Customer Service - How Good Is Yours?

I’ve been involved in ‘discussions’ in several different Groups on LinkedIn recently. In every case, conversations eventually got around to the need for better customer experiences for business success. This is so true in the relationship environment we are doing business in today. Expectations are higher than ever. Customers expect more than what used to be called ‘customer service’ — everyone claims to be great at it, but very few stand out. Most are just sorely lacking.

I recently returned from a trip to Tucson, AZ. I was scheduled to present a program on Designing for the Generations. The local ASID chapter that hired me was very hospitable. Of course, the weather was far better there than here in Ohio at the time. Seeing old friends, sharing information to help colleagues succeed, and good weather. What more could one ask for? That part of the trip was memorable.

Customer Service and Customer Experiences

Exceptional customer service and experiences always top my list of expectations, no matter where I am. Arizona was no exception. Anyone who has traveled by air lately probably holds a similar low level of expectations with airlines and airports. As usual, they lived up to… or maybe down to is a much better description… my expectations. As seems to be the expected standard these days in air travel, our flight was delayed coming out of Chicago, putting us into Tucson later than planned.

Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.

Donald Porter; V. P British Airways

Exceptional customer service awaited us at the DoubleTree Inn at Reid Park in Tucson, AZ. Our experience started off as a somewhat rocky relationship. When we arrived late due to the airline delay…. room confirmation in hand… we were told they were overbooked and had no room for us. One thing typical for me when traveling all day is that I will arrive tired and more than a little bit cranky. Hearing we had no room was not a good start to our relationship.

Great Customer Service and Exceptional Customer Experience

With a reasonable solution ready, DoubleTree staff transported us to a nearby hotel for the night. (Interesting story there, when our bathroom overflowed in the middle of the night, but…). Sending us off to another hotel…fully comped by DoubleTree… with the promise of picking us up in the morning, bringing us back to their establishment, and treating us to breakfast went a long way to soothe the savage travel beast in me.

As promised, we were retrieved the next day, taken back to the DoubleTree where the manager treated us to a fabulous Sunday brunch. We were installed in a premium room on the 8th floor with a great view of the pool below. Throughout our stay, we were on a first name basis with a number of their staff who went out of their way to assure our every need was met. Every time we walked through the lobby, someone on staff greeted us by name and asked if they could do anything for us. If we had no specific plans made for the day, they were anxious to make recommendations of things not to miss.

I’m not sure if it was by plan or just coincidence, but every time we ate at the hotel restaurant, we ended up at the same table, served by the same waitress, Lucy. By our second visit, she knew what both my husband and I would be drinking and kept our cups full. Our final day at the hotel, my husband went down to breakfast, leaving me to do last minute preparations for my program. He came back to our room bearing gifts… Lucy had sent back breakfast for me! What’s not to like about this level of customer experience? Shortly before leaving Tucson to drive up to Phoenix, we even got ‘good-bye’ hugs from Lucy, “our” waitress, in the corridor outside the room where I was speaking.

Do you suppose any of this was by accident? Not a chance. Exceptional customer experiences are never accidents, they are well developed strategies to please customers and turn them into brand ambassadors. Double Tree refers to their customer experience strategy as its Culture of Care. ” At DoubleTree by Hilton™, every little thing we do adds up to Create A Rewarding Experience for our guests (CARE).” This kind of strategic effort is well worth the time and investment it takes to make customers remember you and your establishment. Like me, others who experience this same attention will tell friends and colleagues. And, they will come back, over and over again.

Oh, and the chocolate chip cookies…how could I forget the warm, freshly baked cookies every day?!?

What’s your company customer experience strategy? You have one, right? It is important enough to take a significant piece of your web site real estate to promote. This is one of the last areas of differentiation between you and competitors.