught me that you can apply principles and expertise to almost anything. I’m never going to attempt brain surgery, for example, but projects that require delivering a vision, and operationally, and there were times when I had to be duty manager of this cable car as well, you keep focused on what it is you can do and what others around you can do and try and ensure that everyone understands their role and the vision and that you have a system to deliver that.

So things that I would never have thought I could do on that project, I found I was able to. Not alone, but through applying the skills that I had and then learning some new ones.

If Stephen Spencer + Associates had a mascot, what would it be?

This is such a loaded question. I could come up with a whole bunch of cultural references that would probably go over the heads of many of my would-be clients or actual clients, and I don’t really want to do that.

I think I’m going to choose my dog, Luna. She’s a Beagle, and she’s actually asleep beside me right now.

Luna is an irrepressible optimist. She’s kind, she’s loving, she listens, and she watches. She tries to adapt her demeanour to mine or to others in our household or circle.

I love the optimism, the energy, and the kindness that she has. These are all values that we try to embody in how we work together collaboratively with our associates and with all the people that we work with.

But also, I think those skills that she has - really looking beyond, really sensing how we’re feeling - embody something vital. Because we’re a visitor experience consultancy, and because we advocate that the most important thing any business can possibly do is to understand and observe how its customers are feeling, I think she represents that perfectly.

So there you go, my lovely Beagle, Luna.

What’s your secret ingredient for creating moments of wow in a customer journey?

This really has to be about the team, because it’s not my secret ingredient. I think the secret ingredient is the team.

In any experience, the team can make it or break it. They can even save it. So the secret ingredient I can provide is ensuring every team member not only knows what the vision is, not only knows what the experience should be for every visitor, but is also empowered, equipped, and confident to deliver it.

For example, when we talk about customer journeys, we’re talking about mapping out all the touchpoints. We can then co-create with the team ways to add more of what visitors or customers came for at each of those touchpoints.

Whether it’s flowers in the toilet (why don’t more places do that?), a special way to say thank you and encourage people to return at the end of the visit, or simply knowing someone’s name and using it, those details matter.

If you’d like to think more about this, I’d recommend Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. There’s also a connection to The Bear, the Disney+ series about a restaurant. Both really capture the power of thoughtful, people-led service.

The secret ingredient is having clarity around what can be done at each touchpoint to deliver more of what people came for, and then making sure the team not only understands that, but also has the tools and the confidence to deliver something special, whether it’s planned or spontaneous.

Name one cultural trend or innovation that excites you right now and one that makes you raise an eyebrow.

Without trying to be too clever, I could almost say it’s the same thing: immersive experiences.

Immersive experiences have become a buzzword and are often used to describe experiences delivered almost exclusively, or with heavy use of, technology, maybe AI, but certainly digital. At a conference I attended earlier this year, InnovateX (organised by Experience UK with DBT), a number of practitioners even said, “Actually, this fad is somewhat on the wane.”

The other side of the coin, for me, is authenticity. Immersive experiences that use all of the senses, that truly immerse people in something transformational. I’m deliberately quoting Joe Pine, one of the fathers of the experience economy (along with Jim Gilmore), whose latest book is about transformation, and why people don’t just want to be immersed, or moved, or entertained, but transformed.

That might mean learning a new skill, developing a new understanding or relationship, or engaging more deeply with one of their values. Sometimes it can even mean a life-changing experience.

There’s nothing really new about this, but COVID, the challenges faced by the High Street, and the rise of pop-up digital experiences all influenced how people re-engaged with “immersion.” What excites me now is that people increasingly want authenticity: to know who made this, who grew this, whose story am I engaging with, what can I do myself.

That’s a powerful force. It means immersive experiences will evolve as they should, facilitated by tech, but ultimately about people being immersed in authentic, meaningful experiences.

If you had a magic wand to fix one thing in the visitor or retail world, what would it be?

I think it’s about the future of in-person retail.

Hospitality takes care of itself, because you can’t have that at home in the same way as going to a restaurant or staying in a hotel. But you can buy everything from home. You don’t need to go to a shop.

And yet, I started and had so many amazing experiences and learnings in retail before moving into customer and visitor experience. Retail is still important: as a focus for communities, for introducing people to new concepts, products and people, and for supporting local makers, producers and growers. High street retail needs to rise again.

If I had a magic wand, I’d change the business environment to support it. Theo Paphitis and others have talked about this, for example, ensuring a level playing field on tax between online and physical retail.

I’d also do so much more to train and motivate frontline retail staff. They need to understand what an exciting career retail can be or even just what a great day they can have by making customers happy and selling lots of things.

So yes, my magic wand would be waved over the high street.

Finally, what’s your guilty pleasure when it comes to shopping, exploring, or experiencing a place?

I’m going to name two.

The first is that I’m generally at least as excited to go to the gift shop as I am to the museum or exhibition. I know that sounds bad, but I remember in the early ’90s going on a fact-finding mission to the States for Historic Royal Palaces. It was about learning what American cultural retailers were doing that we could adopt. One day we had to rush around the Smithsonian museums in Washington, and we only had time to visit the shops. It sounds awful but it was fascinating.

I also remember going to a late-night Matisse exhibition at MoMA in New York (before museum lates were really a thing here). Seeing the shop almost torn apart by visitors desperate to buy something after being so moved by the exhibition was thrilling. So yes, the shop.

And the other one? The loos.

Now, most of the time loos are my guilty horror, because so many are so bad. But I’ll give a shout-out to the Highgrove Royal Gardens loos, which leave you in a state of almost zen-like calm because they continue the ethos of the whole experience. They’re clean, they smell lovely, and they show how important it is for loos to continue the visitor journey.

Another example: Mount Congreve in County Waterford. I’ve been there a number of times for work, and the café and shop are gorgeous. But the loos, they smell wonderful, there’s always a beautiful flower arrangement from the gardens, and there’s even a signature scent. I now buy that scent every time I visit, and I have it in my home.

So that’s my guilty pleasure: retail and loos.

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Stephen, the first in our 10 Questions with… series. Over the coming months, we’ll be speaking with our Associates to uncover what drives them, what challenges they face, and where they see the future heading.

If you’d like to learn more about how Stephen Spencer + Associates can help your organisation design experiences that inspire and endure, get in touch with us, we’d love to continue the conversation.

10 Questions with… Stephen Spencer, Ambience Director, Stephen Spencer + Associates

Autumn Fair 2025

SS+A x Distinkt: Redefining sustainable retail for the cultural sector