We’re back to Japan these holidays which as usual I’m incredibly excited about because it is sure to be an amazing opportunity to witness some top notch customer experiences.

I’m writing this in transit at Coolangatta airport and no surprise I have another airline gripe. When getting off this leg of the flight myself and other passengers gave the usual “thank you” to cabin crew. We’re answered with a pleasant “you’re welcome” and I was reminded of the ongoing elitest view the airlines all too often hold. Still to this day passengers are made to feel as if they’re lucky the airline has given them the chance to fly.

Sorry, but it is the other way around. Just once I’d like to hear staff say “no, thank you” acknowledging that it is in fact the passengers who make their career possible.

It’s not just airlines. All staff in all industries need to acknowledge that without customers they wouldn’t even be there.

Not true.

One of the greatest killers of a great customer experience is business processes, often put in place by people within an organisation that are far from the front line.

Consider a recent experience I had, staying at a resort operated by one of the better hotel management groups. The resort considered itself 5 star. Checkout time was 10am, which seemed early but the hotel was nice enough to provide an 11am checkout. I was happy enough with this as I knew they were almost full.

At around 8am I got up to go for a jog, stepped out the front door and practically tripped over the large plastic box that was placed next to the front door. The box contained fresh sheets with fresh bath robes piled on top in a haphazard fashion.

It took me a while to work out what this was all about until I realised they had been placed there in preparation for my checkout and cleanup of my room. Now let me tell me,  the feeling of welcome I felt towards enjoying the room until my late checkout could not have been crush more even if they came knocking at my door and asked me to leave.

Basically what happened here was that someone put in place a process that was supposed to ensure the efficient cleaning of guest rooms. But evidently no one had given any thought to the impact this would have on the customer experience.

Simple solution, install some pleasant looking, permanent boxes near the doors for this purpose. Disguise the boxes with the decor of the rooms and guests would be none the wiser. Much better than a plastic box to trip over at the front door.

And it’s not just hotels. Next time you have a negative customer experience, ask yourself the cause. True, sometimes it will be incompetent or poorly trained front line stuff. But more often than not I bet you’ll find your dissatisfaction is the result of some business process or corporate policy that hasn’t taken into account the customer.

The solution? Test ALL your business processes and policies with customers not just with the efficiency of how they work within your organisation. Let me know if you’ve had similar experiences. I’d certainly enjoy hearing your stories.

Best,

Greg.

BUT there is one thing about these hotels that amazes me and that is the quality of service. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not expecting the sort of service that the 5 and 6 star properties can provide. The rates at this properties warrant staff to guest ratios that allow for superb service and this is great. And like I said, I don’t expect the marble bathroom either, or other such luxuries that make for a costly property.

However, there are two things that these middle of the road hotels can afford but rarely provide.

The first is smiles. It costs nothing for these staff to smile. One would think you could at least get smiles out of front desk staff but let me tell you this ain’t easy. And not for lack of trying. Even when trying to get these people to open up by being friendly and starting a conversation, no smiles.

The second is recognition. After staying at the same hotel 5 times in the space of several weeks not once did I get a “welcome back”. I even recognised the staff myself, without the aid of computer systems that could easily indicate a guests history. Alas, no welcome, and still no smile.

For all those hotels that think they can’t provide 5 star service, give a thought to the cost of a smile and some recognition and what it means to your guests. For other service establishments don’t forget the power of being friendly and personalable with your customers. Smiles are free afterall, and heck, staff may even enjoy their day more if they do it with a smile.

G.

Not wanting to be charged for paper bills that I didn’t need, I called the Three Customer Care line to check. The gentlemen confirmed I was already registered for eBilling. When I mentioned the SMS I recieved he said it was nothing I needed to worry about.

What I wonder however, is why Three didn’t limit this SMS to only people not already registered for eBilling?

Lets consider the cost of SMSing all Three users:

• For the hell of it, lets assume that 10000 people are already registered for eBilling (I expect it is much, much more)
• So 10000 people recieve this SMS when they didn’t need to
• Lets say 5000 of them decide to call the call centre to confirm. Forgetting the cost of the SMS in the first place and of tying up lines unneccessarily, considering call centre staff time, my enquiry took about 3 mins (repeating my number several times, providing a pass code, the call centre checking systems etc).
• 5000 x 3 mins = 15000 mins or about 250 hours

Now I have no idea of what an hour costs Three with their outsourcing strategy and so forth but as you can see, 250 hours of wasted productivity will have a substantial cost that should have been avoided. And I’m sure the real number is much high.

Now systems within large enterprise are often complex and may not be able to talk to each other for various reasons. Simple solution, create an SMS message that is more human:

“If you have already signed up for eBilling you can ignore this message”

Or even better, they could have pushed the whole green angle:

“If you have already signed up for eBilling you can ignore this message and we thank you for helping to make Three more enviromentally friendly”

The end result, companies need to look at their customer experience strategy and minimise anything that creates both a  negative experience for customers as well as a needless productivity burden. Each time a customer contact is created, companies need to consider the full impact of that contact.

httpv://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YzSJotGd1_o

The most obvious one should have been the lighting. You’ll notice that I entered a completly dark room. I find the entry light, then find a desk lamp which doesn’t work. This is because the main light switch is on the other side of the room next to the bed. It isn’t until I fumble with the alarm clock that I manage to get light. This after stumbling across the room around the bed.

See if you can spot any of the other issues:

• Fixed coat hangers that can only be removed by moving the wire through a tiny slot. Do that many people really steal coat hangers these days? And if they do, are they that valuable?
• Power outlets on the desk facing the bed – which would be fine except these outlets have bright red lights so when you want to charge your phone and other devices while you’re sleeping you can’t sleep because of the red glow
• And my favourite, which is hard to see in the video, but this is a tea and coffee shelf that hangs on the edge of its mounts so the slightest movement brings the whole thing crashing down. How I didn’t break those mugs I have no idea

Now you’re probably thinking these are small things to complain about. But these are simple things that would be easy to rectify. Guests would never notice when things like this are done right – it all just works. But as soon as they start going wrong its becomes enough to make a simple stay at a hotel less than it should be. And it’s always the negatives we remember.

’till next time.

What astounds me is the annoyance these intros pose. I have no desire to advertise to the world that I am turning my phone on but short of burying the phone in a bag when turning it on, most people within talking distance will know my phone is now on.

Now I happen to be the lucky owner of a Samsung Blackjack provided through Telstra. Why am I so lucky? Well my phone comes with a bonus. Not only do I get a little video when I turn my phone on, but I get a little video when I turn it off. The video includes a loud clicking noise that goes along with the nifty scene of a hand clicking a NextG logo. How delightful this is when for example I wish to turn my phone off while in a meeting or when seated at the opera house waiting for a performance.

The only solution for me is to switch the phone to silent prior to turning the phone off. This isn’t exactly a great strain on my resources, but seriously, if these mobile operators gave a little thought to how their customers use their devices we could get rid of one more annoyance from an often highly annoying experience.

Sitting in a lounge here today it occured to me how poor an experience they offer to customers. There are fundamental problems with the way the lounges are arranged and equiped that making using them difficult.

What the lounges fail to take into account is the number of solo passengers that use these spaces. Most business travellers find themselves carrying an array of equipment that they often don’t wish to leave unattended. So a trip to the bar invariably involves taking a bag or two with you.

What this means is that anyone accessing the food or drinks is generally handicapped down to one hand. But the lounges don’t provide anything as simple as a small tray so customers are left to juggle a glass, a plate, and a bag then successfully navigate back to a place to sit. One of these days I’m going to end up with a shirt front covered in finger sandwhiches and tomato juice.

To further complicate matters, it would appear that the lounge designers think customers don’t eat and drink at the same time. The cold drinks, hot drinks, and food are in fact in three different locations. So not only does one risk spills when carrying food and drinks, one has to carry them for an extended tour of the lounge in order to pick up all the requirements.

And god only knows what one should do if you wish to pick up a magazine as well. Of course with some innovation a magazine could make a worthy improvisation for a tray.

Airlines… go the extra step for your customers. Invest a few hundred dollars in some trays for your lounges. Small things like this is often all it takes to turn an accepting customer into a delighted customer.

I could argue the point that it’s better to give your documents to all without registration and let viral marketing spread the word, but this registration process seems to have become the norm. No problems, I’ve received many good articles this way and I am grateful to the companies that went to the effort of putting them together.

Except today.

I was presented with a very nice looking email, that linked to a very nice looking web form asking for my details. I gladly started providing my information because the document sounded interesting. I was impressed that they gave me an option to not have a rep contact me at this stage.

Unfortunately, when submitting the form I was told:

Please enter a valid phone number

Now I’ve dialed my own number many times and I’ve given it to many people to dial without problem. So I know my phone number is valid. Yet this company claims it isn’t. Ok well perhaps I need an area code, or a space, or who knows what. But they did not tell me what format I needed to provide. There was no guidance as to what it was about my phone number that THEY thought was invalid.

So alas, I didn’t get my document, and this company didn’t get the lead. Ironic considering the document was about generating leads.

Tip to companies that can’t resist asking customers to register: Provide very clear guidance on what you expect the customer to provide you and what format that needs to be in. Don’t shut the door in the face of your customers by telling them their valid data is not valid enough for you.