LRA Worldwide Appoints John Roberto to Lead Quality Assurance Group

HORSHAM, Pennsylvania – LRA Worldwide, Inc., a leading consulting, organizational development and research firm in the growing sector of Customer Experience Management (CEM), announced that Executive Vice President John Roberto has been named to head its Quality Assurance Group. Roberto has worked at LRA for 12 years, the past six of those as a member of the firm’s Management Committee; in his tenure at LRA, Roberto has filled a variety of project management and business development roles with such clients as Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the ARAMARK Corporation, the Preferred Hotel Group and Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos.

As part of his new role, Roberto will be charged with providing the client interface and operational oversight on 65 concurrent Quality Assurance programs, as well as with stimulating the overall growth of the QA practice. As the largest of LRA’s CEM practice areas, the QA group conducts more than 4,000 hotel, resort, casino, golf, airport, stadium/arena and retail inspections in a given year.

“I can’t think of a more qualified individual to head our Quality Assurance practice,” said Rob Rush, CEO of LRA Worldwide. “John combines years of practical experience in the nuts and bolts of running successful QA and performance measurement projects, with a deep knowledge of the hospitality and leisure industries and an innate ability to forge strong client relationships. I have a great deal of confidence that with John in this leadership role we will not only better serve our existing QA clients, but will significantly grow our Quality Assurance business.

LRA offers Quality Assurance services either as a stand-alone offering or as an integrated part of an overall Customer Experience Management consulting project, where LRA might be facilitating several different activities simultaneously in order to help a client assess, design, implement and sustain its vision of the optimal customer experience. LRA customizes its QA programs to specific client needs, providing innovative quality assurance, brand compliance, site inspection, audit and mystery shopping programs throughout the world.

LRA’s Quality Assurance client base ranges from some of the most renowned brands in lodging, such as W Hotels, Hyatt Hotels and Westin Hotels & Resorts, to giants in sports (Churchill Downs, the PGA TOUR), Conference Centers (ARAMARK Harrison Lodging), the National Park Service (Yosemite National Park, Kennedy Space Center) and Travel (The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey).

“Hospitality has always been my passion, so I look forward to continuing to explore how our expertise in the hospitality industry can benefit our other clients and vice versa,” Roberto explained. “First and foremost, I look forward to keeping LRA Worldwide on the leading edge of providing world-class QA programs and client service.”

Prior to his work with LRA, Roberto spent more than 15 years in a variety of leadership roles within the hospitality industry with Stouffer Hotels and Resorts and the Four Seasons, as well as several independent luxury properties. Roberto is also a logistics and deployment expert; he applied those skills as the Housing Manager for the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle and as manager of the City of Philadelphia’s Convention Reservation Housing Program. Roberto currently resides in Center City Philadelphia.

About LRA Worldwide, Inc:
LRA Worldwide, Inc., is a leading consulting, organizational development and research company that specializes in Customer Experience Management (CEM). LRA helps companies and brands design and deliver the optimal customer experience across all key touch points using an integrated suite of services that measure and improve service quality, customer satisfaction, employee performance, loyalty, customer advocacy and profitability. LRA specializes in “operationalizing the brand” – turning brand promise and customer strategy into operational reality. LRA’s tactical CEM practice areas include Customer Experience Strategy Design, Standards Development & Content Management, Organizational Development & Training, Customer and Employee Research and Quality Assurance & Mystery Shopping; these are either deployed together in a strategic manner to continually monitor and improve the customer experience or deployed individually to address a specific client tactical need.

LRA’s clients include some of the world’s leading companies and brands in the hospitality industry and beyond, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock, the PGA TOUR, Albertsons Supermarkets, the NBA and MGM MIRAGE. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.LRAworldwide.com.


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