Comparing Experiences
Posted by Becky Carroll on May 4th, 2007
Does a travel website compete with a bank? From a customer experience standpoint, yes, it does! I was asked to speak to a combination class of marketing and advertising students at University of California San Diego Extension this past Tuesday. My topic was customer-centric marketing and advertising, and we discussed how to market experiences rather than products.
As I said to the class, customers are more empowered than ever before. They have more choices in the marketplace. They are better informed via the internet and the amount of research they do before making buying decisions. They are collaborating both with each other as well as with organizations in many new ways.
They also have higher expectations than ever before. No longer are customers willing to settle for mediocre experiences. Every touch point at each organization, both B2B and B2C, creates an impression of that brand and its products and services that is colored by other touches at that organization, as well as touches at other organizations. I may be an executive for a large high tech company putting my servers out to bid, and my expectations are created not just through my business dealings but also by my experiences as a consumer.
I asked the class to share with me their worst and best experiences. The worst experience was for a travel website. The student, an enthusiastic marketer with experience in business, had booked a hotel using their services. When she arrived at her destination, she had major problems with the reservation, which had not been executed properly. She was very unhappy about her experience.
The best experience was shared by one of the professors whose wife also owns our local bakery, The Village Mill Bread Company in Carmel Valley (San Diego). The owners usually head to their local bank at certain times during the day to make sure they have the change they need. In this instance, it was during the Christmas holidays and they couldn’t break away to make it to the bank. Their banker, realizing they must be busy, got in the car and came to them at the bakery, money in hand. The owners were incredibly grateful for the assistance!
When I asked the student if she would use the travel website again, she said no, definitely not. When I asked the professor if he intends to stay with his bank, he gave me an emphatic YES and they bring free bread to the banker on a weekly basis as a thank you (and it is 6 months later!).
Having an experience like the one from the travel site is very disappointing, and it is not a surprise that their customer has left them from this one experience. Now, let’s focus on the positive experience. The professor has had wonderful customer service from this individual; hopefully, that same attitude permeates the rest of the bank’s employees! His expectations have now been set for excellent service. Although he may not expect every establishment he deals with to have that same level of service, the bar has been raised for what great customer service looks like. Subconsciously, he will be comparing other experiences to that one.
Your customers are comparing similar experiences as they deal with top-notch customer-focused organizations. What is your organization’s customer experience? Will it meet or exceed customer expectations? If you don’t know, go put two things into play.
1. Find out what your customers are expecting from you and from others. What do they consider great customer service? What would set one experience apart from another?
2. Do some detective work on your own organization. What does it feel like to be your customer? Either do some “mystery shopping” or bring someone in who can do it for you with an unbiased perspective. What happens when you call your own customer service? Where does that phone number really go that is listed in your marketing campaign? Are your websites directing customers to the right places?
Once you have done this legwork, you are ready to create the experiences you want your customers to have. This kind of planning will strengthen your brand as well as lay the foundation for building strong customer relationships.
Related post: Who Are You Competing With?
(Photo credit: Eraxion)
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May 4th, 2007 at 8:42 am
EXPEDIA is indeed awful. Besides poor customer support, they tried to scam me once (click on my name to read my case). I wonder why EXPEDIA is still in business. One reason is probably because few people report them.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:02 am
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
John, thanks for sharing your story.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
June 1st, 2007 at 8:15 am
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:42 am
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:13 am
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
June 24th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
June 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
[...] Customers ROCK [...]
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:46 am
The Islander Inn of OIB in NC is perhaps the worst hotel on the island. We had a terrible experience at this nc beach resort. The room was not ready for 45 minutes after our check inn time. So we sat in the sweltering heat for about an hour with two young kids and a dog (which cost us an additional 60 bucks). You might say “why didn’t you guys go on the beach to kill a little bit of time”…which is exactly what we did and resulted in a fine from the OIB Police for having our dog on the beach before 6pm. Our bad, but you think there would be a sign on the hotels enterance to the beach…which is another disaster. You have to go through the pool area to get to the beach cross over…a pool area with two sets of outward swinging safety gates…guests and their kids running around, a maze of lounge chairs, and busted up concrete….did i mention the two kids, the wife, the dog , and bags of kid supplies..uggg. if you are even slightly handycapped i wouldn’t even consider touring this crap hole. All this aside, we finally get the mexican cleaning crew out of our room and decide to relax on the back porch to enjoy the view of the ocean …which was great so long as you ignore the ratteling humm of the rooms a/c unit which is as much a fixture of the decore as the stackable white (mildewed) form-molded pvc chairs. Then the gang of homeless cats arrived (I swear you can’t make this stuff up)…dog is going wild..kids now crying…wife about to freak out…i must react quickly so i go down to the gravel parking lot of the islander inn and shoe them away…but their retreat is just a transient ploy…as soon as i get back up to the porch they are back…only with reinforcemnets to boot…aah, but i am far smarter than a cat…even 10 of them…while the gravel lot was poison to my feet it provided me with some ammunition for a full on assault…i lined the stones along the porches edge just under the railing and waited for the perfect shot. The mangiest of the crew was in sight…my wife diles me in ..”a few clicks to the left”..”you are set”…my foot is drawn back like a driver…fire!!! Hit…Dismay…the vermin thought i was kicking food to them…Yet another defeat…i return inside with hopes that they dont start to nest in our van. The night fanally draws to a tylonol pm induced end and all attempts are made to ignore the rattle and humm of the out dated ac unit…after all who the heck would want to sleep to the sound of that silly ocean. 3AM…EEERT!….EEERT!…EEERT!…EEERT!!!…and i arose to see what was the matter “alarm clock?” “radio?”…”Fire?”…”FIRE!”…”FIRE!” no fire extinguisher in room …may have to exit off 2nd story porch…no fire escape latter…must go out front door…alls clear we (me, wife, 2 small kids, dog, 2bags kid stuff) make our way to the parking lot. Our building is fine so i go back up get the rest of our stuff and we drive 2 hours home in a van that now smells of cat urine if you use the vents so i can get enough sleep to go to work in the morning. Realy freakin cool way to drop almost 300 bones on a room and about that on gas and food. We call the Islander Inn and are told a manager would contact us…he did not…and continues to avoid our calls…Thank god we put it on our AMEX…they are going to revearse the charges. Still managed to spend a bunch of money on gas, made our entire family miserable, and worked a 10 hour shift that following day on 3 hours of sleep…Thank you Islander Inn NC