Lower than 5 minutes after assembly with Todd Humphrey at a Seattle espresso store, the longtime tech exec is already sizing up the client. He shortly assesses how espresso drinkers work together with one another and their expertise units, and wonders why they’ve come to this specific location.
Humphrey has spent a long time targeted on utilizing expertise to boost the client expertise — from his early days at Kobo engaged on e-reader companies, co-founding healthcare startup League, a CEO stint at challenge administration firm LiquidPlanner, and extra just lately as an exec with the Seattle Kraken, the place he was senior vice chairman of innovation and fan expertise.
Humphrey left the NHL franchise earlier this 12 months to embark on a brand new journey: Highmark Sports activities Group, his personal consultancy geared toward serving to sports activities groups, leagues, and firms enhance their operations.
The Canadian native and former skilled hockey participant isn’t straying removed from Seattle’s hockey scene. He’s a senior advisor for the Seattle Torrent, the brand new girls’s professional hockey group that performs its first-ever residence recreation tonight at Local weather Pledge Area. He’s additionally working with the Hockey Corridor of Fame in Toronto.
We just lately caught up with Humphrey to study extra about his strategy to serving to organizations enhance their buyer experiences and find out how to steadiness new applied sciences like synthetic intelligence with important human touches. The interview was edited for readability and brevity.
GeekWire: Todd, thanks for talking with us. How are you enthusiastic about expertise and the client expertise in 2025?
Todd Humphrey: “I’m sufficiently old to recollect what the expertise was like. You’d examine a recreation that was occurring that evening within the newspaper. You’d present up, you’d stroll in, it will scent like stale beer and popcorn, and there’d be peanuts on the ground. They’d play the nationwide anthem and the sport would begin.
The in-venue fan expertise has completely been revamped. Know-how performs an enormous a part of that. I take into consideration the door-to-door expertise, and all of the completely different contact factors. From the second somebody wakes up, they’re going to examine the app to see who’s enjoying. You possibly can inform them the easiest way to get to the sport and the place to park.
As soon as they stroll via the doorways, you’re enthusiastic about traces. The common NHL fan spends multiple hour standing in traces in the course of the three-hour expertise. We tried to chop that by greater than half, and I feel we bought there.
You need to get folks to, from, and thru the venue in a extremely environment friendly method. Know-how helps with a few of that — digital ticketing, way-finding, cell ordering, cell funds.
We actually used that Amazon strategy of the client expertise and dealing backward — on the finish of the day, what are all of the friction factors, and the way will we alleviate these?
There’s an enormous alternative for different groups and organizations to essentially rethink their expertise. And it’s not simply sports activities groups. It’s once you go to a live performance, once you go to the Hockey Corridor of Fame — what does that really feel like? How will we flip it right into a extra of a holistic, general expertise past the time you spend within the constructing?”
GeekWire: How do you thread the needle of incorporating expertise and automation — but in addition specializing in the human components of an expertise?
Humphrey: “Know-how is a vessel that it’s important to use as a result of it’s anticipated and it’s actually handy. Everyone’s bought a pc of their pocket, sitting of their hand, and if you should utilize it in the appropriate manner, it’s a terrific leverage level.
On the identical time, I don’t need to see groups and leagues and firms get too hung up on the tech, as a result of I feel little issues just like the human interactions matter.
If you stroll into an enviornment for a live performance or a recreation, you’re going have a contact level with ticketing and safety earlier than you get inside. If these interactions are superior, your occasion is off to a extremely good begin.
I feel that coaching the individuals who work there to greet folks and interact with folks and look them within the eye and get to know who they’re — it’s an enormous benefit.
After I go to QFC, I don’t need to examine myself out. Generally it doesn’t work as nicely. And I’d miss that interplay with the cashiers. They’ve seen my children develop up over time. They know who I’m and what I do. There’s quite a bit to be stated for that.
As a lot as expertise is superior and ChatGPT tells us all of the solutions, folks nonetheless like human interplay. When folks go to occasions, they actually need to be seen, they need to be heard. And once I see an usher at Local weather Pledge Area high-fiving a Kraken fan throughout a celebration, it simply warms my coronary heart, as a result of that’s what it’s all about.
AI goes to supply extra effectivity for us and make issues simpler to do. However on the opposite aspect of that, as a result of there’s a lot bent towards expertise, I feel reside occasions, concert events, video games, theater — all of the locations the place folks can collect are going to be extra vital. Individuals simply have an innate need to be collectively and cheer collectively.”
GeekWire: What recommendation do you may have for startup leaders who might not be main a sports activities franchise, however nonetheless work together with prospects and need to enhance their experiences?
Humphrey: Extra firms must take their buyer expertise and work backwards. You additionally must have conviction in what you’re constructing and why you’re constructing it. And it’s speaking to extra prospects. Some firms construct in silos. The extra you possibly can discuss to folks to listen to directionally the place you may need to go, the higher.
However on the finish of the day, you as an organization, as a management group, have to select your lane. I’d get conviction round that.
It’s additionally understanding what the entire journey goes to be for that fan or buyer, whether or not it’s a SaaS buyer or a cloud buyer or an AI-driven buyer. What’s that buyer going to really feel right through the expertise? And may you construct a enterprise that delivers an unbelievable, top-tier expertise — and likewise drives income? It’s a tough factor to do.”
