Customer Experience Crossroads

Happy rituals: how to take your brand to a new level

I was thinking about a few of my happy rituals recently. Showering in the morning. Having extended coffee with the newspaper on Sundays. And sometimes, adding croissants from a favorite bakery, or homemade biscuits into the weekend morning ritual.

You may be, like me, someone who abhors repetitive routine. Even if you are, I suspect you have a few happy rituals.

The happy ritual

A happy ritual is something that gives structure and joy to daily living. When our happy rituals are in place, all is well with our corner of the world, even if the rest of the world is going to hell in a backpack.

Brands can join in those happy rituals. Which is why you find Bisquick, not with baking supplies, but with the pancake mixes at the grocery store. Pancakes are staple happy ritual accompaniment in many households. They are the birthday breakfast choice of lots of children, and one of the first things kids learn to make for themselves.

Coffee, of course, has become a major happy ritual, regardless of whether you are a Starbuckian or favor the independents.

I was thinking about all of this relative to my morning shower. [I'd much rather give up imported asparagus than my showers, if push comes to shove on the environmental front]  My hair care products aren't adding much to the experience. They are highly functional. They do the job I am buying them for. But they're not giving me any extra emotional goodies. No fresh scent that I would miss if I changed products, for example. 

You could argue that there are emotional benefits associated with keeping my hair from going insane during humid weather. Or keeping those expensive highlights looking fresher longer. That's true. the functional benefits do link to emotional benefits. But there could still be a  happy ritual during use.

Whatever the brand experience you are offering, if you stay at the level of functional benefits, you're missing out on ways to garner greater loyalty.

If you only do product research out of the customer's context, you will have trouble finding out about the happy rituals.

Acknowledgements

The image is from unadorned.org/morningpaper by Stephanie Troeth under a creative commons license.

I've written about happy rituals before.

With respect to deconstructing the Curves customer experience: Curves and more Curves.  

Why Starbucks and instant coffee don't make sense to me. How Starbucks surveys about customer experience. Starbucks versus my local independent coffee places.

This just in: digital nomads, social networking in the workplace, Burger King Studio reprise - how to manage social media

I have to tell you that the guys who created Burger King Studio -- Mess Marketing in Chicago -- demonstrated awesome social media management skills.  You will recall my post wherein I gushed about the cool t-shirts you can make online, and gave them what-for about glitches on their purchase process. Look at all the things they did right here:

♥ They are keeping track of social media mentions of their project. [check]
♥ Rob Robinson, creative director, immediately posted a comment on the blog [check]
♥ Then he tracked down my e-mail and sent me a personal note there too [check]
♥ He apologized for the problem, acknowledged my concerns, said they would give the feedback to the web team, and would also try to find my custom designs!  [check, check, check, double check!]
♥ I got an additional wow when a package showed up at my office, with two t-shirts, some cute buttons, and a catalog of the project showed up. [2 checks and a gold star for that one!] 

This is totally going to make workouts more fun while trainer TK - aka the princess of pain - is tossing medicine balls at me.

♥ Oh, and one more thing. They went hunting for my custom designs, and have promised to send them along as soon as they are made. [extra credit!]
Here they are:


I told him, via e-mail, that I was planning on using the t-shirts as prizes for a workshop I am doing for a client on consumer trends. Because I thought their project was pretty leading edge.  Which it is.

Okay, so he's getting a little earned -- aka unpaid -- media. And he had to exert a little effort for it, as do you. But look at this circle of happiness that was created. He gets more profile. I get cool t-shirts. AND I get a killer story for the next dozen or so presentations I give. Everybody wins.

And an even more loyal BK customer, who really likes to have it her way.

***

Stopping by Chris Brogan's blog I found an interesting report from Citrix about web commuters -- the workshifting phenomenon.  Some startling statistics like these: by 2008 there were 33.7 million US teleworkers. Forrester is projecting big growth, such that as many as 1/3 of the workforce will work from home at least part of the time.  Given that you can't flip burgers or change hotel sheets from home, I'd guess that this means knowledge workers will be telecommuting a lot.

A study Citrix Online commissioned found that 73% of American workers and 53% of small business owners want to be able to work remotely.

In the late 80's I was part of a Future of Work Secretariat that the ministry of labour in Alberta launched. We were talking about this stuff then, but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

Apart from technology support, what does this group of people need?

***

In a similar vein, Aon Consulting has published a report about employee attitudes around social media in the workplace. Aon is looking at the big shift towards Millennials in the workplace, and their comfort level with social media, and seeing a disconnect with the ways employers communicate.

45% of the 8000 respondents in the study already work remotely. Almost half use instant messaging at work. Four in ten use text messaging at work -- not to talk to family and friends, but to exchange information.

"The internet’s power not only gives people access to a wide range of news perspectives, but it grants each  person an outlet to express his or her own opinion on it. Employees are using social media to collect  information, to interpret and communicate it to others."

So many organizations seem determined to keep the lock on social media. If this study is any indication, it's not going to work.

***

Have a great weekend!
 

What do you need to know now? (About customer experience)

At a workshop on the weekend, several people suggested topics that I should write on. 
I thought I'd share this list with you, and see what you think.

The ideas list:

1. How to create a spirit of service among employees
2. How to gain / increase customers
3. How to improve sales and loyalty
4. How to train the customer
5. How to train and get results from front-line staff
6. How to get to an insight
7. How to motivate staff to give better customer service
8. Why must organizations ask for feedback and then ignore it
9. How to create + ensure customer satisfaction
10. How to create consistency in experience
11. Insights=Perspectives (Not sure I get this one, but I'm pondering it. Any thoughts?)

Is this the stuff you want to know? 
What would you add to this list?
What do you need right now to get through this day, this week, this month, this quarter?
Just to make this fun, I'll put all the responses into a hat and draw for a nice treat. Spam doesn't count, of course.

I'm off to speak at a conference in Chicago this week: the Symposium on Excellence in Qualitative Research. I'm speaking with a client about employment branding, a fascinating and growing requirements.

When I get back, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the list above. Seriously, comments would be welcome. If you hate the idea of posting a comment on the blog, send me an e-mail. susan[a]abbottresearch.com.

Pondering GM: were they living in a cone of silence?

Watching the GM saga unfold, the most striking thing is how long it took for changes to be made, in the face of clear data.

I recently came across an old news story about GM -- around 1999 or 2000 was when the analysis was written. It was course material in a marketing management course. The how-not-to-manage-your-marketing-function part of the course.

The article talked about the pressing needs: To rationalize the brands and banners. Rationalize the dealer network. Get a better fix on consumer desires. The same article made reference to these problems having been in place and observed at least a decade before. 

It makes me think how truly impressive it is when a company can make big changes without a huge crisis. It speaks well of a whole culture when this can happen, not just of an executive. Because the example we have of GM is of a whole company that seemed to be living in a cone of silence half the time.

The service experience: GM vs Acura

Let me illustrate just how huge the cone of silence was by telling you about my 1989 Acura Integra.

The Integra was a delightful car, totally fun to drive and the perfect accessory for a young career woman. When I took it in to the dealership, here's what it was like: 

• Everyone was sharply dressed.
• The place was clean, and they served free coffee.
• They had a van that would drop you off if you worked nearby, or drop you at a transit station if you didn't.
• When you picked the car up, it was always freshly washed
• There were little paper things inside so you knew no oil from the mechanics feet got on your carpet or seat
• The whole thing was a pleasure. I actually enjoyed the ritual of it. I felt like I belonged to an exclusive club.

A few years later, I accepted a fabulous position as a regional manager for a bank. The job came with a car, and my market area included Oshawa, home of three GM plants and the head offices of GM Canada. I wore out three cars on that job, all pretty good vehicles, actually. Two Grand Prix and a Grand Am. No problems, just a lot of driving.

But here's the customer experience at a big GM dealer in Oshawa.

• The reception area was so dirty, I didn't sit down
• I actually didn't put my purse or briefcase down either, because the cement floor was pretty awful too
• There was a beat up wooden podium that served as a counter. It looked like it had been repainted about a hundred times.
• The guy serving me was dressed in oily gray coveralls
• I wondered if I was in the right place
• I felt like I had stumbled into some kind of guy's clubhouse
• They didn't wash the car. In fact, I kind of took a good look at the seat before I popped my suited behind down
• I never went back

If you see it once, it's a pattern

OK, it was one dealership. But there's a good saying in the world of sales and service: "if you see it once, it's a pattern." There are no isolated instances. If some bad thing is happening in one place, it's happening in other places.

Did no-one know how the industry was changing? Or did no-one care? Or did they think that it wouldn't really matter? Or did people try to make changes but just give up due to the tremendous inertia in the organization?

Things may have changed a lot at that dealership. But how would I know -- I never went back to check. And that is just the reality of dealing with consumers. Once we write you off, you're gone from our world.

GM seems to have a game plan now. And good luck to them implementing it, because they have a BIG hill to climb.

Burger King Studio: I loved you, but you don't like Canadians

I

I stumbled across Burger King Studio recently. This is BK's project to engage hipster artists in major cities, and have them create designs that can be screen printed on T-shirts. This seemed like a very creative and edge promotion to me.

These seemed like the perfect item to illustrate a number of interesting trends for a client project I am working on. My plan was to order a couple of these shirts, designed by yours truly, and give them away as prizes at a client offsite. Or if they were really cute, wear one and give the other away.

There were three little annoyances in the shopping cart phase.

First -- you could only order one of a design. Second -- even clicking "back" to see if there is some way to order more appears to wipe out the design you spent loving time creating. Turns out you can order more, but you have to create them one at a time.

Third -- only after you put all your information in do they tell you that they don't ship outside the US. But I had a Whopper with cheese only last week. It's pretty much a global company, although clearly a local promotion. 

What really annoyed me was their D'oh. Like I'm the idiot here.

However, it's easy for websites to find out where I am. Hulu, the re-broadcaster of all things television, won't let me watch anything at all. At least they're polite about it.

A few observations:

Avoid indulging in making people feel like idiots. [Unless of course you are a blogger or a journalist, in which case that is part of your job.] If you are building your brand, you can be edgy and still be polite.

I've been a BK customer for years. I actually go out of my way for BK versus McD. I was prepared to wear their brand imagery on my body! [Something I have previously only considered with Vespa.] And now I'm ticked.

The challenge for service delivery: people costs go up, digital costs go down

Sitting in the cold and gray of January can put one in the mood to contemplate the really BIG issues of life. Such as how the cost of digital services has dropped to practically nothing, and how the cost of human services continues to rise. And what this means for customer experience.

While stepping back and pondering this weighty issue, I checked out another amazing free tool available to the digerati. This one is called Website Grader, and for no charge beyond signing up to their mailing list, you can get a pretty good report on your web site, delivered in a minute or so.  [And there's a nifty badge too. I love badges, all bloggers do. It's down there on the bottom right, below the blogroll.]

All this as a marketing device to attract you to HubSpot's web services.

On the other hand, we have human services. There's a long standing tradition that people should get a little increase in wages every year. And occasional merit increases. So if the head count stays the same, more or less, the overall cost of the payroll rises.

This is leading to bizarre situations all over the place.

I can get webinars on many subjects for free, and can learn a great many things just by watching videos on YouTube, and reading free web content. It's even easier than going to the library. OR, I can take a class at a university or college, where costs continue to rise.

In my hometown here, the faculty of a major university have been on strike for two months because they don't like the latest offer: an increase of 9.25 % over a three year contract, with improvements in job security and benefits. [Are these people crazy, you may be asking yourself? Haven't they heard the news?]

With the cost of so much that is digital dropping, dropping, dropping, it gets harder and harder to find ways to support the perceived value of human-delivered experiences. Like, say, clerks in a clothing store, or tellers in a bank. No one wants to pay for these things directly. But the costs of human staff essentially rise every year, whether prices do or not.

Right you say, that's what has driven offshoring of call centres, among other things.

The challenge for us as experience marketing folk is this: how do you make the human experience valuable enough that people will pay the cost of delivering it? Especially when people are reassessing the value of pretty much everything?

No answers today, just raising the question.

Using GPS to build customer experience: yes, it's another Harley-Davidson story

GPS device maker Garmin is launching a specialized version of the Garmin Zumo - the Road Tech Zumo. It will come pre-loaded with all the Harley-Davidson dealerships, as well as a program to share rides. These will be the kind of rides motorcyclists love, of course -- with windy roads, good scenery, and an absence of express-lanes.

As GPS becomes ubiquitous, I expect to see a lot more innovation of this nature. Read more on the GPS Lodge story.

Resources:

Harley-Davidson Zumo GPS - the Road-Tech Zumo, on GPS Lodge, Aug. 4 08

Starbucks customer experience: not special, not really even local

I walked through my local Starbucks yesterday to see what they'd done with their recent renovations. Kind of hoping it might be a more suitable location for a business talk than it was before. Sadly, there are now fewer seats overall, and the customer space is quite a bit smaller. The counter is bigger, so the staff are likely happy. I have to assume that they're focusing this location on the takeout business, which may actually be a good decision, despite my dissatisfaction.

And therein lies the Starbuckian challenge.
They aren't unique anymore, they're not rare. They are convenient. They are, frankly, mass. Premium mass perhaps, but mass all the same.

In one of the emerging neighborhoods here, Leslieville, I saw a number of unique coffee houses one day. That's Tango Palace Coffee Company at the top of the page. The Dark Horse Espresso Bar was down the street a ways.

And Red Rocket Coffee, above, was not far from the streetcar depot, home of the transportation locally known as The Red Rocket.

This is what local looks like. I expect each of these places has a loyal following, their own strengths and weaknesses, some unique blends of coffee, and perhaps some fresh baked goods.

By comparison, Starbucks has become the Holiday Inn of coffee places -- it may not be special, but there won't be many surprises.

Despite their iconic status, Starbucks has some big challenges. Not the least of which is sheer size. There's no avoiding this once you go public, however. There's no joy in being a utility -- all the money goes to the growth stocks, and that's what Starbucks became.  Their recent decision to close some outlets likely makes a lot of sense.

Now what?

In today's marketplace, you can be budget-bargain or you can be high-end. You can stand for indulgence, or you can stand for the environment, or you can stand for being the smart decision, or many other positions. The mushy middle is a tough place to compete, however.

So what does Starbucks stand for right now, what is the brand meaning? And how does the experience reflect this meaning, reinforce this meaning, and bring this meaning to life?

Starbucks can thrive, but there's no way it keeps its premium price point unless it keeps its game up. So re-examining their coffee taste is a good idea. McDonald's has improved their coffee taste. The donut places are still serving good coffee. And together, these define the budget end of good coffee. Starbucks has to stay above this in the minds of consumers, and they have to earn their premium price. I hear people say it's the best coffee in the world, but I find this hard to believe, and it certainly doesn't mesh with my own experience.

The third-place thing is definitely still working for them -- at least where you can find a place to sit.

I think they might try to customize their focus for each local market, wherever they can. So that locations in business districts have more places for quick meetings, and locations in neighborhoods are friendly to SUV strollers. [I've never understood why they don't have stroller parking of some sort to end the congestion, or  designated seating, or something like that]. Customizing to be local within a consistent larger theme could mean that you get to know individual locations that suit your preferences. For me, I'd avoid the SUV locations, and head straight to the business and artsie ones.

Where they hang the work of local artists, this seems like a good thing to me. It helps them preserve a sense of place. Doing this takes time and effort, however, and staff need to be given a mandate to spend the time and make the effort.

One thing they could definitely improve is their food product. This stuff tastes like it was shipped in bulk from a single factory, and has been on the shelf for days. Especially since we are seeing the rise of local bakeries and patisseries again, that offer the real deal.

Resources:
For more on the challenge of running public companies check out this story by Miro Slodki, Is it time we fired our shareholders?

I've written about the coffee business before.

Cafe, Coffee Place, Coffee House: names and their meanings

Far Coast: Coca-Cola pilot coffee cafe in Toronto

Getting a good coffee in Kingston Jamaica and other third place observations

Starbucks Customer Experience

Becky Carroll has run quite a few posts on the Starbucks experience on the Customers Rock blog. As has Meikah Ybañez-Delid on the CustServ blog.

Coffee Wars

Just while Starbucks is having an identity crisis of sorts, everyone else has decided to get on the bandwagon.
Stephani Ortenzi quoted me in a nice piece about what is happening on the front lines of the coffee wars for Foodservice and Hospitality Magazine. (subscription only)

You can also read the article on Stephani's author site. "Hang Time: The New Language of Coffee"

Customer Care: Helping the 20% or Are you any better at this than Dell?

There is so much effort going into "Customer Care" these days, that there are times I think it's all just working great. It must be. Everyone says it is.

I get a lot of advertising material about systems that are designed to support Customer Care, make it "World Class", and so forth. Here's what I think. This stuff is great for the 80%.

Most of these Customer Care systems are designed to identify the 80% of common problems and make solutions to those problems happen quickly and efficiently.

Even though the whole project team knows the system is designed this way, everyone acts like the other 20% don't exist. When we encounter an incident from that 20%, we keep stuffing it back into the other set of routines.

In fact, EVERY time something doesn't get resolved the first time by one of these systems, it needs to be escalated to the red team, the swat team, or whatever you call it. Because these systems DO in fact work for the 80%, anything that jams up or falls out somehow has to be one of those 20% issues. And the main pipeline of customer care can't handle the 20%. These need to be quickly routed to some skilled and empowered team who can diagnose and fix problems. They often aren't.

I think we've all been there. In the spiral from hell [see diagram above], where YOU are the one documenting the problem, YOU are the one recapping all the previous ineffective efforts to solve it, and YOU are the one coming up with ideas that might work.

Sadly, I am in one of those spiral circles right now with Dell, trying to upgrade my DataSafe backup for more space. Yup, just trying to give them money, and they don't seem to want to take it under any circumstances. I've had one online chat session, several e-mails, and a lengthy phone call with my GOLD Tech Support. [Who can't help because it is a sales problem, although heaven knows they have tried.]

Eventually, I think they are going to realize that some glitch is slowing down sales of DataSafe, investigate, and figure out that something in their fulfillment for this product is screwed up. In the interim, the Customer Care machine will keep squeezing a lemon and hoping for orange juice.

Of course this is one of the great ironies of 20% issues. QUITE OFTEN they are early warning signs of some problem on the fulfillment end. QUITE OFTEN they are valued customers, early adopters, and other people who don't give up easily. All the more reason to flag these items quickly.

You want to improve Customer Care? Start looking at how you handle the 20%.

Testing the new blog authoring tools in Word 2007

I'm having fun with productivity tools this week. Got the new Dell desktop last Friday. You know the routine, of course – move files and settings, reinstall software, ask yourself if you should have partitioned the hard drive differently, and keep changing the location of the new giant screen. It's an odd combination of daunting and exciting, with most of the excitement done and gone about an hour after you turn it on, and the daunting part that continues for weeks.

Our computers, for some of us, are such an extension of our fingers and brains that even relatively minor changes can be tremendously disruptive. Which is one reason I stayed with XP, and didn't give in to the temptation to shift to Mac. 

The shift to Dell was one I resisted, but ultimately, they were the only ones who would let me configure online. And their online configuration/ordering tools were wonderful. They have even made the unpacking process much more attractive than I was expecting. The boxes actually look nice when you open them up, all neatly packed and white inside. [I know, some of us are hung up on aesthetics.]

I did get the new Office Suite software, and even though the ribbon is kind of neat, it's still a change, and therefore a disruption. There seem to be two big bonus items here, however, that are very cool.

1. Changing fonts and styles shows up instantly! Yes, this is amazing, fun, and incredibly useful. At least it is if you are type-design junkie like I am, constantly tweaking.
2. Built in blog authoring tools mean I am actually typing this post from inside Word! The software is integrating for me, and has a whole new menu bar that replicates several functions inside TypePad. If it works [and since you are reading this, it must have worked] this will be a nice addition to my life, and end a lot of annoying formatting problems that are tricky to resolve inside TypePad.

I bumped into a neighbor today who is in her 50s, and is retraining on computer skills to get work, after a marital split. I found it hard to believe that anyone can function without computer skills, it seems so rare now. I didn't tell her how many computers we actually have in our home now, between the new desktops, the old desktops, the current laptops, the laptops we are saving for no good reason, the laptop we read the New York Times on in the dining room on Sundays…. To say nothing of the handheld devices [both working and dead], and the peripherals. It's a wonder there is room for human beings.

Our tools continue to expand our reach. And when they do so seamlessly, it's a beautiful thing to see.

Starbucks Customer Experience: how would you answer?

Starbucks is conducting a survey with CustomerThink and GCCRM about their customer experience.

Their last two questions were good ones. My answers are in italics.

What do you like most about the Starbucks in-store experience?

It's a good place to have an informal business meeting with a colleague

What do you like least about the Starbucks in-store experience?

I really don't care much for your coffee, (except latte, breakfast blend are ok) and your bakery products are awful. Can be difficult to find a seat - one person will have staked out a whole corner for hours. I'm concerned your push into the children's market will make it too noisy and messy for adults like me.

That's how I answered. How would you answer?

The latest news on multi-tasking and what it means for customer experience

Luth Research recently released their IndicatorEDG report on multi-tasking. It looks like we are spending more and more time -- on average, 20 hours a week -- attempting to do two things at once.

"On average, 17 percent of our time awake -- approximately 19.80 hours per week -- is spent using two or more media simultaneously, according to the latest quarterly findings (Quarter 1, 2007) from Luth Research's IndicatorEDG™, an online study surveying more than 5,000 respondents in the U.S. The media in question included all mass media (e.g., TV, radio, Internet) and personal electronic devices (e.g., cell phone, MP3 player, wireless email device)."

Those who aren't employed spend more time in media multi-tasking -- no surprise there. But so do retired people, who average close to 26 hours a week in media multi-tasking. [So your suspicions are correct -- Mom or Dad really are watching the TV while talking to you on the phone.] 

And most of this media multi-tasking is TV together with something else --

"Watching TV was named by nearly half of the respondents to be what they typically do
when working on the Internet or email through a computer. One in five people have their TV on while using their cell phone to make phone calls. TV seems to be a natural fit to co-own consumer time and space with other print media, as 20 percent of the respondents cited TV as the medium they were also using when reading a newspaper, a magazine, or a book."

Those that are spending more time media multi-tasking report that they are less happy overall than others.*

What does this mean for customer experience and customer communications?

If you thought it was hard to get people's attention before, guess what? It's going to get harder. So clarity in all communications is essential.

In these circumstances, is it realistic to expect people to absorb the fine print, or read between the lines of your offer?  Probably not, in my view.

Greater redundancy in communication is also a good idea. Don't assume people are actually informed about your policies or product features or hours of operation. Make it clear, easy to find, and say it often.

If it's directed at anyone who is retired, make the print on the box big enough to scan at a glance, because that might be all it gets.

And your advertising had better be interesting enough to compete with other media. Even if it's only getting half an ear or half an eyeball, it needs to get a message through.

Resources and notes:

Here's the link to the five-page PDF report: IndicatorEDG Research: Media Multitasking

* Note that this should not be construed as a cause -- perhaps the multi-tasking is a response to other life circumstances, which are the underlying cause of the unhappiness

Interview with Jonathan Tisch about Reinventing the Customer Experience

This blog tour by Jonathan Tisch has been interesting on a few levels. What a creative idea, for starters. And what a clever publicist to pick up on it.

I knew we'd be up at the end of the tour week, and I thought that things might be getting repetitive by now. So I sent questions that I hoped were different, and might scratch through the polished package that accompanies anyone who occupies a corner office, to say nothing of someone who is also on the speaking circuit.  I don't think we got anything unvarnished, but I think we did get some frank and forthright commentary.  Here's our e-mail Q&A, as conversational as we could make it.

"[It is] challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits"

Susan Abbott: Jonathan, I first wanted to tell you that I read a paragraph from your book to kick off a recent client working session about customer experience. It was about how everyone in the organization actually needs to think about and be focused on customers. I was happy to hear people repeating this stuff a week later to others.

I only wish it was so easy to get people on board, especially at the top of the organization.   I know some are -- Lafley at P&G of course is a great example. But it seems like the exception, not the rule. Why aren't more executives on board?

Jonathan Tisch: With the focus coming from Wall Street on quarterly earnings for public companies, it becomes a bit challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits. The enlightened leaders of some companies have figured out that great customer service usually leads to an enhanced bottom line. That is the ultimate challenge – to find ways for your customers to receive the service that they deserve, turn them in to life-long customers, and ensure that they don’t go to the competition should they have a bad experience. 

"What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business"

SA: One of the things that immediately drew me to your book was your genuine understanding of the vulnerability of the traveler who is a guest in your hotel. I spent a few years where I was continually on the road, and it can be a lonely and frustrating place at times.

Still, I recognize that my expectations are very high. But of course this wasn't always the case -- I can't imagine what travel in the 1800s must have been like. It makes me wonder how customer expectations will change in the future. You mentioned the importance of staying on top of emerging trends and the next demographic shift. Could you comment on that? 

JT: What is happening in the lodging industry today relates to the old saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business.

Our business has become highly sophisticated with very large, corporate entities becoming players. When you look at the Marriotts, InterContinentals and Hiltons of the world – all with many thousands of properties, at different price points and market niches – you understand that the big are getting bigger and that, through acquisitions and strategic alliances, they have become formidable competition with tremendous offerings.

There has also been a greatly enhanced focus by Wall Street and private equity on the hotel business, so many of the new players are very well capitalized and have extremely bright people as part of their organizations.

That’s the business of hotels.

But what hasn’t changed since the first person checked into a hotel 1,000 years ago, is the hotel business. At its core, our business is based on hospitality and making people feel welcome, comfortable and safe. The companies that continue to thrive are the ones able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality.

Going forward, we will always have new technological advances to deal with. But once again, our industry is extremely biased toward interpersonal and human relations.   

"The companies that thrive are able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality"

SA: You mentioned several instances in the book where staff quite correctly bend the rules to look after a customer. But you also note consistency is critically important -- customers need to know an organization is reliable and dependable.

Is there a tension between customization and consistency? And if so, how does an organization deal with this tension?

JT: If your co-workers are properly educated and trained, then customization and consistency can, indeed, be compatible. That’s the nature of crisis resolution. What I like to discuss with my Loews Hotels co-workers isn’t about the problem necessarily. It’s about the recovery.

With so many options for the consumer, recovery from a problem is paramount because that’s how you keep one of your customers from going to a competitor.

It is a very fine line that has to be taught to, in some cases, entry-level individuals – how to get involved and what opportunities for crisis resolution are available to them. At Loews Hotels we pride ourselves on balancing consistency with customization to provide the level of service our guests have become accustomed to. 

"The CEO cannot be involved in every decision -- nor should they be"

SA: I'd like to ask you about managing a culture of innovation. If we want to harness the creative talents at all levels of an organization, how do we do that? What specifically does the CEO need to do to role model the right approach? Short of writing a book, of course.

JT: The CEO always sets the tone for an organization. Due to corporate hierarchy, it can get a little lonely at the top if there’s not complete buy-in at every level of the organization.

Due to physical and time constraints, the CEO cannot be involved in every decision – nor should they be involved in every decision. It’s extremely important for middle and senior-management to have a very clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the company. In addition, creativity is an important tool that should be harnessed to effectively manage toward these goals. This is something that needs to be taught to all the individuals making decisions.

"The CEO always sets the tone for an organization"

JT: It’s very important to always monitor the touch-points of your organization so that you can see where the customer intersects with your product or service.

As the CEO, there are times when I find myself talking to clients about their experiences, in a sense pleading with them to be honest and candid with me. It really is important for the CEO to hear everything – the good and the bad. Because much of what gets to a CEO on a daily basis is somewhat sanitized by those working for them, I find it important to regularly speak with our guests.

Additionally there are always letters, observations, comments and criticisms that come across the transom. CEOs always need to understand what’s being said about their organization so that they can deal with the situations appropriately.

SA: Thank you, Jonathan. It's not often that a CEO of a major organization lets themselves be interviewed by a blogger. I really appreciate having your executive level perspective on things that my readers and I think about!

JT: Thank you, Susan, for this dialogue! I’ve enjoyed this week immensely. Thank you for welcoming me to your blog.

SA: We talk a lot on this blog about the need to stay close to customers, and the tools that help you do that effectively. I'm wondering what some of your favorite methods are?

Customer Service Carousel Redux

*** Updates are added at the end of this post.

I've been having some problems logging in to my main business bank accounts, as documented earlier.

I have now called the 800 number twice, and have spent a considerable amount of time -- as they requested I do -- documenting what exactly is wrong with their web site. I sent this information exactly as they requested, through a secure internal message site.

They promised

1. to get back to me within 24 hours
2. to e-mail me when their response was posted so I could log in to see it

They appear to have fulfilled promise #1, but I didn't know, since they didn't fulfil promise #2. I found out today that the problem isn't fixed, and it's basically my problem now.  Here's the message they sent me:

Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate the time you have taken to write us.

Please note that the team that answers messages only has limited access to customer accounts and personal information. Although we can assist customers with general inquiries, we are unable to fulfil account servicing or investigation requests.

For further assistance, please call Online Banking support at 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. If you don't have a Telephone Banking password, at the start of your call press 0 twice to be connected to a representative. Assistance is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you're calling from abroad, the number is 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Collect calls are not accepted.

Thank you for using Online Banking.

Sincerely,

Jane
Internet Communications Specialist

This organization is making more than a billion dollars a year. And they are spending a LOT of money on branding.

This is what I would call a 'customer managed relationship.' If I want the relationship to work, I'm going to have to manage it. And that includes figuring out why their web site is -- you know -- [what's a polite word here???]

Update May 21, 2007.  My e-mail response to feedback has not received a reply. Problem still exists.

Podcast on Customer Experience

Stephanie Weaver is starting a podcast series on customer experience, and kindly invited me to be her first guest, on the topic, "What is the customer experience"?. Listen to our conversation here.  You can also get it from iTunes here.

Some of you will remember Stephanie as the co-creator of the amazing Bathroom Blogfest (tag: ladiesrooms), which we hope to reprise in October 2007.

Defining Customer Experience

Stephanie Weaver has an interesting post defining the inside and outside of customer experience.

"• Inside. First, the experience happens in your customers’ perceptions. It’s seen from their point of view, created by a combination of their feelings, sensations, and prior experiences. Unfortunately, what you intend doesn’t always matter. All that counts is what’s happening inside a customer on the day he or she is at your site. You can’t control this inside dimension. No two customers will ever have the same experience, since everyone has a unique point of view.

• Outside. Second, an experience is made up of many separate pieces outside the customer. That’s your part. The outside dimension begins the instant a person decides to visit, continues throughout his or her time with you, and ends when he or she leaves. You control nearly every aspect of this outside dimension."

I like this approach. We basically agree on the concept, but this is a nice way to put it. Here's my definition, and you can download the graphic model below.

Customer Experience Is... the internal response of an individual to their interactions with an organization's products, people, processes and environments.

Internal response includes the thoughts, feelings and emotions experienced and the rational, psychological and sensory benefits of the experience.

Download ARC-Customer-Experience-Model.pdf

This is civilization: Flying Porter

I'm sitting in an airport lounge that feels a bit different... it's Porter Air, at the Toronto Island Airport. A fellow sitting nearby just said to his buddy, "This is civilization!". And indeed, so far this trip has lacked half the hassle of flying out of Pearson.

[Above: ferry waiting area]

For starters, the lounge is free to everyone. And wireless access is free. There are nice flat-screen computers like the one shown above, and branded water.

The guy beside me -- who has a combat pattern skinned onto his Blackberry -- just finished an espresso. 

You get here via a short ferry trip from downtown. You can pass the short wait by watching the scoters bob and dive for fish. You get to the ferry terminal via a comfortable shuttle bus from the downtown check-in kiosk. And it's a NICE bus. And all the staff are NICE!  They say things like "have a great trip" while giving you a smile.

There are a few mis-steps. I wasn't sure what floor the checkin kiosk was on, so they could have better signage there.  Plus, I just heard Frank Sinatra sing "New York, New York" on the audio for the second time in an hour. And "The Girl from Ipanema" just started. Tape definitely not long enough. But interesting ambiance, and obviously thought through by someone. (Note to self: remember to put the new Sennheiser headphones in briefcase for the next trip)

But the main advantage has to be the ease of access from downtown, and no $50 taxi ride to get to the airport.  I actually came to my first meeting via public transit, and then walked over to the shuttle kiosk. I have to agree: it feels VERY civilized.

I confess I was not in favor of keeping this airport, when it has come up as an issue in municipal politics. And there has been more than enough jiggery-pokery on the funding to keep us taxpayers in a state of rage for years. But as long as this thing is rolling, I plan to give it a try.

Wish List, Continued: Fewer unpleasant surprises

Doing some research for a client a few weeks ago, one of the things people had to say about their service experience was approximately this: 'please make sure I know everything I need to know.'

Consumers often take responsibility for 'not knowing the right questions to ask' -- I've heard this sentiment many times in experience research. They blame themselves for not asking what they should have known to ask... crazy, isn't it? Because that's why you are talking to a representative of the company in the first place. Unless the reps are just order-takers.

It's the feeling that the company rep actually know the pitfalls, but they're not telling you unless you ask a direct question on that topic. It's like some weird game show.

I've had this experience in my business several times recently. There's a whole industry that supports qualitative marketing research, called "field." These are the people who own the facilities, make the phone calls to invite respondents, and manage all the details, like catering. No matter how carefully we try to manage the field costs, the final invoice always seems to have a little surprise. Sometimes several surprises. On a big project, by the end of the thing, it's enough to fund an upgrade in airfare, or a dirty weekend in a country inn.

And because I try not to surprise the clients with a bazillion little nickel and dime charges, these extras invariably come out of my pocket.

Even though I put up a few of the lyrics to one of the funniest songs you'll ever hear -- Master of the House -- I don't really think it's as bad as all that. But there is a reluctance to tell you everything you need to know. People want to win the bid with a low up-front cost. Then they add on everything else as you go along. 

But here's what you need to know: This kind of thing damages loyalty. Period. Full stop.

So tell your customers what they need to know. That's what the very best service operations do, when they provide advice. Full transparency. 

As for myself, one of these days I hope I'll know all the right questions to ask.

Resources:

Lyrics to "Master of the House" by Herbert Kretzmer , part of musical Les Miserables, found here.

Christmas wish list: fix the numbering on your PDF manuals, please!

A regular reader mentioned his frustration with the software manual he just downloaded. It's a 428 page manual, and all the page numbers are wrong.
We both know the problem here, right? The cover has no page number. The first few inside pages have gorpy numbers like i,ii,iii... These are conventions from the world'o'paper.

Most of these user manuals will not be published for users, however -- they are largely going to be used by people reading them online.

Wish #1: Santa, please ask them to number each page for the electronic age, so we can enter a page number in the Adobe reader nav bar, and go to the right spot the first time. Even better, how about navigational links?

Wish #2: Please, Santa, would it be asking too much to have these docs formatted landscape, so you can easily read them on your screen?