Customer Experience
The Egg and I
Ever wonder about the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s hard to escape the current media about eggs, salmonella outbreaks again! I confess that part of me is a chicken, more than a bit concerned about the eggs. Although the broadcasted data says my eggs are likely to be safe, the current outbreak is disturbing. Egg farmers everywhere are sharing the chilling thoughts of what fear can do to our buying behaviors. A bad egg amongst the good can spoil the lot. It’s not just about eggs, is it? So, what would we be willing to pay for the good eggs? I know all about the value of data in decision making, the power of an objective lens, the better understanding of what risk really means, how it improves performance, and that is all good. That is, in fact, good as long as we have evidence that the data is good, timely, and reflective of what we really need to know for good decisions. So, how do I make up my mind about the eggs, particularly when my grandkids want some “cheesy eggs”? Cooking them thoroughly is supposed to kill the microbial varmints, but the old, “just in case” whispers in. I’m making decisions with second hand information with a cost versus perceived risk imbalance. Does that happen with other decisions we make at home, work, or play? (The golf course counts here)
It’s complicated since good eggs look the same to me as bad ones. What I need to know is inside the shell, and I don’t have the tools or knowledge to check. Here’s the challenge. I only know that eggs are bad by the damage they’ve done to someone and if somehow the word gets out and if the media decides to share it and if I happened to catch the news. Those are lots of ifs. Someone has to crack the shell and eat the egg. I don’t have testing data on the carton, and food safety failures are nothing to ignore. The wonders of science and high tech supply chain systems make eggs plentiful and really cheap. I suppose that applies to lots of other stuff that’s really cheap. So if we were in the egg business, we would want our customers to enjoy our eggs safely, always safely, and come back and buy some more. A history of great safe eggs is important and I would want to make sure only good ones hit the skillet.
But, this is not really an egg problem; it’s a quality management problem. The golden rule of “thou shall not use your customer as your inspector,” has been broken. That’s a rule that is foundational to ethical business practices. When we make a sale, accept an order or sign a contract, we are in fact making a promise that our customer will get what they expect, based on either a standard, a contract, or what we advertise or put on our “boxes.” Accepting a specification is the same as making a promise, and those that don’t intend to keep it but still sell the “stuff” are “fibbers” as my grandkids might say, or something much uglier in our adult language. It’s a real problem in industries where all the suppliers make the same promises and claims.
So, how do we make promises to our customers? How do we keep them? Do we rely on customer failure data to know, or do we know that the likelihood of failure is unlikely? How unlikely? Do we need someone with a badge and a club looking over our shoulder or is our respect our customers, employees, and investors a big enough motivator? There is really no difference between eggs, or cars, or cough syrup, or toys, or the innumerable products and services we provide. A promise is a promise and when we break one and harm is done, it’s on our name and reputation.
• Do we know what we’ve promised, or more importantly, what our customers believe we’ve promised?
• Do we lead and manage from the big print or the fine print?
• When was the last time we checked our processes? Are they about always keeping the promises? To whom?
• When did we last evaluate how effective and efficient our controls are? How likely are we to keep the promise?
• How and when do we decide what is “good enough” for our customers?
• What evidence could we produce on demand that would support our promises and earn the trust of our customers?
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” Aristotle
Who’s Not on Board?
Not that long ago, a major mobile phone carrier had an effective advertising campaign with a catchy slogan. Yet, I found their slogan troubling. It was troubling in that their banner, “We have fewer lost calls” left with me an impression that “we’re not as bad as the other guys” was written with the intent to establish a positive differentiator of quality and reliability. My reaction then was that the goal was to be the best of the bad, or cream of the crap. Upon reflection, I realized that the problem was with me, and in fact, the carrier’s message was the right one. This carrier was actually speaking the language of quality, not of spin (as I confess was my reaction). Quality is measured by the likelihood of failure against a specification. In their case, our case, it was a message that what mattered to the customer was continuity of service and there is a probability that that service will be interrupted, and the best do it fewer times. The carrier must have studied Dr. Noriaki Kano and realized that in some cases, the best can mean fewer defects, and failures against a basic requirement can only bring dissatisfaction. For the basic requirement of service availability, a service unavailability measure is the right metric and satisfaction is not achievable, that is, zero defects can bring only zero dissatisfaction.
This last week, we witnessed what appeared as truly bizarre behavior from Apple. The new flagship, the iPhone 4, has a troublesome performance problem with the reception. The very beautiful phone integrated the antenna into a smooth metal casing, creating a problem when the phone was held in a particular, albeit very normal, way. Some would argue that the decision process for the product launch suffered from an unhealthy bias wherein form trumped substance and engineering warnings. It’s saddening, coming from an exciting and innovative producer of form and substance. What was befuddling was the chairman’s response to the defects. It began with hubris with what appeared a dismissive tone that trivialized the problem …. Customers don’t know how to hold our phone properly, what’s all the fuss about; it’s the bad media at play. As the evidence mounted of the reception calamity and the web took over, sharing the data, the next stage of responsiveness focused on an attack on the competition, asserting that other smart phones shared the same problem. From here it sounds like it’s about “my” product and brand, not the customer pain. That strategy was a big boo-boo. Motorola, HTC, and RIM did not remain silent, each stating that their designs did obey the laws of physics and sound engineering, after all, customers wanted continuity of service.
Today’s connected world is a dangerous place to forget that respect for the customer and respect for the competition are essential for sustainability of brand value and economic goodwill, just ask Toyota. I’ve always loved Apple’s creativity in form and substance. I also believed that Toyota put the customer first. Funny how often bigger does not beget better. It’s called entropy, another engineering insight often forgotten.
On reflection, I wonder how much of the problem had to do with poor engineering and how much with a culture of “enforced optimism” or some variant of the “emperor’s new clothes?” The evidence to date on the catastrophic BP oil rig explosion and the subsequent environmental opening of Pandora’s Box seem to support the dangers of “enforced optimism” leadership behaviors.
How often does the “enforced optimism” show up in planning (pick any type), budget sessions, objectives, progress reviews and reports, investor sessions, group decision making, scheduling and commitment setting, …., other stuff?
Thoughts?
I Can’t Hear What You’re Seeing
For many years, the term Voice of the Customer has been a source of incalculable confusion and a hazardous source of misdirection. The reality of dealing with a cacophony of voices that can often come from the many interfaces and service points is daunting for some. Discerning the signal from the noise fosters subjective simplification and can and too often yield risky and sometimes shallow insights carried forward into our delivery of services. We make decisions about requirements without clearly understanding what creates value for our customer. The simplification can put much more focus on the past at the expense of consequences that await the future.
Some reasons may be:
- Understanding the processes, players and decision-making in the initial contracting process. The customer we see and hear often is not the customers we will serve. Tom procures and Mary operates. The functionality (and different points of view) is currently unavoidable in the public sector and lives well in the private.
- Asking the customer for requirements and then setting quality specifications for our outputs. The customer is limited by what they believe you do, could do, or can’t do. Lost opportunity results from the filtered data.
- Poor differentiation between transactional satisfaction and customer loyalty. There are often very different reasons for staying, renewing, or leaving.
- Equating meeting delivery requirements with delivering value. One comes from walking in our own shoes, not in the customer’s. Walking and hearing are very different.
- Limiting knowledge of service costs to the price the customer pays. The cost dealing with us can be too high as the relationship ensues past the start up.
There are many, far too many others. Over the years, I’ve concluded that the analysis yielding the better insights has come from seeing the world and what is truly required through the customer’s lens, looking forward, always forward. Many years ago in a conversation with Dr. Noriaki Kano, he shared the importance of “Customer In” versus “Product Out.” He’s been right all along. The levels of insight (le mot juste) delivered through lenses versus voices is paradigm shaking. In the movie Beyond the Sea, Sandra Dee says to Bobby Darin, “Bobby, people hear what they see!” She was right.
So,
- How do we decide what our customer wants or needs?
- Do we know if we’re right?
- Do we rely on surveys to look forward with our customer?
- Did we lose a customer by surprise?
- Did we add value?
- Do we rely on surveys and complaints for our lenses?
Thoughts?
The Net, Gear, and Route to Tears
There are few experiences that are more aggravating than unmet expectations, particularly when failure occurs at multiple points. I seldom list organizations by name, but this one is earned.
Our business is growing in our use of the power of the web. We are holding better meetings, avoiding unneeded travel, collaborating, and improving the customer experience and convenience on the shoulders of the wonderful electrons we can direct. Today we can deliver and share so much more, constrained only by our bandwidth at times. Upgrading makes great sense and so we embarked to muscle up.
After tripling our connection speed, we decided to match our router capabilities to the pipe outside. I decided to investigate, ask around and then buy a new router. We decided on the top of the line Netgear WNDR3700 Range Max (max is good!) dual band (2 is better than one!) 300 Gigabit router with ReadySHARE storage access (usb drive capability). The box reads Push and Connect, brings an install disk, and has a sticker on the box with a big Windows 7 link. I have a new machine with Windows 7, but we also have multiple users with Mac, Windows Vista, and Windows XP operating systems.
- The first bit of bad news was when the install disk notified us that it does not support Windows 7.
- When visiting the website, no install drivers were available for download.
- The 24-7 support walked us through a slow and painful process of manually configuring the router.
- The process to connect with wireless added to the time and aggravation. While the rep put us on hold (again) to find out how to proceed, we ran Windows 7 troubleshooter and connected (on our own).
- The router install webpage indicated that new firmware was available for upload, so we asked the rep whether we should upgrade. “Yes”, he said. We backed-up the settings and forged ahead. (The rep felt that we could do that without his help and politely disconnected.)
- 30 minutes later, we lost all internet access.
- Next call to 24-7 consumed an incredible amount of time. First confirming that we had the upgraded firmware (said that that was good!), doing diagnostic Q&A, resetting the router, and going through a new entry of settings (some different). We finally reconnected.
- The connection was great until 9:00 AM this morning when we lost all internet and router access.
- Next call to 24-7 involved two different reps and more hours. We were told we should not have upgraded to the recommended firmware because it was only in beta stage. New reset and restoration to prior firmware, new set up again. Add hours.
- All in all around 28 hours between initial attempt and current state (it’s working right now).
- I had to reschedule three events, inconvenienced and likely aggravated others …. After all, they could wait with me …. and Netgear.
Was the release of Windows 7 a surprise? Should our loss of productivity be forgiven, forgotten or ignored, all in the spirit of the season? This is not just about a router and a disappointed customer, is it? We have all had our version of this story, or been the perpetrators of the calamities. We’ve arrived early on a flight then waited for a gate when others were available, received mail promotions that the phone center did not know about, sales advertised with no inventory or store awareness, on and on…
Many years ago I learned that organizations typically fall into two modes of operation:
- Product out, then Customer
- Customer in, then Product.
There is one rule that I have always recommended, “Never let the customer become your quality inspector.” Today can add, “Don’t learn about problems from a blog.” We don’t want to learn that we’re dead before we learn that we’re sick.
Virtual Value and Space-Time
Wow, the future was yesterday. The shopping data for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2009 is eye-popping. In the never-ending race for shopper’s wallets, the agile have taken the day. Below are some data released by Coremetrics’ second annual Cyber Monday Benchmark Report:
- Cyber Monday continued the momentum set by Black Friday. Sales were up 24.1 percent compared to Black Friday 2009.
- Consumers spent more per online order ($180.03 versus $170.19 for an increase of 5.8 percent) compared to Black Friday 2009.Sales were up 13.7 percent compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
- The average dollar amount consumers spent per online order rose 38.2 percent from Cyber Monday 2008 ($180.03 versus $130.24), led by apparel retailers.
- Consumers bought nearly 10 percent more items per order on Cyber Monday 2009 compared to Black Friday 2009 and nearly 30 percent more compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
- Consumer shopping hit its peak from 9-10 a.m. PST, but maintained stronger momentum throughout the day than on Cyber Monday 2008.
More people chose convenience over crowds, comfort over queues, time over traffic, delivery over bundles and bags, price over pain ….. wow … the virtual marketplace is past gaining ground for holiday shoppers, it holds the hill. Cyber Monday brings evidence that some figured out the value is not only about price… it comprises much more.
So how virtual are we?
How do our customers find us?
Are we convenient to do business with? How do we know?
Do we have a handle on what value means and, more importantly, how to measure it?
Are we delivering more or less value today than yesterday?
How much are we dependent on structure, place, headcount, brick and mortar?
Is our value sustainable, decaying or being disrupted?
Have we learned about how to achieve business ubiquity?
Do we have ubiquity in our strategy?
Space-time is not just for physicists, is it?
Thinka Linka Do
“Divide et impera”, or in English, Divide and Conquer is a phrase that we’ve all heard, many have experienced, and the clever have overcome. Forms of it have been attributed to Philip of Macedon and Julius Caesar and some incorrectly to Machiavelli, who in fact was denouncing it. It speaks to the power of effecting fragmentation, disintegration and dissolution of unity as a means to overcome adversaries or as a means to break down tough problems. Many problem solvers apply the technique, sometimes inappropriately to systems issues.
As a business practice, divide and conquer has been the effective stick that clever folks have applied to groups of competitors. The tool has been effective across almost any competitive environment, be it military, political, intellectual, athletic… endless arenas. It has been very effective when leveraging the shortcomings of traditional communications and transparency to events. But in the world of business, not so anymore. In fact, the world today may often give the advantage to the apparently fragmented, but virtually networked. Yes, the strength can be invisible and the responsiveness astounding. I would pose that a new adage might follow Sun Tzu’s logic and proclaim “Appear Divided, then Conquer.”
Here’s why … the big are always fighting entropy, the tendency towards disorder (it’s a rule of the universe). To those not anally retentive, entropy can be cool, it can be a tool. But to the big, entropy creates variability and variability looks bad. To the big, fighting entropy requires policies, controls, standards, inspections, oversight, hierarchies of non value adding resources, in other words, stuff that adds costs, time, and conservatism. Lots of that is necessary for many processes, but it is never free and mostly builds rigidity. Change comes hard and slow. The rigid can find that they are dead before they learn that they are sick.
When the fragmented could not connect, they became easy pickings. Not a hard one to figure out. In the business world firms typically have what the Japanese call an either “product out” or “customer in” philosophy and practice. Simply, it means that a business has a bias for promoting and selling who and what they have by persuading a customer that it is the best solution, or the business can configure and fit a solution specifically to the customers’ needs and circumstances. A big factor in this game has been bandwidth or resources, capabilities and talent. So there are factors of strategy, solutions and resources at play. Hard to make all the calls right, but historically the bigger had the larger catalog to show. The show of force and one stop shop can be a powerful tool to instill an image of reliability and capacity to a prospective client. But the bandwidth, capacity, catalog and resources have a cost. It’s a trade-off and balance issue. Balance is the operating word. We think of balance on a scale of weights, a static view. Today’s challenges call for dynamic balance, the kind you might see in an agile athlete or a top gun in a fighter jet.
Now … this is not about big is bad or sinister, and little is good. Good and bad have little to do with size, but rather principles and values. This is about agile is good and rigid is bad. Big or small, rigid is bad for the business and the customer. Here is how the game can change!
Never before has the capability to build and operate as a virtual enterprise been greater. The advent of technology is a tsunami of possibilities. The calamities of the recent economic failures have precipitated the freeing up (some call it unemployment) of armies of talent. Those that connect that talent virtually and create networked configuration of solutions can win the game with superior customer in.
Think then link, then think linked!
Lots to think about on this one …. Because agility is within reach to the big or the small. It’s less about size and more about paradigms and practices.
What do you think? How are you linked?
Cool Beans!
Today I experienced something some really cool healthcare! It left me contemplating that maybe we really do have the capacity to sort out the hurdles we face with the healthcare issue. Today I needed to make an unplanned visit to my physician. With a fully booked schedule (this doctor is good…), one of his team understood that variability and timing creates opportunities, parked me in the waiting area and got me in within 20 minutes. That was great by itself, but the cool part followed.
One aspect of getting my medical guidance from this physician is his impressive use of data and technology. Whenever we meet, the discussion around the vitals is on point, virtual and current. I like that. Data is good. From what I gather, the preponderance of his data travels purely on the back of electrons, who I have found are less prone to hick-ups than those transferred with fingers. I like that. Electrons are good.
I often rant that electrons are far better at some tasks than people like me are. They make less mistakes, don’t complain, don’t have eyesight problems, are fast, don’t forget (I do…) and lots of other great attributes. We’re codependent with electrons, so we can make a good team now and in the foreseeable future. Today I saw electrons kick some serious butt. I needed a prescription for what ailed me.
My experiences with getting a prescription enjoy the benefit and difficulties of many years and some ailments. Getting the prescription generated and filled can be slow, require several hand-offs, prone to errors throughout, and have carried significant transactional costs and liability insurance burdens of the risks and importance they have. Lots of hands and lots of eyes aren’t free. Lots of compliance requirements and the fear of suffering consequences are also very costly. They also have a number of queues in the process of being filled. When we add to that the transactional costs created by insurance coverage, the non-valued costs added to my little pill are scary to contemplate. After all, we’re not electrons, so we have to check stuff to make sure. I don’t like that. Non-value adding costs are bad.
Today I watched Doc, key in my prescription into his electronic tablet, ask for and then input the local pharmacy information, hit the magic key and confirmed receipt at the destination. These friendly electrons did that is a few seconds. I left his office and by the time I drove up to the window at my pharmacy, the little pills were ready. Those living in Cyber-land may say, “So what? That’s easy…” My reply is, “This is cool beans!” I like that. Cool beans are good.
I see promise in this little experience. I see the endless possibilities to tackle this yoke and fear of health care around our collective necks. Solutions are possible. The promise of process improvement still has lots of legs! These hard times may yet precipitate the best of times. Actually, we’re reading this because of our friendly electrons!
I don’t want to minimize or oversimplify what is ahead. The challenges are huge. The players are difficult. The stakes are high. The tactics are ugly. The rhetoric is offensive. The suffering is real. But the opportunity is great. There is opportunity in every storm. I hope and pray we can get past all the storm coverage and move on to finding and harvesting these opportunities.
“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.” Abraham Lincoln
Burned by the Budget
This has been a tough season for many. As business belts and budgets tightened, the focus to become leaner has led to some tough choices. Many of the activities we engaged in with customers had to change, even go by the wayside. Maybe it was fewer visits, or less personalized care, as we moved their requests into more “efficient” centers, thereby reducing transactions costs. Some of the requests we did for little or no cost, now are fee based. What about when the economy improves?
I know that irritating feeling when responses to my requests take longer or get mishandled by providers I once bragged about. I will likely change providers, once we emerge from the storm. I will reward those that did not lose sight or memory of who I am as a customer. Possibly you may as well?
Often, when we calculate costs of doing business, we do so with impersonal and questionable benchmarks, leaving the effective in favor of the budget efficient. They are impersonal with respect to our markets and reputation, and improper because of the use of averages. The cost and budget numbers improve and the transactional lens shows progress. Did our arithmetic extend down the value stream to our customers’ experience and costs? The math is different for them than for us.
For us, the very basic view is: Our Price = Our Cost + Margin.
For our customers, the basic view is: Real Price Paid = Our Price + Additional Customer Costs (Inconvenience Costs and Transacting Costs.)
For them, we become more expensive when we make it harder for our customer to buy from us. What may look as wonderfully efficient with our accounting lenses looks harshly more expensive through our customers’ lenses. The opposite is true, when we increase convenience and reduce the cost of doing business with us, their Total Price goes down.
- Do we think they’ll understand and forgive our inconveniences?
- Do we think that in better times, they’ll forget and we can go back to the way it was before?
- Do our decisions enable or disable our customers’ success?
- Are our competitors watching? Are they waiting?
- Will we remain the Provider of Choice?
“Hurry Up and Wait!”
This morning I was traveling. It was a long flight, but the flight crew made great time. In fact, the pilot announced that we would be in a half hour early, at the gate. Great news! I could feel those around me perk up at the news. We landed smoothly and proceeded to taxi to our gate, when we stopped. Yes, our gate was still occupied. Other gates were open, but ours still had a yet-to-depart flight. The airline knew we would land earlier as did the air traffic controllers. I’m glad for that part. Yet, we had to wait 20 plus minutes. In fact we did not “arrive” on time. Been there? It gets better.
I had to check my bag, so I waited at baggage claim, and waited some more. The video screen indicated that all the bags from my flight were delivered, but no bag. The friendly and very helpful agent at the baggage claim office indicated that my bag had been unloaded from the plane, so it was at the airport. I followed her as she went through several checks, then I waited while she tried to sort out my mess. As I waited, five other people asked if she was checking on the same flight as their bags had not arrived … while we shared frowns, one bag showed up, then a few more started showing up. It turns out that our flight had two loads to deliver, but cleared the video as complete after the first. Been there? It gets better.
I exited the terminal and crossed to where the car rental bus picks up the renters to shuttle us to a central hub. The line was about a half city block long! I had not seen a queue that long since the long security lines of 2001. I asked another individual in line about the cue when the person in front of me said, “Oh, it’s Monday. It’s like this every Monday.” I responded, “There’s a Monday every week! Why haven’t they figured this out by now?” So, we waited. Then two buses showed up together. Once we boarded our bus, the driver was burning calories helping folks get on, taking their luggage and endeavoring to get us going, with a great attitude and demeanor.
Three in a row. Coincidence? Luck? Memorable? I was glad that I did not have a meeting to run to. All three were examples of great people doing their job with energy and focused on their customers, but in virtual isolation from one another. By now, this stuff is not supposed to happen. I am certain that these organizations all have, by now, invested millions of dollars in process improvement strategies, , and lots of mapping up, down and across their individual enterprises. So why do still see disconnects and short circuits?
Who is accountable for my end to end travel experience? Who knows about what happened today? Was this captured in a record, metric or log? Do the car rental companies that rent space at the hub know what was going on at the pick-up end? Who was the process owner responsible for wait queue length and time? Did anyone follow up with the baggage handlers about how to clear a delivery posting?
How about our enterprises? What would our customers say about us? Do we execute as a coordinated relay race without dropping the batons? Are we getting better or slipping?
If we are finding out about our disappointing service from reading blogs, what’s in store for us?
How many times am I likely to tell this story?
“It’s Not Your Problem!”
Travel mess-ups happen. If you’ve been on the road for some time, you accumulate enough stories to play one-up-on you with fellow road warriors. My wackiest experience was when I and a customer were in Suriname (Dutch Guyana) and had to get back to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for some important business. Unfortunately the local airline “decided” (no reasons were ever given, apparently) they were not going to fly to Rio for an undetermined number of days. We had to get to Rio, really had to get there, and the prospect of an extended stay was not a very pleasant option to pursue. My customer’s travel team got us to Rio, creatively, but painfully. We got there by way of Amsterdam and Paris. Yep, we went around the city to cross the street. It was a bizarre experience, but it has given me the winning zinger story when comparing travel tales.
But the across the ocean to get over the rainforest is not my favorite travel story. That one took place in Scotland. When I was doing work in the UK, in the mid 1990’s, weekends were a wonderful opportunity for short trips to new destinations. Travel and hotel deals were incredibly affordable, particularly when they included some of the top hotels in the promotional rates. One such weekend, the destination was Edinburgh, a jewel of a city in Scotland, replete with sights and single malts. The flight to Edinburgh was short and uneventful. After retreiving my checked bag, I took a cab to the Caledonian Hotel, or the Cally, on Princess Street in the heart of the city. The Caledonian is wonderful. It breathes and feels traditional and is a keeper for me. It has lots of outer and inner architecture and elegance and lots more to boot, service, really great service.
The check-in process was smooth and, upon reaching my room, began to unpack. That is when the “all is going so well” changes to “oh crap” in a flash. I did not recognize any of the stuff packed in my bag, particularly since I was not anything close to a cross-dresser. Mind you, my bag was pretty unusual. I had not ever seen another like it. So, with the bag zipped up, I took the lift down to the lobby and crossed it ready to hail a cab and return to the airport. Halfway across the lobby, a staff member spotted me and very nimbly approached and asked if there was anything amiss. I explained my calamity and before I could ask for help with cab, she smiled and said,”Sir, you are at the Caledonian. That is not your problem anymore, it is ours now.” She then gently took my bag and continued with, “It is a beautiful day outside and a great time for a walk around the city centre. I’ll have a shaving kit sent up to your room for you to freshen up. When you get back from your walk, we should have this sorted out.”
Wow, I really love surprises like that one. It is among my top three customer service stories to share. I felt like a guest, the most important guest, one who should feel like little things should not interfere with my stay because “you’re at the Caledonian.” I’ve had very good travel calamity recovery experiences over the years. I’ve had upgrades, baskets of goodies, free meals, all done as a means to overcome a shortcoming on the part of the venue, and most done smoothly. I attribute all that great recovery effort to sound management and well executed training, empowerment and great people at the facilities. Nothing for me has topped the sheer agility and proactive hospitality I witnessed at the Cally.
I have reflected over the years what it was that was so memorably remarkable. I’ve concluded that it was that the staff at the Caledonian approached any customer problem as an opportunity for a truly positive guest experience. My problem was not one with the room size of comfort, faulty faucets, missing towels or any other execution shortcoming by the hotel staff. My problem, becoming their problem, was that my customer experience was going to be less than what it could be at their place. The folks at the Cally took to heart the importance of the total customer experience, long before consultants were selling the concept.
I’ve heard the phrase used in films, “Your enemies are my enemies.” I will suggest that the better phrase for all of us who serve customers should be, “Your problem is not your problem anymore, it’s ours.”
So, … “what’s your problem?”
