Making an Impact
In this issue:
Experience or Expense?
This is the section where I share with you the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the customer experience, the impact everyone can have on it - in either direction, and the resulting impact on image, reputation, brand, customer relationships, your whole organisation and your bottom line. We have all been customers at some point, and we all give customer experiences to others, whether it's in work or out of it - so our neighbours, friends and relations can all be viewed as our customers too.
I have a growing list of just such experiences which I am looking forward to sharing and in some cases, venting! You'll see that I do rather get on my soapbox about some of these!
Stating the Obvious
I recently spent a fabulous week in Cornwall, despite the thrashing rain on some days, which gave my holiday more an air of a mid-west America storm chaser expedition, than a Cornish week away. I had booked a seemingly quite posh lodge in the grounds of a manor house, with fabulous views overlooking the sea.
The lodge looked wonderful from the photos, with two bathrooms and three bedrooms, an amazing terrace balcony onto the lounge, as well as having a balcony off the upstairs master bedroom, giving even more idyllic views over the bay.
With a couple of stops en route, it took me a whole day to get there. When I did finally arrive in the early evening, I could just about find my way in the thrashing rain (the weather started as it meant to go on!) as the road became ever narrower and windier. Finally to my relief, I arrived at the stone walled entrance to the manor.
Having picked my keys up from reception and been given directions to my lodge by the two very helpful members of staff, I got back in my car and made my way round to the accommodation.
It was difficult to spot at first in the dark light and rain, especially as it was sideways on to the narrow road/ track with no number visible from that side. The lodges were built on the slope going down to the bay, so most of the drives in front of them were on a bit of a slope too. When I finally worked out from the little map which lodge must be mine, I turned down the rather steep sloping drive and parked up in front of it. There was another lodge right opposite mine, and the people had already arrived and parked up in their 4x4.
It was raining quite hard by now and the wind had picked up too. I struggled out of my car and opened the lodge front door, then went back to my car to start to unpack. On my second return journey, I noticed a tiny sign flapping in the wind on a low wall. As I went closer to read it, in faded letters, it said, 'Do not park here'. Too late I thought, I'm already here, and where else was I supposed to park unless I went in front of the neighbour's lodge, which I'm sure they wouldn't have been too pleased about, as it would have been right outside their lounge window.
However, I thought I'd re-park my car and line it up better, as it would have been a bit of a tight squeeze for the neighbours to have got passed me in their large vehicle. As I started my engine and then tried to reverse, I began to realise why the sign was there – I was well and truly stuck – the wheels were going round and I was going nowhere!
I tried all sorts of manoeuvres I've used before to get out of mud and snow, as well as trying the various combinations of gear options my automatic offered for steep slopes and pulling caravans, but nothing worked. It was exacerbated by the fact that the car was steaming up fast and the dark and rain meant that I could no longer see edges of the stone walls or curbs. I decided I couldn't do this on my own so knocked on the door of the neighbouring lodge to ask for help.
The chap who was there with his family very kindly stood in the rain and guided me through about a 20 point turn as I rolled my car into various bushes and shrubs to try and find some solid ground where I could get some grip. Twenty minutes later, I was finally out and back on the road. When I asked him where I could park, he said, "didn't they tell you that the parking space for this lodge is on the other side of the road because so many people have been stuck on the drive?!" No they hadn't!!
What a waste of time, I thought, and not a great start to my holiday. I was seriously thinking I was going to have to find a farmer with a tractor to get me out. I had arrived on the Saturday, and as reception was shut on Sunday with no staff around at all (not great in itself), I had to wait until Monday to suggest that telling future guests about the parking difficulty would be a good idea.
My car looked like it had been on the Paris Dakar rally with the amount of sandy mud it had splattered up both sides. When I did ask the reception staff on the Monday about the parking space, they quite casually said they must have forgotten to tell me. When I explained the state of the drive, and now my car, and what I had gone through because someone had 'just forgotten' to give me that one vital bit of information, they expressed surprise that the drive was like that outside my lodge – it seemed they were totally oblivious to it, despite my neighbour even knowing the reputation that drive had for swallowing cars.
Going back to the Saturday when I first arrived, having parked my car safely on the top road and finally unpacked everything, I slumped down with a cup of tea.
However, whilst sipping my very welcome beverage and looking round the low lit room (not intentionally, there just weren't many lights and the ones that were there were quite low wattage), I noticed that the three piece suite was not quite what I had expected to find. To my astonishment, not only did the dark green and grey brocade covers look quite dirty with some patches of grey that were much lighter than others, it actually had quite large, and very obvious holes in some of the cushions. It was also extremely uncomfortable too, with some very noticeable broken springs, so that my left side was a good 3 inches higher than my right when I was sitting.
I tried every available seat, and they were all the same. I just couldn't relax in this, so short of sitting on a wooden dining room chair, in the end I decided the only way to make one armchair slightly more bearable in terms of comfort and cleanliness, was to drape one of the spare bed duvets over it. This helped, but it wasn't great.
I decided to scout around the rest of my dwelling to see what else was in store – now of course I was looking for disappointments and expecting them. Sure enough, I wasn't disappointed! The upstairs master bedroom, which was a beautifully wooden panelled room with a pitched roof and aforementioned balcony, contained a chair which wasn't quite as beautiful– it was an old, scruffy, bright blue office chair which looked like it had been rescued from a skip.
I was so tired by now I just wanted to have a bath, get something to eat and go to bed. I went into the huge bathroom on the other side of the landing to the master bedroom, and as I lent over the bath to reach for the taps, saw to my disgust, that the bay wasn't the only thing the tide had gone out in. There was a horrible tide mark around the bath too! There was no way I could get into the bath with that, so had no choice but to clean it myself. I decided to inspect the toilet more closely too, and not wanting to put anyone reading this off their lunch/ tea, suffice to say it wasn't clean either.
Following my bath and looking forward to some of the food I had brought with me, I went down to the large, open plan kitchen to put some things away in the fridge and attempt to operate the hob. As I bent down to the fridge, I noticed that there were bits of food on the floor all along the kick boards. Clearly the cleaner's vac didn't do edges and only middle bits of the carpet!
I was actually getting quite annoyed now that such a supposedly top class resort was so poorly cleaned and furnished, and not at all what I had expected from it.
It didn't end there though. As I drew the lounge curtains I realised that their unusual stiffness was not due to the quality of the dralon, but the quantity of dirt which had made them solid. I also discovered when I finally got to bed, that the bed suffered from the same problem as the lounge suite. Unless you slept on your back right in the middle, you were sleeping on a slope due to the springs having expired on both sides, and were in danger of rolling out of bed in the night.
Frustratingly, I couldn't speak to resort staff about any of this until the Monday. When Monday came, in addition to the parking problem, I expressed my disappointment about the lodge itself. Despite the staff still being lovely about the problems, what amazed me was that they seemed to have absolutely no idea about the state of the furniture either, nor indeed what furniture there was in any of the lodges. I asked them how none of them or the maintenance staff, or indeed cleaners, (but I think their lack of observation was indeed obvious), had noticed any of these things, considering through their own admission, they were in and out of the lodges on a regular basis.
Had other customers complained, had anyone taken any notice? Although very apologetic and in agreement that this wasn't at all acceptable, they just had not noticed what was so obvious, not even the holes in the suite and the ex-skip office chair.
My expectations definitely weren't met and my ensuing disappointment means that, whilst I love Cornwall and would always want to go back there, I wouldn't recommend that resort nor return myself unless they made some changes. That's my repeat custom lost and I wondered how many others had arrived excited only to leave disappointed, never to return or recommend the resort.
It can be easy to fall into that trap of growing so used to our surroundings that we just don't notice how they look any more, what image they're projecting, and we can't see them from any other perspective than our own accustomed one.
It can be easy for this to happen in our work as well as our home environment. We go to the same surroundings, more or less every day, and get so used to the good, the bad and the ugly things, that after a while, we don't notice the distinction any more. The problem is, customers do, and the attitude they form about our organisation can be heavily influenced by the experience they have and their reaction to the physical aspects of our organisation, as well as the service aspects.
However because we've ceased to notice this, we also cease to notice the negative impact it can consciously or subconsciously have on customers and prospective customers, and how it then influences the type of referrals they give us, their attitude and buying behaviour, and the assumptions they then also make about the rest of the experience, the quality they think they're going to get from us and how they react to us in the future.
What impact is the appearance of different areas of your organisation having on your customers and partners and the customer experience? When was the last time you stopped and carried out a close inspection of any 'open to customers' areas, to see what customers and partners see, that you have maybe walked passed every day, or even every so often, and not noticed? What image are these physical aspects projecting and saying about your organisation?
You can be sure that even the small things that you have grown used to and are oblivious to now, will be registering consciously or subconsciously with customers and partners every time they encounter them, and will become increasingly obvious to them. The longer they remain unnoticed and unresolved by your organisation, the greater the negative attitude they will engender in your customers and partners, and the more this will influence the total image they have of your organisation, the impact of which will somewhere down the line then become obvious to you.
Observation Post
Weighted in Your Favour
I buy a lot of fresh produce from the supermarket, and I'm always trying to compare differently packaged quantities of the same thing. However, I frequently find this extraordinarily difficult to do, as oranges, for example, are priced by weight, by the pack (with no weight shown on it) or per orange, and you can't compare the price unless you try and weigh a pack, then weigh an individual orange and try and do some Einstein like calculation. Why don't the supermarkets price the same type of items in the same way, or at least give you the weight comparison for each type of packaging method so you can make a true comparison?
Is it that they don't want you to be able to compare them as a way to entice you to buy the seemingly cheaper items, which are actually more expensive if you compared them by weight? Or is it that they just don't bother to do it as it is extra work? Or is it that they haven't noticed it to be an issue?
Whatever the reason, particularly in tightly competitive markets, it's the little things that differentiate organisations and that customers look for when deciding who to be loyal to and where to spend their money. Doing the customers a favour and making item comparison easier would definitely weigh in any supermarket's favour – if they took the initiative to do it!
Making Your Mark
Image is Everything
Pick two or more teams in your organisation, and ask them to take a close look at each other's area. Ask them to note down what strikes them the most. It's better if they are areas they don't often venture into, but that customers maybe do have exposure to, however little. Give them a list of things to focus on, such as condition of furnishings, tidiness of leaflet racks or notice boards, number of stains on the carpets – you'd be amazed at how much visitors do look at the flooring, and importantly, the image of the people in those areas too.
It will certainly help you see your organisation's physical aspects in a different light, and importantly, one external customers are no doubt seeing too. This will give you some guidance at least as to where you can begin to make what may be only small positive changes, but which if not addressed, could have had long term negative impact.
Speaking Events
I speak at a range of different corporate conferences, both all-staff and management, on the customer experience and Whole Organisation Marketing - living and delivering the brand promise and customer experience, and promoting/ celebrating your organisation through all your people. The emphasis is on improving the whole customer experience, referrals, reputation, effectiveness, business and bottom line success. I also speak at industry and professional body conferences and events. For example, I have spoken for the Institute of Customer Service, the Institute of Sales and Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Housing.
See the showreel on my website from one of these events.
If you would like to know more about these or the other types of events and conferences I speak at, or indeed have one you would like me to speak at, then do get in touch. If you would like to find out more about the workshops and development sessions I run for organisations, which include ones to improve the customer experience and to develop teams, then just give me a ring or drop me a line. You can see a rundown of my workshops on my website too.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found it useful and thought provoking. If we haven't spoken or met already, I hope we get to do so in the not too distant future. If we have, then I look forward to chatting to you again.
See you next time.
Mob: 07787 573539
carolyn@carolyndallaway.com
www.carolyndallaway.com
Subscribe to Making an Impact!
Copyright © 2010, Carolyn Dallaway Ltd. All rights reserved.
|
