For example, I took my girlfriend to a nice hotel for our anniversary last year. When the hotel heard I was having an anniversary, they sent up a very nice hand written congratulatory card, a bottle of prosecco, and a selection of deserts on the house. That couldn't have taken them more than 15 minutes and cost them like 20 dollars, but it is something I will always remember; I will definitely return there in the future; and I recommend that hotel to any friends seeking a nice place to stay. That is great customer service.
At a more basic level, I was at a mid tier hotel a few weeks ago and somehow I didn't get the room upgrade I paid for. The management immediately refunded me the difference without complaint and gave me a few drink tickets to use at their bar as an apology. That is good customer service.
Contrast those to my experience at my former favorite steak house this year where for the last ten years I had been telling everyone to go. I went there for Valentine's day (had a reservation) and was told I had to wait 30 minutes for a table to open. While I was waiting, I saw multiple couples of the same size come in behind me and get seated. After the 30 minute wait, they tried to seat us at the loud and noisy bar. When I complained, they basically told me tough shit you get what you get. A reservation just guarantees you a table not a good one. I concluded that they were discriminating against us because we are younger than the average clientele there. Not only did I walk out and cost them my business, but I gave them a scathing Yelp review, and now shit talk them at every opportunity. I will never go back even though they were great every other time I was there, and instead always point friends to one of their main competitors when asked my opinion about local steak houses. I do this even though I know the competitor's food isn't as good. They could have given me the table I deserved; they could have comped some drinks or something; but no, they were right and I was wrong and so they lost a loyal customer instead.
By your own admission, you went to this steak house for 10 years and had liked it so much you encouraged others. I'd imagine you would've visited multiple times per year? So, let's say 20~30 visits total? All that time you were happy and raved about it, but one bad visit and not only did it sour your opinion to the point you won't return, but you also mentioned that you will disparage them whenever you can. At around 30 visits, 97% of your experience there was positive to the point of rave reviews.
I'm not having a go at you, I'm just using your story to highlight the difficulty in customer service and how fickle we all are as customers (myself included). I suppose that really just speaks more to our recency bias as humans as well.
As for your second example, I don't find this to be good customer service. You paid for an upgrade and didn't get it. It's not just about the incremental upgrade. You could have booked elsewhere and the upgrade was part of that decision. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole sometimes. They could have done better than a refund on the delta and some booze.
I'm not doubting that this is nice, but in a lot of businesses this could be all or most of their margin. You can be nice all day long but at the end of the day there has to be something left to run the business. There are plenty of ways to exceed customer expectations without running your business into the ground.
Yes I'm being tongue in cheek here, but try not to cut off your nose to spite your face.
V day and M day are the absolute worst times to go out for dinner, anywhere half decent is full and the kitchen is super stressed so they have reduced menus that are easier to cook (not possible with steak...). If you must go, you have to speak to the manager beforehand, tell them how important this is, remind them you come often, get a specific table, etc.
Credibility tends to take a hit when you do that. People interpret it not as the restaurant necessarily being bad as much as you having a bone to pick.
The software development world is plagued with the idea that developer productivity and happiness comes before all other considerations. Can you imagine a car manufacturer building something that get's 2 mpg but excusing it with "but it was quicker to build"? Yet we have electron.
Bad example, ever try fixing your own car and wondering why they made it so hard to access some parts? And then you try to replace some bit and break some smaller bit, like a plastic clip or something. And you can't buy the smaller bit anywhere. Most cars are built for ease of assembly, not ease of repair for example.
Meet the customers basic requirements and you compete on price first 9 times out of ten. Look at the airline industry, prices have steadily declined since deregulation and creature comforts right along with them. If Americans could buy standing room only tickets they would in droves.
Same with other giants / monopolies; this is why monopolies are bad for customers.
However, don't underestimate that the majority of people will often gravitate towards the most marketed thing, not the best designed (usable) thing.
I'm amazed at people's tolerance threshold nowadays for software that's mind-bogglingly difficult to use.
I find that technology has overall become less usable, less well-designed, more bloated, and more stuffed with eye-candy.
You don't get what you don't pay for.
Why didn't they just say so.
That being said, when writing engaging content, it's usually better to show, rather than just tell. That's also what they did here.
Last thing - they wanted to convey the message to as many people as possible. If the article was entitled "Put the concerns of the customer first before yours," virtually no one would read it (and no one on a site like HN, Twitter, or Facebook would click through to it).
The parking location is not all to blame, but at the time I remarked "the employees should really park out front to help it appears as though there are customers".
Obviously if your lot is frequently full this isn't an issue. This was in a rural location where most likely that never happens as it was a large lot, and not a business that would see surges of customers.
When I worked at a mall food court, I noticed something interesting: during slower periods, sometimes one restaurant would have a line while other restaurants would have no customers at all. And not always the same restaurant. I attributed it to customers seeing that one place had customers, then inferring that it must be open and it must be one of the better places to eat.
Popularity isn't a very reliable indicator of quality, but it's not totally invalid either. If a place is always deserted, it's probably not very good. If it's always busy, it's likely that people are willing to wait for a reason.
What I guess you could do as a business owner is wear plainclothes / take off the apron and have a coffee with your own staff. Mind you it'll look quite obvious in a lot of cases due to the staff wearing e.g. aprons or other accessories that infer they're staff.
But giving away some free coffee or something just to break the ice (or 'prime' as another commenter called it) will be a good strategy as well. It requires a bit of pushing which some people will find annoying but still, it'll be worth it.
Yeah, after trying the most popular Mexican restaurant in Gainesville, FL I can only agree.
Then later on I find it has gone out of business...
"Park in front in the morning, then move to the back before lunch, it'll make the place look busy"
From that week forward, there were often other customers when I stopped in for breakfast. Manager said breakfast business had easily doubled. I got a bunch of free subs out of that deal. ;)
There is a balance with small businesses of helping let people know you're in and available, and giving them prime parking.
You park within distance of the building and visible, but not directly outside if possible.
I've actually recieved calls about whether I'm open today, because my car is in the shop and thus the parking lot is vacant.
Something as simple as not parking right in front might not make a huge difference, but that mindset, compounded over months and years, will.
Also, psychology is weird... if there are a bunch of spots near to your business pick one reasonably close but always leave the best one for customers - if there are cars parked close to the entrance but the best spot is open then customers will walk in with a bit of a buzzing high from managing to nab the primo spot. Aaaand if there is a tree that drops crap during spring/fall, park under it so no customer gets stuck with sap on their car since that can colour their entire interaction.
Isn't psychology fun!
Now the line is a (punishment + holding cell) for dudes who have to buy their way out of the line by opting for bottle service.
Ideally for the club it moves just fast enough that the patrons in line don't give up and go somewhere else.
Lines are great for hype, but don't try to artificially create them at the cost of customer experience.
If there's tons of customers lining up each morning at opening, sure, park elsewhere. Otherwise the owner should definitely take the best space to show someone is there.
Empty parking lots are more common than full. Empty means there's nothing there.
That’s not been my experience in most major cities I’ve lived and traveled in.
When a customer phones up to cancel, we do it immediately and make sure they know there are no hard feelings on our side. We ask if there was anything we could have done better, and tell them we'll still be here if they ever need us again. We get a significant number of customers return.
I have a terrible experience with your product, I don't want to repeat it. I'm going to try everything I can to keep my new coworkers from repeating that experience.
But there's something to be said for reversible decisions. Any decision that's cheap to change, you shouldn't make it expensive by putting a bunch of energy into. Just pick a fucking color for the shed. It's not important.
I hated your product but I can drop it like a rock, maybe I let my coworkers decide for themselves. And who knows, maybe you fixed the thing that drove me nuts, or this company has a different problem set that doesn't bump into the same things. Or maybe there's some poorly documented solution to the problem that people here know that we didn't.
I think it's totally valid in the sandwich shop example, where people will literally choose something else based on what they have to walk past to get to your door.
But for a professional service where you have an ongoing relationship worth potentially thousands of dollars per year, if someone is put off by a lack of front row parking, what other utterly trivial things are they going to find fault with? Those tend to be the clients that ask for the world and get it at a bargain and then still complain about the bill.
It's not that I'm not happy to go the extra mile for good clients, but there are definitely good clients and not good clients and creating a rule that you should always delight everyone all the time means you're going to waste a lot of time trying to delight people who complain about having to walk across the parking lot...
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067515/why-local-businesses-sho...
To that point people who complain are often the canary in the coal mine for larger issues. I am a big complainer. Typically in the end I get thanked for bringing things to a businesses attention. And I am a good customer. My largest 'reward' to date was a $5000 amount from a large german car manufacturer. They said 'we have never done this before'. What I said started out as a complaint. At first they were not really responsive. I finally brought home (successfully) that I was doing them a favor and that their dealer (a luxury car dealer) did not handle things the way they should have with a recent transaction.
I complain all the time at Whole Foods (where I spend a ton of money). Things just jump out at me. That said not everyone is me. Will say that I have owned a small business in the past. For every person that voiced a complaint there could be a hundred who don't open their mouth honestly. That's what I have found.
People think they shouldn't complain in a restaurant as another example. No the restaurant would rather have the complaint than you not returning or telling others. It's their chance to make things right and buy loyalty. Same story 'thank you for bringing this to our attention here is a $100 gift certificate'.
Not quite the same as actively delighting the customers.
This is one of the little things that add up and eventually cause customers to go elsewhere, consciously or not.
Maybe one day...
Like many other "nice to have" things, it's a matter of making it a priority. I'd had an hour commute when I worked in downtown Boston, and when I moved out to Silicon Valley, I told the realtor that was showing me around "No more than 15 minutes away from work." He was like "15 minutes? That means Mountain View, Palo Alto, or some parts of Sunnyvale. It'll cost you a lot." I said "I'm prepared to pay."
Would be nice if cities were built in a way that not just a select few high-earners could walk or bike to work, though. Right now, every person that moves into bike commuting distance of the major employers tends to displace someone who needs to move further away (oftentimes much further away); only way to avoid that is with more density.
Incidentally I built a site mapping homes for sale and rent over transit and bike routes (not roads) for Ireland, would it be useful for Scotland as well?
"At universities, the employees get better parking than the customers".
Although it wasn't true at my alma mater, where the only difference was that for staff and faculty the university would deduct the parking fees from your paycheck. For your convenience.
A particularly infuriating example of this is bookstores that demand you turn in your bag at the desk. I just walk out.
The idea that I would give my credit card digits (and CCV!) to a bartender for safe keeping is almost physically painful. I'm the one thinking they are the criminal (and not without justification given the rate of card fraud). I don't let restaurant servers walk away with my card now.
(And split bills should be automatic, they just don't do it because they get bigger tips that way.)
Where are the book stores that ask you to leave your bag? Except for teens maybe it seems weird.
So now, on top of being required to do the work of the bookstore employees you also lose the benefit of the doubt and are being treated as though you are a common thief.
Industry secret: lots of theft from bookstores is by employees.
Downside is that they probably then think Aha, well done Brian, stopped him in his tracks...
I want to believe. But seeing how painful it is to leave Facebook + iCloud, I find this hard to believe. It feels idealistic, but I wonder if the data says otherwise. People are lazy. It's unethical. But people are lazy.
But on the other hand, the NY Times makes it super hard to close down your account. I tell all my friends to choose other newspapers because of it.
I know this is just a throwaway comment in the article but my god does it bug me when parents use their children as an excuse for being late. Yes, kids are sometimes tough to get out the door but it's your fault that this somehow catches you by surprise every morning.
No amount of planning ahead can foresee every hiccup in getting a kiddo out the door...
I tend to agree the latter is probably at least somewhat on the parent.
Itchy/tight/lose/wrong-color pants/shirt/dresses/socks/shoes, not wanting to eat breakfast, decided they wanted a different breakfast after it's served, deciding they wanted to get the milk out of the fridge after telling you to do it, not wanting to brush their teeth/hair, wanting to use a different bathroom, insisting they don't need to potty while doing the peepee dance, needing to pet the cat before anything else, wanting to eat at the counter or on the porch or at the table.
There's no negotiating with terrorists.
Put another way, while a parent would probably not actually assign blame for lateness to their child (though oh boy, do I know some that would...), they are nonetheless using their children as an excuse for their own bad behavior, which is rude and dishonest.
Thank god I don’t have a set schedule.
Forgive me for being blunt but: no it isn't. It might take some work over a few weeks and may mean some tough mornings, but throwing up your hands and saying "well, I guess you're the boss 2 year old!" is silly. Your two year old can't tell time and you can migrate his schedule forward 5-10mins a day if you want too. Yes, his sleeping/waking will fluctuate around a mean and you can't control that, but you can control the mean value.
Parenting is really a full-time startup CEO type of job. It's not like you can change a kid's behavior without some systematic resolve.
It's just hard.
Yes, riding your bike in an urban area is often more or less as fast / convenient as driving. However, driving at 70mph vs biking at say 15mph, the time difference adds up very quickly once you are out in open country.
Not to mention that there is very well built infrastructure for driving, while biking often means going on that same infrastructure with a 50mph difference between you and the rest of the traffic. Basically if you are riding on a bike on a highway, you need to act as if you were invisible and expect that cars may actively try to kill you.
It's insane how little bikes (or pedestrians) are considered compared to here in Sweden.
You don't need a truck, but you definitely need a car (with four wheel drive in many parts).
There are millions of people who live in places that require traveling on high-traffic busy roads to get from point A to B. These roads almost never have a bike lane (bike lanes do not exist outside of large cities). On many roads I drive on (speed limit 55 mph) there is no shoulder. Combine that with roads that have sharp curves that prevent drivers from seeing more than 25 meters ahead... yea, I would not bike with a kid with me.
In the case you mention, airbags are a pretty good reason. Also distance. And disabilities.
That is, early adopters may like to try out a new business, but a business with no customers, no cars etc can lead people to think it's unsuccessful/undesirable.
This is why early stage customers like to put the logos of customers on their home page.
Our business ran on weekends. Everyone else in our complex was closed on the weekends.
We started parking our cars up front because people were FAR more likely to come inside if it looked like other people were there.
Otherwise, we noticed that they would sometimes drive by slowly, try to peer in our windows, then drive off.
So, parking up-front for us was just marketing.
But I get it. Give the best spots to your customers if possible. The customer experience must be optimal. They aren't always right, but it can still feel good.
It's pretty cheap compared to the alternative.
Big things are expected and are exactly what you pay for. Neglect them and you'll lose all your business, because you're offering nothing.
But when costumers are comparing two companies (or small business, whatever), it's the small details that will make difference.
This makes me circle back again to the concept of "Minimum Viable Product." It's been said that as a startup, if you're not embarrassed when you ship v1, you waited too late. But what's often not looked at is "just how embarrassed is embarrassed enough?"
Going against the concept of launching an MVP is the idea of "you only get one chance to make a first impression." Which is why a number of founders started talking less about launching Minimum Viable Products, and more about launching Exceptional Viable Products.
Those few extra details can be crucial levers to determining your product's success with customers. Of course, the key is determining which of those key details are the ones you need to pay attention to, and which ones you can pass over for now.
Here's Rand Fishkin on MVP vs. EVP: https://qz.com/work/1277369/the-lean-startup-methodology-wil...
Yeah this always weighs upon my mind, to the point where sometimes I don't move ("perfect is the enemy of good", you can find a quote from all sides of a situation).
I think the ideal use case for a MVP is exposing it to a limited subset of users. These can be internal staff first, friends and family, or the noisy but helpful people who file a load of issues with you for another version/product. I think releasing a MVP to the whole world can be a big mistake, there are so many games out there I can't play them all. Some are fully realised in early access but others get a quick look then I never go back, even years later.
I've make significant lifestyle changes just because companies pissed me off enough to create a personal grudge. For example, I was an Xbox fanboy starting around 2005. Several years later I got a girlfriend and bought her an Xbox Live Gold subscription so she could play with me. It turned out not to be her thing, so I tried to cancel the service, except Microsoft made it an absolute nightmare. Reps bounced me from person to person, and several times I received a monthly bill despite the rep assuring me the account had been canceled. It filled me with such rage I canceled my own Live subscription, sold my Xbox 360, and swore off console gaming entirely. I'll be in the cold, cold ground before I give Microsoft another damn cent.
In most companies, that'd just be an error in a log file somewhere. They then followed up later to ask if things had been handled well. They also have one single, good value tariff with no option not to have green energy.
Principled, with A++ customer service and a competent mobile app, complete with a time line for switching and starting my account with them. I'm totally sold. They could be quite a lot more expensive than my existing supplier and I frankly wouldn't care given the whole experience so far.
This seems to be the cornerstone of Western etiquette. It can be different in Asia, where it may be more important to "save face" and let others also save face.
Occasionally there was a list on the chalk board, first and last name, of everyone who owed a tab. This was at late as 2008. This was also in a city of like 150; so not even a small town.
Heh, my bar is like this. Been going there long enough that I get to run a tab for a few weeks before the owner finally (jokingly) gives me a hard time about it.
A bowling league I was on for example would allow you to run a tab of drinks/food and pay at the end of the night as they know you are not going to dine and dash.
Granted that was a combination of a bar/bowling alley, but a few other bars that I used to frequent in my younger years after seeing you as a regular would also have no problems letting you run up a tab.
I have never been to a bar on my first visit that had full trust in the patrons right out of the gate, but then again I only was in that scene for 2-3 years.
And this isn't just because I'm a regular. I've seen it happen plenty with people from out of town too. The only thing they'll take your ID for is their mules so you don't run off with a copper mug.
It is the case in Germany.
So, what are the reasons to actually focus on customer experience? When does it pay off? (Not as often as you'd like. Amazon is a prime - pardon the pun - example that once you have enough of the market, you can let customer experience go downhill, because people value convenience over experience)
It's easy to say, not so easy to execute.
