Over the past decade, business consultants have touted the necessity of “frictionless” customer experiences, citing ease, efficiency, and our society’s pervasive digital adoption as reasons to make the shift. Yes, in theory, going frictionless makes sense—especially in the time-starved era we live in. But there’s a catch: When we remove friction from experiences, we typically eliminate human interaction and thus the emotional coefficient. 

Guests value a sense of place. “I hear from partners more often than I’d care to admit that what they are looking for is a place where there is a feeling,” says Emily Whynot, regional vice president for Levy Canada, part of food service provider Compass Group. “To help understand the ‘feeling,’ we ask new partners where they like to eat, drink, shop—oftentimes they’ll say a place, but not specify the why. The most common reason we hear is, ‘We just like how the place makes us feel.”

If we define “friction” as something along the way that makes a guest’s experience more difficult, of course we want to correct that, right? Companies adopt “frictionless” service to ease the guest journey. In practice, though, frictionless experiences tend to replace a human with a digital or AI-generative service. Think chatbot. As such, a frictionless service model often forgets or ignores emotional and cultural cues. Give people a choice, and they will opt to speak to a real person—who helps create the feel of the place.

The Question of Friction 

When companies first consider going “frictionless,” their instinct is to digitize and remove the human element. The irony is that friction remains—it’s simply shifted. Now, friction falls on the guest, who wrestles with yet another forgotten password to access, for example, their “mountain” account and must negotiate with a chatbot when all they want is real human interaction. A lack of human interaction commoditizes an experience, resulting in something unmemorable and unremarkable. 

Frictionless fatigue. Consider the trend with streaming services, a prime example of frictionless experience. Recent studies on streaming fatigue show that North American consumers spent less time on streaming services in 2025 than they did the year before (down 40-45 minutes per day by some estimations) and overall satisfaction was also down. Why? The average North American household subscribes to 4.4 streaming services. Customers of the platforms are overwhelmed by choice, bored with algorithmic suggestions, frustrated by the growing frequency of ads and the lack of ease in online applications. When asked why they were spending less time watching, consumers’ responses were largely non-quantitative, such as, “I don’t know, I just feel tired watching.”

If platforms built for humanless interactions are facing threats to their business, what does that say about high-touch industries like sports, recreation, and hospitality?

Friction can be good. Frictionless experiences are only memorable when novel. In skiing or snowboarding, the goal should not be to eliminate all friction via human interaction. Our services—like our sports—are, by nature, high touch, and I believe this “friction” is necessary in our delivery models. 

People matter. Digital service delivery models lack an interpersonal component. Psychologists believe removing people from key positions (front desk, bartender, guest services) reduces oxytocin spikes for consumers from what may be, for some, their only offline human interactions of the day. 

In Defense of Slowing Down

Hospitality businesses that can blend technology with personalization will benefit from the feel-good, oxytocin-spiking effects of interpersonal interaction and the business efficiency gains of automation. 

The solution: each in its place. Colorado’s Aspen Snowmass has found balance in merging technology and human interaction. The company selects key business units to lead in given scenarios—and for the ski and snowboard school, it believes success is earned through personalized interactions and experiences.

The ski and snowboard school makes up about 30 percent of the resort’s annual revenue. And full-day ski or snowboard lessons comprise 70 percent of the overall ski school revenue. Understanding the value of private lessons, Aspen Snowmass has deliberately built human interaction into its ski lesson booking process. The resort has engineered a high-end service experience, similar to a car service center, where guests sit at a desk and connect with an agent to discuss exactly what they are looking for in their ski or snowboard lesson.

True hospitality. “At Aspen Snowmass, it’s our philosophy to take the time needed to slow down before getting on the slopes,” says VP of mountain sales and schools Jonathan Ballou. “We spend the time up front to discover what a guest seeks from a lesson. This allows our team to properly match prospective guests with the right instructor.”

Just as you wouldn’t ski a mountain’s hardest run without first warming up, the Aspen Snowmass ski school’s private lesson model warms up the relationship between the guest and the coach through a well-trained sales agent. From an experiential standpoint, the agents create a comfortable and inviting space in which clients are encouraged to be honest about their wants.

A good experience tops administrative ease. A common challenge for hospitality organizations is balancing the administrative needs with the guest experience—it’s easy to fall into the trap of letting administrative benefits overrule the guest experience. But the guest experience is what builds a brand’s reputation and customer loyalty and keeps the business afloat.

“Hospitality is a friction-based service,” says Levy Canada’s Whynot. “At Compass Group, we are actively discussing ways in which we can add friction back into the guest experience.”

Unintended Consequences

When human interaction is replaced, the most common unintended consequences are:  

• Lack of team member problem-solving ability. The less interaction team members have with real guests, the less they develop interpersonal skills and real-time problem-solving abilities. To have a well-trained frontline team, they need to be exposed to real guests seeking real assistance.

• New digital frustrations. With growing digital wallets comes growing digital fatigue and frustrations, as more and more people struggle to remember passwords, navigate different user interfaces, and misplace emails. Guests are seeking agents who can help them through frustrating digital experiences with kindness and patience.

• Decreased guest engagement and loyalty. When human interaction is removed from the service equation, so too is the relationship. In service, relationships are often drivers for return visits. Aspen Snowmass builds on the relationships it creates between its instructors and guests through personalization, to the point that requests for full-day private lessons are the company’s top-selling ski and snowboard school product.

• Demotivated staff. Team members want to feel connected. Hospitality naturally recruits extroverted individuals. For these individuals, the less interface they have with guests, the less motivated they become. When a high-touch position is shifted to a more technology-focused supervisory role, team members often withdraw, becoming less engaged in the guest experience.

• Loss of personal touch for guests. A loss of personal touch changes a would-be boutique experience to that of a big box/chain experience. Gone are the quirks that make a place stand out, replaced by clean, engineered procedures. The loss of personal touch is evident in both a lack of mom-and-pop vibes and a lack of personalized product delivery for the guest.

Of course, no business enters the frictionless space with the goal of worsening the guest experience. AI and frictionless functions have their place and may assist in specific operational activities. Without question, programmed software is better at processing, ordering, and reporting on key data. These digital solutions work best when married to a conscious staffing program that focuses on training to enhance the overall experience for guests and the business.

Before jumping into frictionless services, evaluate the business need, end-user ease, and the potential positive and negative implications for both the business and the end user. Go frictionless when it helps, and keep the friction when it feels right. 

SAMMY Guest Editor says…

Kendra does an excellent job in this article highlighting a challenge many of us face: how to streamline operations while still delivering meaningful guest service. Hiring strong team members—especially for seasonal roles—is difficult, so it’s natural to look toward automation to fill gaps. Automation absolutely has its place, but it can’t replace the human interaction that gives each resort its unique character and vibe.

In an era driven by technology and the expectation of instant results, it’s easy to get lost in metrics and speed. Instead, we need to pause and ask what we’re really here to do. Our industry creates experiences and a sense of adventure—and those are always more memorable when there’s a personal connection.

Aspen Snowmass demonstrates this well in how it operates its ski and snowboard school. It understands the school’s revenue impact and recognizes that adding intentional one-on-one interaction before a lesson begins improves results. By creating an individualized experience, Aspen Snowmass builds loyalty as well as revenue.

We can’t forget that we’re in a service industry. The human touch can’t be replaced by a terminal or kiosk. Used strategically, technology, AI, and automation can strengthen our businesses—but they will never replace a warm hello, a genuine smile, and knowledgeable guidance from a team member.

— Melissa Roberts, CFO, Schaefer Resort Properties

2025 SAMMY Leadership Award Honoree