Sweetening a soured Customer Experience
Earlier this year I stayed at a resort for a conference, and the first day of my hotel stay was a series of missed expectations. The room was not clean, the TV was broken, the internet was down, and the shuttle to get from the room to the conference center felt like a rare sighting.
Trying hard to be a gracious consumer, I called the front desk one time, then two times, then a third time each call asking for something specific to be remedied.
By my third call about no clean towels, I will still intent on being calm despite feeling travel weary and frustrated when the manger answered. She did not say: let me send fresh towels. She said we want to make a fresh start with you, can we get you a new room and try again. I can hear in your voice how much we've disappointed you, and we want to make it right. We can move you now or in the morning, whichever you prefer. It was 10pm, but I was ready for a fresh start as well. She said she'd send a car over immediately to move me from my room across the resort to the main hotel.
It took more minutes than I expected for their car to come get me, and as I waited, I was getting ready to share how unimpressed I was with the next hotel staff member I met.
But, the hotel had their experience recovery plan in motion...
An understanding hotel team member picked me up and expressed his disappointment that they hadn't taken good care of me so far.
When he took me to the front desk to get my new key, the front desk team member shared her genuine concern as well as she handed me a new key and then asked whether I preferred red or white wine. She then told me to call and ask for her if I needed anything else.
The driver/valet then took me to my room. The red wine was already there! The valet brought my bag in and set it on the luggage stand, asked if he could open the wine for me, and made sure to let me know there was fresh air and ocean waves just outside the patio door. As he left he reminded me of his name and told me to call and ask for him if I needed anything during the rest of my stay.
Wow!
But, the resort's experience recovery plan didn't stop there. The next night I got to my room and there was a bottle of champagne, chocolate covered strawberries and a handwritten 2-sided note from the manager expressing her regret that they hadn't provided the ideal experience initially and hoping that my stay had improved.
It did improve! I left a note for the manager as I checked out a couple of days later; I wrote a positive yelp review, posted photos on Facebook and have told the recovery story again and again. If they had provided a pretty good experience off the bat, I may never have experienced their commitment to customers like you can when things don't go right.
Nobody wants to inflict customer pain, but it happens.
Things will not always go as planned. Even companies consistently providing the best experiences, have process breakdowns leaving customers feeling like it's too hard to do business with them or that they don't care. And, technology can exacerbate tough situations when it doesn't provide answers to questions customers need answered. And, employee training or lack of can lead to friction in the customer experience you provide. Things will go wrong. Guaranteed.
Do you have an experience recovery plan that you execute when the experience delivered is disappointing - when you don't deliver on your brand's promises?
B2B2C Note: We are not exempt from needing an experience recovery plan. I have seen B2B2C companies execute experience recovery plans well. The customer relationship may be more complex, the root cause of the issue may feel less avoidable/less fixable, the pain inflicted may feel less personal; empathy and understanding still go a long way. Acknowledging the sub par experience is as important as ever. Disappointing experiences erode trust unless you are intentional in earning it back.
Ask yourself:
How can I sincerely express understanding and empathy?
How can I demonstrate a commitment to earn back customer trust?
What would be meaningful to my customer?
Does my recovery plan account for: the more significant the pain, the more significant the demonstration of commitment to make things right and to earn back trust needs to be?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Living in San Diego, I am passionate about coaching small- and mid-sized business leaders to optimize their customers’ experience and maximize the investments they make in their team, scaled-processes, and technology to support multi-channel Magnetic Experiences. With a strong background in Management Consulting, Sales, Sales enablement, Go-to-Market strategy, CRM, ERP, and Customer I am passionate about working alongside customers to transform their organizations and realize their unique Experience Management (EX) goals. I have twice been recognized by International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) as a Top 50 Thought Leader. Connect with me on LinkedIn or join me on Twitter @JessicaJNoble.
