The Dealer Playbook

Ep. 655 - How to create a Culture that delivers the Brand Promise, with Edwin Frizzell

• Michael Cirillo

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In this episode, my guest is Edwin Frizzell, Regional Vice President and General Manager at the legendary Fairmont Royal York, and we’re talking about what it really takes to create unforgettable guest experiences, build strong internal culture, and lead with purpose in fast-paced, high-expectation environments.

Edwin shared a real-world example of how a single gesture at a car dealership completely changed his perception—and potentially his buying decision.

“I’m actually considering buying a car from a dealership out of town—not because of the brand, but because one entry-level employee made me feel seen and valued. That one moment of connection changed everything.”

Let that sink in. A single moment. A small gesture. Not the fancy showroom, not the logo on the building—but a human interaction.

And that’s exactly what we unpack in this episode, we dig into:

  •  How to turn everyday interactions into powerful emotional connections
  •  Why Mary in the laundry room is just as important as any executive (and why Edwin knows her by name)
  •  The importance of brand promises—and how to activate them through your people
  •  What automotive dealers can learn from hospitality pros when it comes to service that sticks

If you're in the auto industry and you want to know what today's customer really values, this is something you can't afford to miss.

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MC:

This episode is brought to you by FlexDealer. Hey auto industry. Welcome to this episode of the Dealer Playbook Podcast. I'm sitting down with the regional vice president and general manager at the Fairmont Royal York, edwin Frizzell. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Edwin:

Oh my gosh, it's so excited to be here and we're thrilled to have you here at the iconic Fairmont Royal York.

MC:

It is iconic. We walked in, we went ooh ah the other night and that's not something you get at a quality inn.

Edwin:

Well, I'm not going to disparage any other brands, because we love all of our friends equally. But I will tell you that is part of the Fairmont essence, that idea of walking into a place that does have that special feel and really we work for that. You walk in for the first time. You should take that breath, take that pause and go.

MC:

Wow, let me just pause for a moment because this is someplace special and I want to remember this moment as part of my journey. It's that feeling of you get a glimpse of oh, this must be what royalty feels like, and then conveniently- we have the Queen, and then you look at the wall and there they are, and what is the significance of them on the wall now that we have King?

Edwin:

Charles. Well, so King Charles has not yet made an official visit to Canada or to Toronto and has not been in residence at the Royal York as yet. So we are anxiously awaiting that first visit and we'll be doing some updates, obviously, to our presentation. But of course, queen Elizabeth and Philip, his Royal Highness Prince Philip, did visit us many times and that particular photo and their signature in the book was their last visit to Toronto.

MC:

This was. This is not scripted, but I'm curious. Then there must be be a protocol, like a playbook for you when royalty comes to visit rather lengthy, yes.

Edwin:

And it's part of our journey. I mean, Fairmont hosts diplomats and dignitaries and members of many royal families not just the British royal family across our portfolio and yes, there's a very lengthy SOP, if you will, about how we manage that, but we're very fortunate. We have a great relationship with, particularly, the Royal Office in London and they work very closely with our team. They're good friends and great partners and we look forward to welcoming King Charles very soon, I'm sure.

MC:

I wish I was here for that. Can I just say, I wish I was here for that.

Edwin:

Well, it can be a little bit of a to-do. I remember when I had the opportunity to welcome Prince Harry when he was here for the Invictus Games just a couple of years ago, and you know we're a busy hotel and there's a lot of things going on on a general basis but you really do kind of take that moment and pause and be like, wow, look what's happening, because there was a great deal of interest, of course, in his visit at the time.

MC:

I find that so fascinating. You know, I grew up in British Columbia. Now I live in Texas and find myself quite a monarchist. Now that I'm in a country without a monarch and there's almost like an undertone of pride that comes along with having a sovereign, I can't quite explain it.

Edwin:

Well, she is on our money still, so we see her quite regularly if you know what cash is, but you know and maybe not on your credit card or your debit card. But, yes, no, it is all part, it's part of the charm of our country and it's something that Canadians are very proud of. Our partnership.

MC:

I want to talk to you a little bit about the hospitality side of the business. I find that people in who are often in a similar position as yours, where you are overseeing the operation, have something inside of them that loves to care or have concern for others, and it's something we look at in the auto industry because it's a very, dare I say, transactional business. While we know an organization like the Fairmont is not a charitable organization although it may have some charities, it is a for-profit organization. How do you balance being able to show that experience that every guest deserves when they're on your property, or what you want them to experience, while also balancing the day-to-day of? You know you have individuals at your front desk who are there to collect money, who are there to, you know, make sure that the business is profitable.

Edwin:

Absolutely, I mean, and you're absolutely right. I mean we are not. Contrary to what some people occasionally ask me, we're not a not-for-profit organization.

Edwin:

And so yes, we are very much supporting our community and we do a great deal of work in that space. There's a lot of questions in there, but I'm going to start with the reality of a brand promise. So our Fairmont brand promise, which is the promise we make to our customers, is not about a hot shower or a quick breakfast or a comfortable bed. Our brand promise at Fairmont is about turning moments into special memories, and so when that is your brand promise, you need to have clarity for your colleagues to understand their role in what that means, and so we absolutely talk a lot about this idea of not having a transactional experience, and while we serve over a million customers a year here at the Royal York, for every single one of those on an individual basis, our goal is to create a memory for them that is special for them at that moment, and you can only do that with great colleagues who feel empowered and engaged around that promise, and so we do quite a lot of work with our teams around identifying what that looks like.

Edwin:

Now for the front desk agent, it's a little more clear. Their role is welcoming. It's all about making sure you receive the right room that you've reserved and orienting you to the hotel. But let's think about somebody like Mary down in our laundry department who right now is pressing the pillowcases that are going to go on the bedsheets tonight. You know, mary's role of turning moments into memories is making sure that those pillowcases are clean, without tears, without stains, and are perfectly pressed so that when the room attendants place them on the bed and perhaps Queen Elizabeth puts her head down at the end of the night, that that pillow creates that memory in the right way. And so her role is no less or more important than the front desk agent or the sales manager or, frankly, mine. All of us have a role to play in making those personal connections with our guests and each other, because it takes a team. There's over 1,200 people who bring this hotel to life every single day, every single day, and our journey is about making sure that their journey at Fairmont is equally as memorable and special and fuels their passion for that brand promise that we make every single day.

Edwin:

It's about there's a culture, that there's a lifeblood. It's not like a culture, it is a culture. There's a Fairmont, there's a culture at Fairmont. When I interview people who, you know, aspire to come and join our team there, I'm like why would you like to work for Fairmont? And we hear a million stories about why that is, and, of course, it's a great location, it's a beautiful hotel. I want to advance my career, whatever those items are, but at the end of the day, you're joining our family and our culture at Fairmont is very much about you know, we look at our people first. People are at the heart of everything we do, both to execute our brand promise and also they're our customer. We're not making widgets, we're creating memories every day, and so the idea of creating that culture starts with our people, and we spend as much time focusing on our engagement, empowerment and training and ensuring that that culture is in the right space, because without that we can't deliver the brand promise, and it's something we're pretty passionate about at Fairmont.

MC:

Hey, does your marketing agency suck? Listen before we hop back into this episode. I know you know me as the host of the dealer playbook, but did you also know that I'm the CEO of Flex Dealer, an agency that's helping dealers capture better quality leads from local SEO and hyper-targeted ads that convert? So if you want to sell more cars and finally have a partner that's in it with you that doesn't suck visit flexdealercom. Let's hop back into this episode that transforms, like you said, mary, who's in the laundry room?

Edwin:

or who. Yeah, Mary's worked here for 45 years, by the way, and has been pressing pillowcases perfectly that entire time. She's amazing.

MC:

Good job, Mary, Wow. Well, first and this is a perfect segue into what I wanted to ask you you know Mary's name. You said 1,200 employees, that's a pretty phenomenal feat to take. We know that leadership sets the temperature of an organization. Why is it so important to you that these individuals feel a career here, not just a J-O-B?

Edwin:

Well, again, it comes down to that culture. I mean, we have to deliver this brand promise and I go back to that not only because we're having a conversation about it, but because it is in fact what we do every single day. You know, when I joined the Fairmont Rural York in 2014, we were just at the beginning of this journey of multi years of sort of transforming the hotel physically. This beautiful clock tower that you see behind us, for example, while stunning, is not an original feature of the hotel, that was added in 2019. But today you would feel like it's always been here. A big part of that journey, as we went on this you know, incredible architectural moment, was we sort of paused and said well, this is going to be great, that it's a beautiful new space, but where does the team live in that? Where is the culture? How do we bring the 1,000, 1,200 people that are part of bringing this to life along on that journey?

Edwin:

And we actually stopped in the transformation process and sort of reset ourselves and we created an internal branding for the colleagues and for the team here at the hotel so that all the leaders could go out and really do training. They could have that North Star to hold on to, to say what is it that's going to be different about the Royal York and why is it important that you show up every day and you know, check people in well and clean your room properly and deliver food quickly in the restaurant or appropriately, and it and we created that internal branding. That's it's a little, it's an internal branding you'll never see in the public. It's called we are Fairmont Royal York and it's this idea of creating the essential Toronto experience for our customers every single day and at every moment. And if you're not serving a customer like the bartender behind the bar here, you are helping to make sure that that experience goes well.

Edwin:

So whether you're bringing liquor bottles and clean glassware out from the back, or you're clearing dishes from the tables, or you're in the kitchen cooking the food that's going to land here in clockwork, everything that you do creates an experience, and working together in this sort of symphony, if you will, is really what makes our ability to be able to go out and tell people that we stand behind the promise of turning moments into special memories.

Edwin:

You know, not long ago there was a 40 foot Christmas tree just in the other side of this clock and we had one of the most incredible festive seasons ever. This is the home of the holidays here in Toronto, and when you show up and you, you know, wait an hour to get a table here in Clockwork to, you know, have a glass of champagne under the Christmas tree with someone special to make a memory. That sounds like a really easy, simple moment to execute, but there are hundreds of moments of truth behind the scenes to make that landing of that champagne glass on the table be exactly the way you want to remember it, and we spend an inordinate amount of time with our team not only thinking about how we will do that, but then also, once we do it, evaluating how we did it. So to make sure that we're constantly working on that air of improvement and seeing how we can move it along.

MC:

There's so much to unpack here and I'm not going to torture you with my unpacking of these things but well, that's a training session that we run, so you're gonna have to come work for us.

MC:

Um it the the well you said moment of truth and and I can't tell you how many times I've heard that now in organizations in the auto industry who are concerned about these micro moments of truth, who don't know what they can do to bring them into realization. And as I'm listening to you speak, what I, what I realize is that the heart and soul of the organization is examined. Often. It's it's it starts your day, you, it's why you're showing up, it's your North star.

Edwin:

Can I give you a real, can I give you a real time automotive car industry moment? That would sort of tie this into my lens of that? Because not only am I I happen to be car shopping at the moment, uh, which is a journey in and of itself, uh but I recently and I'm not going to talk brands or what have you but I recently had an experience where I needed to take my current vehicle in because I had a moment of truth Tire sensor warning not in my hometown, you know, sort of one of those panic moments of I've got a significant drive to do and I don't know if I'm safe to do so, right, and so pulled into a dealership that is unknown to me and I'm unknown to them. So there's not like a relationship, and this is how important those moments of truth are. So you, you know, you pull into sort of the service bay and you're going to interact with somebody. The person that we interacted with initially was probably a very entry-level person, probably not unlike a doorman or a bellman or one of our front desk agents, and I've had experiences in the past where that process is very to use your word transactional. This experience wasn't. It was more of a hey, welcome to our dealership, what's going on and how can I help you Explain the situation? And it was very seamless, like all right, well, let's figure this out for you. That's great. So that's day job, right?

Edwin:

The moment of truth really came later, when it was like, okay, well, there is something wrong, you need to go to an advisor and there's going to be a process. That's also not the moment of truth. What to an advisor and there's going to be a process? That's also not the moment of truth. What the real moment of truth was is a few minutes after we've been sort of now sitting and waiting and you're anxious, you don't know if you're going to be able to get your vehicle repaired that same entry level person that first greeted us actually came back into the service sequence and did a couple of things. One they were like hey, this is taking a few minutes. Can I get you a glass of water? Would you like to have a coffee? And oh, by the way, I noticed that your vehicle has blue leather interior. That's very unusual. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And it isn't about the fact that there's an accent color on my car. It's about they noticed. They picked up a cue which we teach our teams all the time, pick up a personal cue and they made a personal connection and did something different. I'm thinking about purchasing another vehicle.

Edwin:

I'm actually very seriously considering going to that dealership out of town because my experience was so personal and that is enough to make a difference for me. It's not about the car, the brand or the fact that they did fix my car. It's about that connection and it wasn't just that particular person. The service advisor was very friendly and appropriate and ultimately it was a good experience overall.

Edwin:

So those are those moments of truth, and it isn't about how clean is the dealership, how new is the styling or, frankly, even what the brand is.

Edwin:

It's about how did you make me feel in my interaction with you, and that is going to drive my decision and that's what we do. We know that there's a lot of other luxury hotels in Toronto that aren't as busy, that are closer to your office, but people go out of their way to come here, not because of the beauty of the Royal York or this clock. It is because of the way the people that bring this hotel to life every day make them feel. Mary and Kevin and Paul and Connie here in the bar. They're the people that make that difference. And so if your dealers are trying to figure out what it is that's going to make a difference in that service journey, if you don't double down on how you are having a dialogue with your team about the promise you're making to your customer and how they personally can execute that and bring it to life, that's where the secret sauce is, and it's frankly not that complicated.

MC:

I want to tie this together with this question. In a world that is seemingly much more me, me, me and focus on me and me, me, me, what would you suggest is the best way to start training people to focus outside of the box themselves? Because you mentioned picking up on those cues. How do you train to look for those cues when people are so concerned about themselves, or seemingly so concerned about themselves?

Edwin:

You know it's interesting. You know there's a whole generational conversation in there, right, because as a brand that's been around for over 100 years, we're, you know, we're very fortunate that we have people who've worked with us for 10, 20, 30, 40, even 50 years in some cases here at the rural York, and so we have a real multi generational workforce today, and we spent a lot of time on our talent and culture side really trying to understand how do we continue to motivate and engage those different groups, because they are motivated differently, they speak a different language and their comfort level with communication tools and styles is very different.

Edwin:

I would say to you, one of the things you would not see walking around the rural York is you're not gonna see a lot of people doing this. Now, I have a device and it doesn't leave my body very often, but if I'm in an interaction moment with a guest or, frankly, a colleague, that's not my primary focus. So we work hard to make sure that our service journey doesn't get tied to a device, that we're still finding those ways to make sure that those personal connection moments, when our server comes to you here in Clockwork, they're not coming to you with a tablet to tap in your order. You know they're coming, you know as themselves and they're, you know, welcome.

Edwin:

What brings you into Clockwork this evening so that we can. You know that's a really nice personal connection to make, but we're sequencing that to be like oh, I'm here for a quick beverage before the game. That's a different. I'm going to give you a different service journey than, oh, me and my spouse have just come in to enjoy a relaxing conversation. So all of these, this language, is all designed to provide us those cues, and then the colleagues then need to take those cues and know that there are things that they can do with that.

Edwin:

We're going to expedite the pregame cocktail table faster than the couple snuggling in the corner who are going to probably have two or three glasses of champagne because they don't need to be out of here in 45 minutes, whereas if we just sequence the table that's wanting to go to another event and treat them all the same transactionally, we're not going to satisfy anybody. So it's about creating that language and finding those cues to help the team be more successful in what we need them to do.

MC:

This is so powerful. I mean, I feel like car dealers need to come and work at hotels as part of their onboarding to work at a car dealership, and actually, for that matter, anybody retail, you name it.

Edwin:

I'm going to start sending people over to you, Edwin, You're going to get maybe my next business, fairmont, hasn't opened a car dealership arm yet, but but you know, maybe it's something we should think about.

MC:

Wouldn't that be interesting to have a hotel car dealership? It's so critical, and it's something that we're so concerned about in our industry, to hear real, practical information. Even just the words you use tell me how strategic and tactical and intentional the organization is Well listen, this is a multi-million dollar business we are.

Edwin:

this doesn't just happen. I mean, sometimes people sort of come in and they think you know, oh, the hotel business is so fun and wouldn't it be great to go and work in a hotel. It's so pretty and everybody's so happy and they are all those things. But it is absolutely a business back to your earlier conversation and there's a lot of thought and a lot of strategy that goes into being successful. And arguably, you know the Fairmont Royal York and the Fairmont brand in general. You know it's really bore its roots out of the Canadian aristocracy, right, these hotels were built in that era of railway travel when the aristocrats were first starting to explore the world and you know, built a train system all across the country here in Canada and in the US and abroad, and these hotels were created for that purpose.

Edwin:

You know, spin forward 100 years. We're still very reliant on trains. I mean we've got 400 or 500,000 people coming in and out of the Union Station right across the street from us every day. The Union Pearson Express it can take you right to the airport from the hotel is incredible. I mean, think about it. You could fly into Toronto, get on the UP Express. Come to the hotel, go underground in the path to your meeting, come back to the hotel, have a great dinner here in rain or at the library bar, get back on the up, get on your plane and never have to go outside. So why do you need to worry about whether it's cold or hot or snowing or raining in Toronto? We've got an entire world of wonder for you that you can experience 365 days of the year, just the way you want it.

MC:

I love the packaging. I'm sold. Where do I buy shares Right there?

Edwin:

at the front desk.

MC:

Edwin, I can't thank you enough. This has been tremendous. I appreciate your insights. Thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Edwin:

Well, thank you for letting us talk a little bit about Fairmont, when we hope we get to turn some moments into memories for all of you sometime soon. Thank you.

MC:

Hey, thanks for listening to the Dealer Playbook Podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please subscribe, share and hit that like button. You can also join us and the DPB community on social media. Check back next week for a new Dealer Playbook episode. Thanks so much for joining.

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Michael Cirillo

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