Improve Your Customer Experience Today

Customer experience seems to be the latest buzzword in the customer service world. All the Blogs, podcasts, and books that have come out over the last buncha years have been touting the customer experience as the new standard in customer satisfaction. This seems like a no-brainer to me. How can you possibly hope to provide great customer service if you don’t take their experience into account?

For us in the Hospitality Industry to be able to assess our Guest’s experience, we need two ingredients: empathy and imagination.

Empathy:

Motivational speaker Jay Cuccia once used this example to explain the difference between sympathy and empathy:

“Let’s say you’re on a boat and this guy gets seasick. He’s all leaning over the side of the boat throwing up. Sympathy just means that you feel bad for the guy. Maybe you go get him a towel or something. Empathy means that you go over to the side of the boat and start throwing up with him.”

That explanation has stuck with me for years. Without empathy there is simply no way that you can begin to gauge your Guest’s experience.

Imagination:

In order to fully understand your Guest’s experience, you need to imagine you are your Guest. You need to experience everything your property has to offer as if you are seeing it through their eyes, listening to it through their ears, smelling it through their nose, and, well… you get the idea. What I’m saying here is that you need to use all your senses to gather as much information as you can about your property.

All of your preconceived notions about how things are, or explanations about why they are not the way they should be, will not serve you. You need to clear your mind and just allow the things you encounter to wash over you.

Field Trip

So, if you’re ready to improve your Guest experience, it’s time to take a field trip. Get up from your desk, and walk out the front door of your property. This is not a mental exercise. You actually have to exit you hotel in order to get the full benefit. Now take a deep breath, clear your mind, and imagine that you are your Guest. 

Ready? 

Walk into your hotel through the front door. What do you see? Hear? Smell? What is the impression you get from the entryway of your property? Be honest. Admire the good things, and make a mental note of the things that needs attention. Don’t stop to fix anything right now, there will be plenty of time for that later. For now, just keep going.

Walk to the front desk how does it look? Are there lights out? Scuff-marks? Are there scraps of paper lying around, or is it a clean and orderly? How do the associates look? How about their uniforms? What impressions do you get when you look at them?

Now go over to the elevators and punch the button. Does it light up? When the elevator arrives does the indicator ding and light up like it’s supposed to? If so, great. If not what kind of an impression does that make on you. I could go on, but I think you’ve got the idea.

This is what Service Superheroes do all the time, everyday. They look at things from the Guest’s perspective, and make appropriate changes when they see something that needs to be fixed.

Tom Peters, in his book The Pursuit of WOW!, talks about the importance of the first time your customer comes in contact with your product, good, or service. He says that a benchmark is set in that moment.

A Guest in your hotel makes a determination about his or her entire stay based on their first moments on your property. This is the beginning of their experience, and if it’s anything less than, “WOW!” then there’s room for improvement.

If you’ve determined that there IS room for improvement, then I’ve got two pieces of great news for you:

1. You now understand what the problems are, so consequently you are in a better position to fix them. 
2. Fixing most of these things will not require a tremendous capital expense.

If you want to deliver Superhero Service to your Guests, this is where you start. When you use your empathy and imagination to look through your Guest’s eyes, and then make changes based on what you see, your Guest’s experience will instantly increase… like today.

Tune in next week for more adventures from a Service Superhero where we’ll delve into the future, present, and past of your Guest’s Experience.

Remember, I can transfer my abilities, or Superpowers, to anyone that truly wants them. Let me know if you'd like to set up a training seminar for your service team, so you can begin to deliver "Superhero Service" to each and every one of your Guests. 

If you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said here, or would just like to share a Service related story or insight, I'd love to hear from you. Please post a comment below.