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!
Speak Easy?
As you may know from previous newsletters, I stay in a lot of hotels, and have many very different experiences in them, the results of which however are applicable to other industries and types of organisations you may be in. Once again, a particular hotel has provided a very poignant experience that I would like to share with you. However, unlike most of my previously documented experiences in hotels, this one was surprisingly positive…..but with a sting in the tail!
This particular hotel was in Bristol. It was a mid-priced hotel and part of a reasonably large chain. They had their own free parking, which was great for a city centre hotel, and lifts up from the car park – so no heaving your luggage up flights of stairs as I've had to do with many other city centre hotels.
The reception area was spacious and well decorated, and the receptionist delightful – so much so that I was actually quite surprised, as that isn't always the case by any means, particularly in hotels that are constantly full, and sometimes seemingly don't feel they have to try quite so hard. Check in was amazingly swift and painless. I had received a free upgrade too which was great. The room was large, well decorated and very clean – nothing scruffy or dirty at all, no handles coming off in your hand either (always a bonus – but again, not always the case, whatever the price range!)
There were ample towels and toiletries and all the electricals worked. The bathroom was large and well lit, unlike many hotels where they are clearly attempting some sort of atmospheric subdued lighting effect, or else are particularly energy saving conscious, as you are left roaming around in twilight visibility and incurring injuries when you bang into unseen furniture corners. Interesting too, that often the more expensive the hotel, the worse/ lower the lighting seems to be! A bonus was that it had a bath which was longer than the average eight year old child too, and actually made for an adult to fit into, rather than having your knees up around your neck, which hardly makes for the most comfortable bathing experience!
Having partaken of the bathroom comfort and facilities, I wanted to order food in my room. The menu looked excellent and very reasonably priced too. I rang down to the restaurant and the phone was almost instantly answered by a very happy person – again – not always my experience of hotel restaurants. I ordered a main course and desert (always the healthy option!), and waited with interest to see whether it would be as I expected…or not. It's amazing how many different versions and standards of the same thing you can get in different hotels – chicken caesar salad being a prime example.
When the food did arrive, I was very surprised. It not only looked a lot better than I expected based on my experiences elsewhere, it also tasted much better too. It was delicious and provided just the right amount of everything too. The mixed vegetables were mixed vegetables – broccoli, cauliflower, beans, peas, unlike the offering in a very posh hotel I have just stayed in, whose idea of mixed veg consisted of three slivers of carrot and half an onion! The young chap who delivered it had a lovely manner too, and was smiley and chatty. When he returned to collect my tray, I told him how great the food was and to let the chef know.
I had a great night's sleep to boot – no doors slamming shut as people returned to their rooms. They had installed a dampener mechanism, so that they couldn't slam shut and always closed quietly.
The next morning I went down to breakfast hoping it would be as good as the evening food, although experience tells me that quality consistency between hotel meal times is rare. Sloppy, only just cooked bacon and grey scrambled eggs seem to be the norm in even the poshest hotels – something I still can't understand.
However, again to my surprise, the breakfast was fantastic. Everything was cooked to perfection and hot. The selection was great and the staff could not have been nicer.
I went to reception after breakfast, as I needed to confirm the location of the place I was going to, and my search on Google had given me a couple of alternatives, so that if you didn't know the area, you couldn't tell which was the right one. I was hoping the receptionist would. Unfortunately, she didn't, but despite the fact I could see she was very busy with other guests checking out, said to leave it with her and she would either find a colleague who did, or ring both places herself to check which was the right one, and would ring me in my room to let me know.
I wondered if I would indeed hear from her, and if she would have time to do that. However, sure enough, soon after returning to my room, she rang me with the information I needed. How great was that I thought!
The whole experience of that hotel had been refreshingly fantastic. Unlike most hotels (no matter what the price range), I couldn't fault a thing. With a few minutes to spare before I needed to leave, I eagerly looked around for the comment card to fill in – but there wasn't one. I rang down to reception to ask if they had any there, only to be told they didn't have any at all. This was the first disappointment I had experienced during my whole stay.
I was all revved up and eager to ensure that the hotel and head office knew how good the whole experience had been, and to particularly name the lovely, very efficient and helpful staff I had encountered, but nothing. There was no way to feedback formally at all. The only thing you could do was to tell them in person, which I do anyway, but then that is only a fleeting verbal record, which although very valuable for the individual, doesn't have the same longer term and wider audience effect and usage than if it was in writing.
When I went to reception to check out, I asked her if there was any other way to feedback. She said that unfortunately there wasn't, and that she and some of her colleagues thought it was a shame too, as they always tried so hard to give the best customer service possible, and that unless someone like me went to the trouble of verbally feeding back, they had no way of knowing customers' opinions.
This was indeed disappointing. How could this hotel know how they were doing or where they could improve even further, if they didn't pro-actively request feedback and provide mechanisms to enable customers to do so? I thought about the quantity of valuable, free information they were losing, and wondered how they were in fact measuring the customer experience at all.
Maybe they were using mystery shoppers or post stay telephone research, or maybe they sent an email or postal form to enable you to give feedback. In the few days following my stay, I eagerly awaited one of these methods, hoping that was how they were going to obtain direct customer experience feedback, but sadly, none came.
Perhaps they did obtain feedback through one of these other methods with a sample of customers, and I happened to not be in that sample. However, to fail to have an on-site, point of experience mechanism to feedback, or at least immediately afterwards whilst it's fresh in the customer's mind, particularly when the customer wants to give positive feedback, also fails the customer as well as the organisation:
It fails to show the customer that:
- You are keen for and value their feedback
- You are as well organised and efficient as you could be
- You want to improve and keep doing so, even if you are already very good, and are not complaisant now you have reached your current very good level. (Other competitor organisations who are constantly improving using customer feedback will soon overtake you.)
- Customer satisfaction and indeed delight, are top of your list
- You value your employees' efforts as much as you could
Without continual obtaining customer feedback, including crucially at the point of experience or immediately afterwards, no organisation can truly improve the customer experience in the ways that the customer wants, rather than in the ways that the organisation thinks they want. Lack of this type of feedback also of course fails to enable many other aspects of an organisation to improve too – such as customer communications, processes and procedures across the organisation, and crucially, staff behaviours, actions and attitudes.
I wondered too how they could judge the level of referrals they were getting, and know details about the customer experience that would enable them to improve beyond their existing level, to enable them to not only stand out from the crowd, but to shine above it and stay above it.
Also, unless customers took the trouble to give individuals verbal feedback, how would they know whether and when their efforts were appreciated by customers, and therefore gain increased motivation to improve the customer experience, as well as increased sense of pride and satisfaction in their jobs?
Point of experience feedback opportunities and mechanisms fuel:
- Staff motivation levels
- Customer satisfaction
- Positive customer perceptions
- Improvement measures
- Corporate strategy
- Marketing, PR and communications
- Expenditure efficiencies
- Brand image, reputation and value
How easy are you making it for your customers to speak to your organisation at the point of experience or immediately afterwards? Are you facilitating ways for them to provide you with the good and the not so good information on exactly what they think about you, and more importantly, what they feel about you too?
Crucially, the experience you are giving customers fuels their emotions, so that if those thoughts and feelings are not so good, you at least have provided yourself with the opportunity to nip it in the bud and make amends, before those negative emotions have chance to grow further. It's those feelings about you that will stay with them long after their stay with you is over, whatever they may be. They will determine whether those customers then want to speak to you again, and whether they will speak well or ill of your organisation to other people, and in turn instill positive or negative emotions about your organisation in them too, and make others want to speak to you at all, or not.
Observation Post
Not-Listening Skills!
Why is it that so often when, for example at a petrol station, you give your pump number and then ask if you can have a VAT receipt, does the cashier proceed to ask you if you want a VAT receipt! Or if you are at the checkout in the supermarket and the cashier announces your spend for the shop, you hand them your card and ask if you can have an amount of cashback, do they swipe the card and then ask if you want cash back?!
Or when you check into a hotel and very clearly make a point of saying your name, does the receptionist, a nano second afterwards, ask you for your name, as if you haven't said it in the first place, and then indignantly glare at you when you look annoyed at having to repeat yourself.
At times I think it must take quite a lot of effort to repeatedly block out what the person right in front of them is saying. Have they become so automated, that unless the customer speaks at the exact point that the employee requires that information, they can't hold, process or cope with that information? Or worse still, do they in some cases just not care?
How unimportant does this then make the customer feel, and how disinterested does it also make the organisation look in providing an attentive, caring and personable service to their customers?
Making Your Mark
Speaking Volumes
Try writing down all the ways in which your organisation, or even your team, seeks feedback from customers and partners. Consider how much information you are gathering from those methods, and importantly, how valuable that information is. Perhaps consider whether you're maybe asking for information that you don't do a lot with. Are there enough, or indeed too many ways in which you're seeking feedback? Now rate each method according to how valuable it is, first to your organisation, but importantly also, how valuable it is to the customer and their experience and perception of you, that you're asking for that particular feedback.
If you're not gaining the amount of feedback you feel you need, what other methods could you employ to do so? Are you ensuring that you're not only obtaining the feedback you need, but also that customers want to give you, in order that you can truly improve their experience of your whole organisation as much as you could?
What impact would this have on customers' perceptions of you, and in turn on your organisation's or team's image and reputation? How many additional referrals and aspects of the customer experience and your business might you be able to more accurately measure and improve as a result, and how many more customers and partners might you then be able to keep and attract?
Speaking Events
I speak at a range of different corporate conferences, both all-staff and management, on the customer experience and my strategy of 'Whole Organisation Marketing' - helping all your people live and deliver your customer experience and brand promise, 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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