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!
Missing Link
A few weeks ago I attended a conference at a large exhibition venue. I decided to go by train, despite the need to change twice or possibly three times, as I had been doing a lot of driving of late. It was in a city centre that I hadn't been to in many years by public transport, although I had been to places just on the outskirts, but I had always driven. The venue's website said that it was only a 'short walk' from the main train station, but as I would have luggage with me, I decided to google their location to see what 'short walk' meant.
Well 'short walk' turned out to be a mile, and as I would have luggage to schlep, I wasn't too keen on that, especially as the weather forecast was for heavy rain, just to add to the delight of the journey! So I decided to ring the venue to ask if there was a courtesy shuttle bus or similar. The chap who answered said there wasn't, but that my best bet was to take a taxi. When I asked how much that was normally, he said five to six pounds each way. Although that seemed like rather a lot for a mile, and more than I've paid to go a mile in other cities, I was reconciled to that being my only non-pain inducing option, considering the various train changes I would also have to be making.
I then realised that I hadn't asked if the venue had a cloakroom where I could leave my things, and when I rang back to ask about that, I took the opportunity to ask this different person about the options to get to the venue. He said either walking or taxi would be best, but said the taxi would be more like seven pounds each way! I had thought five to six pounds was bad enough!
Three trains later when I did finally land in the city centre, it was indeed pouring down with rain. I was looking for signs for the taxi rank as I exited from the platform; I couldn't see any, but then noticed a small city centre information booth and decided to head for that and ask the chap there.
When I said I needed to get to the conference centre and could he tell me where the taxi rank was, he said that the taxi was very expensive, and why didn't I take the tram. Tram?! No-one had mentioned a tram! When I asked if it was far to catch that, he said the terminus was inside the train station just down the escalator, and even better still, it stopped at the conference centre. To add to the bonus of this mode of transport – it was only £1.80 return, a bargain compared to the £14 return taxi fare! There was one every six minutes too. He told me the name of the best stop for the conference centre, and said all I would need to do then to get to the centre was to walk across the car park and I was there. By way of a further bonus, he informed me that the tram platforms were level with the tram floor, so no heaving luggage up even a small step – so better than the London underground even – easy! Or so I thought……!
I went down the escalator, bought my ticket from the machine, and sure enough, a couple of minutes later, a tram turned up. As the tram dog-legged its way through the city, lurching in one direction then another, I was a little concerned that I might miss the stop, as the tram windows were completely steamed up and you couldn't see a thing out of them. To compound this, the automated lady voice seemed to be quite selective as to which stops she decided to announce and which she didn't, so, as I had lost all sense of direction with the maze-like movement of the tram, I could have done a complete circular tour of the city without knowing it!
After passing a few stops and doing a lot of squinting out of the windows to try and see where we were, I asked a fellow passenger, who looked like a regular traveller, as he didn't feel the need to squint out of the windows at all, if we were near the advised stop, and he said it was the next one.
Pleased to be finally there, I exited speedily. However, having alighted on the platform, I looked around for the conference centre or even the car park, but neither was obvious. There weren't any signs for the centre, or even guiding lines or footprints for you to follow either. A couple of other people who got off at the same stop, and who had clearly been given the same information, twirled through several lots of 360 degrees as bewildered as I was, looking for any indication of which way to go.
We collectively compared thoughts as to where we thought the centre was, and decided to cross the tram line and walk along a footpath, although no-one in our newly formed group was convinced we were going in the right direction. As we turned a second corner, still with not a sign in sight, we crossed over another little road, and then saw a few parking spaces and a little kiosk in front of it. Whilst this in no way looked like the massive venue car park we had been led to expect, I decided to ask the chap in the kiosk the way to the conference centre.
As I approached the kiosk, he was looking through some papers, and rather than look up as I stood at the window, continued to look at the papers as he said, "yes?" I asked if he could tell us the best way to get to the centre entrance, as we couldn't even distinguish which building the centre was, never mind any entrance. Looking back down at his papers, he said that they were doing a load of building work, so we couldn't cut across the car park (unrecognisable as such anyway, due to all the portocabins and scaffolding), and that we would have to go through the back entrance of another building further along, then walk through that building, down into its basement entrance, and then double back on ourselves to get to the centre a few buildings along.
We headed for the building we thought he meant. By now, after a brief remission, it was raining again, and all we wanted to do was get into the building as quickly as possible, having expected the tram route to be more or less a rain-free option. Still without a sign in sight, the route wasn't as obvious as he had made out. At this point, the groups' opinions and senses of direction parted, so we decided to split up, with half taking one route and the other half another. I was in the group opting for the basement escape route, thinking this would be the least rain option too. However, when we exited onto the street, we were even more confused, as it appeared we had exited into a different direction too.
Hurrying along the pavement, I spotted a sole pedestrian on the other side of the street and called over to him to ask the way. He sent us along two more streets before we finally saw what we thought must have been the entrance, but surrounded by large buildings and with no signs on the wall or pavement, it still wasn't obvious. What we also realised to our collective chagrin, was that we had gone in almost a complete circle, and that if we hadn't been sent round through the other building, it appeared that we could have reached the venue in a fraction of the time, been less rained on and much less annoyed too!
We all expressed disappointment at how painful it had been to get there. As we went up the ramp, it still wasn't obvious which the correct entrance was, nor where any registration was taking place. We also wondered whether the other group had made it there ahead of us, or whether they were still out there somewhere.
I was glad to get inside and deposit my luggage and coat in the cloakroom. Whilst I had the opportunity, I decided to ask the cloakroom attendant the quickest way to get back to the stop we had alighted at, as there clearly was a much quicker route. He said that you just needed to go right out of the building, right again and you were there. However, he then asked where I needed to get to. I told him the train station, and he asked why I would want to go back to the tram stop I'd mentioned, when another one he named was so much closer, and even closer than the quick route he had now given. What?! It had been the wrong stop all along?!!! He added that this nearer one was literally just the other side of the building right in front of the centre's entrance – all of one minute away, as opposed to the almost twenty it had taken us to do the circumnavigation route!
I was not impressed! Not only had two people from the venue failed to mention the tram at all in the first place, and I only found out about it by chance, so could have incurred far greater expense than I needed to, but the chap who told me, and clearly my fellow travellers too, which stop was the nearest, clearly hadn't given us the correct information about that either. Even if the car park hadn't been covered in building work, it still wouldn't have been the nearest tram stop. Had no-one told the chap in the train station booth that the route there wasn't obvious anyway due to all the building work? The chap in the car park kiosk hadn't exactly helped either with his round the block in 80 days route!
After the conference, the return route to the train station was indeed a great deal swifter now I had the correct exit strategy, and a great deal less hassle.
Thinking about all the things that went wrong that needn't have done, and mapping all this into business terms, I as the customer, could have unnecessarily incurred nearly 700% more cost than I needed to, had I not discovered the tram option, and did end up wasting about 1600% more time than I needed to!! All due to the wrong information being given, or no information where there should have been some.
How easy would it have been for the organisations concerned to have given their people the correct information, or for their people to have checked for themselves maybe too, to ensure they were still giving the right information? How easy would the addition of a few signs have been too at the tram station to point the way to the conference centre? How much were those organisations or departments letting the customer experience and the customer down, as well as their colleagues, by not doing so, and leaving customers to find their own way to reach their destination? As a result, they had also left their customers to reach a not so great perception and opinion of the experience and the organisations that had contributed to that.
Customers expect swift and efficient access to correct information on services and products, as well as to the products and services themselves, but how often in our own experiences as customers do we find that our not unreasonable expectation is not met? In your organisation, are you sure you're giving the right information to your customers, and that it's consistently right, whoever they happen to ask, or whichever department they happen to speak to? Or are you maybe sending customers round in unnecessary circles, and making it more difficult than it needs to be, and probably more difficult than you've promised them it'll be, to access you and your products and services, so costing them much more than it needs to in various ways?
If that is the case, at the same time, it will be costing you in lost referrals, opportunities to build good relations with customers and partners, as well as the time, effort and money needed to get them back on track, when the wrong or missing information has sent them off in the wrong direction, and you're having to back track and undo the damage?
What vital missing links are there in the information you're giving throughout your customer experience, which would make that journey far more pleasant and efficient for your customers and you? Are you missing information links between departments, which means that customers are getting lost and maybe missing you, and as a result, you're missing out on them too?
Observation Post
Christmas Comes but Once a Year?
Christmas may come but once a year, but it seems to last for an increasing number of months! I had a meeting in a hotel in Warwickshire in September, and they already had their Christmas tree up and were playing Jingle Bells!
Now I'm not at all religious, so Christmas doesn't have any connections for me in that respect, but didn't Christmas used to be a time that you could at least distinguish from the rest of the year, rather than it blending into the rest of the year? Wasn't it something that was special and exciting to think about in December? I think it's a shame that Christmas seems to have lost some of its sparkle because it is dragged out for so many months, and we're even maybe a little tired of some aspects of it by the time Christmas does arrive.
The same happens with Easter – it lasts around four months now, starts in January, and hot cross buns are available all year round!
Retailers of course want us to buy more, and say they're giving us more choice and convenience to access Christmas over a longer period of time. However, perhaps in artificially prolonging the experience, they are at the same time changing our perceptions of the festive time, to the point that too much of a good thing could put us off from indulging and buying as much as we maybe otherwise would have done, had it been kept to a shorter, more exciting experience, where we are more likely to impulse buy, than have time to become fed up with it.
Making Your Mark
Linking Up
Have you considered where the limits are to the information your team or department gives out? Does information stop at the edge of your team, with little, or not enough of it making its way beyond those boundaries?
Try writing a list of all the streams of information that are produced by your team or department. Consider how well informed other departments are about that information, and any changes that you make that affect the customer experience in any way. Then perhaps think which other teams or departments, which don't already do so, would therefore benefit from knowing that information.
Also, pick one piece of information to focus on that is generated by another department, and find out if it is still correct. Perhaps ask each member of your team to do the same. You would soon be able to be completely confident that what you were telling customers was contributing to creating the best whole customer experience for them, and was in their best interest, as well as yours, and wasn't sending them round in circles and costing you and them more than it needed to.
How much smoother would the experience of your organisation be as a result of improved information links and sharing? How much more effective, cost effective and efficient would the whole customer journey be for you and your organisation, as well as your customers and partners?
Speaking Events
I speak at a range of different corporate conferences, both all-staff and management, on the customer experience and Whole Organisation Marketing - helping all your people live and deliver your brand promise and customer experience, and promote/ celebrate your organisation through everything they do. The emphasis is on improving the whole customer experience, referrals, reputation, your brand, effectiveness, the amount of customers and partners you keep and attract, and your 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 develop individuals and teams to improve the customer experience, then just give me a ring or drop me a line. You can see a summary 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
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