It must be one my personal business nightmares, if you can
imagine having just flown to New York to meet a new client
and the airline has lost all your clothes! So what can one
learn from such events about delivering great customer
service experiences?
“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”
To give you the background, I’d just been to California and
had arranged to meet the COO of a potential great new
client in New York on my way back home to England. I’d
visited them a few weeks before and I’d felt as though I’d
wandered onto the set of ” The Devil Wears Prada” (or should
that be “Ugly Betty“?). So not wanting to be left too far
behind the “New York Chic look” of my hosts, I’d gone out
and purchased the very best of shirts & ties that London
has to offer (OK anyone from Milan is allowed a note of
scepticism at this point) combined with my new Italian suit
& cuff links, I knew I’d look the part ;-)
My plane was several hours late into New York due to
“unexpected delays” – I was little nervous as I’d arranged
to go out to dinner that evening. Still with my Platinum
Frequent Flyer card my suitcase had qualified for a special
“Priority Handling” label so I was looking forward to
getting my suitcase quickly and rushing off ahead of the
pack to the taxi rank. Sadly, after all of the luggage had
disappeared off the carousel there was no sign of my case,
so I made my way to the airline’s baggage handling office.
I was joined by another passenger who had experienced a
similar fate. The Airline staff assured me that my suitcase
had landed and recommended I went back to check the
carousel again. This experience was repeated another 3
times.
From my interactions with the airline staff, I managed to
get the impression that losing one’s baggage was not a
completely unusual experience. My heart sank as I looked at
the back wall of the hall which was filled floor to ceiling
with damaged suitcases in glass cases awaiting collection
from their owners.
After an hour and a half of going back & forth from the
luggage carousel to the airline desk, the airline staff
finally conceded that perhaps my bag was lost after all and
I was given a claim form to fill in. I was given an 0800
number to contact and a tracking reference number and that
was it. I had a sense of disappointment and unfinished
business but I had to move on and let other passengers
register their lost baggage too.
“There’s no such thing as a free breakfast”
I headed off to my hotel (minus any luggage) and checked
in. The receptionist noted down my comment that my luggage
had been lost and hopefully it might arrive in the next 24
hours. The receptionist realised I was a Gold member of
their hotel loyalty system, so she kindly gave me vouchers
for free breakfasts for my stay in Manhattan. Sadly, by
this time it was too late for the dinner out I’d planned,
so I went off to bed to dream the night away with visions
of lost clothes, deodorants and shavers! I guess I wasn’t
too worried that I could replace my lost items in the
morning, after all America is the land of retail plenty.
And as I was staying just off 5th Avenue, which is lined
with clothes stores, it wasn’t going to be too difficult to
get replacements in the morning.
In the morning, fortified by my free breakfast, though
looking a little rough, unshaven (or should I say with
designer stubble) and with crumpled clothes, I headed off
to the shops and quickly purchased everything I needed. I
guess as they were happy to process my credit card without
phone verification I can’t have looked too bad. So at this
point, it was an opportunity for me to think through the
series of events as an interesting example of managing “the
customer experience”. My airline goes to the trouble of
writing hand written thank you notes each time I fly with
them, and yet when it loses all my belongings – all they
give me is a piece of paper and that’s it.
“It’s great that it’s free – but is it useful?”
The hotel gave me a nice free breakfast but I would have
preferred a shaver & some deodorant! If I think about a
number of the budget hotel chains in the UK where they are
happy to give you free shaver, foam, combs, deodorant etc.
if you’ve forgotten them, there’s much their my American
hotel & airline could learn from them.
A great technique for managing these unfortunate
experiences was pioneered by Jan Carlson (former CEO of SAS
Scandinavian Airlines) who coined the expression “moments
of truth”. A “moment of truth” occurred whenever an
employee interacted with a customer; Carlson said that
these moments left an impression – good bad or exceptional.
Carlson applied 4 guiding principles for managing these
“moments of truth” positively:
• Everyone needs to know and feel they are needed
• Everyone wants to be treated as an individual
• Giving someone the freedom to take responsibility
releases resources that would otherwise remain concealed
• An individual without information can not take
responsibility whereas an individual given responsibility
can not help but take responsibility
The technique is fairly straightforward to implement. I
guess a start is to get your service operations team
together and ask them to map out the service experience
from the customer perspective. Whenever you come across a
“moment of truth”, you can then work out with your team
just how best you can handle that sticky situation. I like
to use the high-tech toolset of 2 sets of Post-It notes in
different colours for such work – available from all good
stationers ;-) Use one pack of Post-Its to map out the
service experience from a customer perspective, and then
use the other pack to define the main alternative events
that can occur at each “moment of truth” and the best
options for your own staff in how to deal with these. [For
a more extensive and sophisticated approach try the "moment
mapping" technique described in "Building Great Customer
Experiences" by Colin Shaw & John Ivens]. I guess an even
simpler approach is the Nordstrom approach; their employees
are given the freedom to decide for themselves and have the
single rule “do whatever you think is right for the
customer”.
“Don’t let disappointing service lose you your most
valuable customers”
And the end to this tale. Well my suitcase was located
during the morning and arrived over at my hotel. I was able
to locate my special shirt, tie & cuff links. [On a fashion
point here – I'm convinced English mens' shirts are more
stylish than American shirts]. It made my day when the
client’s PA complimented me on my cufflinks (OK – it’s a
small pleasure but still a delight).
On the business front though, one of the key lessons is
that a poor service experience is one of the key drivers
for customers switching suppliers. The disappointing
experience causes customers to shop around other suppliers
and they may well find a better value option losing you a
very valuable customer. Best to make sure that your
“moments of truth” are well managed.
As for me, I’m now minded to try out Silverjet Airways the
new low-cost all business class airline – they offer
fantastic service (flat beds, 30 minute check-in and even
fly Carbon neutral) with much lower prices.
I’ll update you on the experience hopefully after my next
trip to New York :-)
—————————————————-
For over 25 years, John Corr has with the senior executives
of service businesses who are uncomfortable with their
current level of revenues, margins and customer service
including companies such as: AOL, AXA, Barclays, Capital One, EDS and Nationwide.
John has helped them them focus on their customers,
profitability and long-term growth. Learn more at
http://www.closequarter.co.uk
Comments on this entry are closed.