Tag: Marriott
Customer Churn: How Marriott Turned Churn into Service Recovery
I stayed in a new hotel in Ohio a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready. There were many problems with customer churn, believe me.
Remember this: How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service – using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail. He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service … but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem.
Why should any company not want to seize such an opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business.
Need some help in reducing customer churn and building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance from customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
10 Guarantees of Poor Customer Service
Best Buy Lessons in Customer Service
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Learning from the Best Business Blog Examples
Does your business have a blog associated with its website? Business blog examples are now standard in every industry, from car manufacturers to cereal brands. However, not all company blogs were created equal – the best business blog examples are managed much more successfully than others.
Social isn’t a new way of marketing, it’s a new way of doing business.
What are blogs really?
Blogs, short for weblogs, are online platforms to create specific types of content, share them and interact with others around those content objects, known as blog posts. They have a number of common features such as comment possibilities and trackbacks. Business blogs should focus on non-promotional and regularly updated content posts.
They typically aim to attract prospective customers and/or other stakeholders, provide information to pre-defined target audiences or buyer personas, and drive conversions, including social conversions. While the content-type is not directly promotional, business blogs obviously serve direct and indirect business goals.
Blogs are essential parts of most social media programs and still often the hubs of content marketing strategies. In practice, we see this view of content marketing coming back in the approaches of many organizations: the blog as the hub and different other channels and content formats as the spokes. Yet, the real hub of any content marketing strategy is the customer value which generates business value.
Company blogs have great potential value. They can use these platforms for a range of purposes, from developing a reputation as an industry thought leader, to engaging with customers and building brand loyalty.
One of the most difficult aspects of running a good company blog is generating the right kind of content. Posts need to be consistently interesting and innovative, remaining on-brand without resorting to generic sales-speak.
Here are our favorite corporate blogs we highlight to our customers for the best examples of blogging success:
Marriott International
One company that always strikes the right tone is Marriott International. Their blog, ‘Marriott on the Move’, is universally recognized as an excellent example of corporate blogging.
Bill Marriot founded and grew the hotel group into one of the largest in the world and his blog is one of the best around. He doesn’t always write about the hotel business, which is a good thing. The posts are a mix of his own insights on the hotel industry, tips for business success, celebrations of Marriott milestones, and his personal life.
He also uses the blog to share his insights on current affairs – in the aftermath of 2013’s Boston Marathon bombings, he posted a message of condolence and support to those who had been affected.
Whole Foods
Whole Foods is one of our favorite social online sites. One of the best brands when it comes to healthy foods in the world, it also has an excellent blog that is well-designed and packed full of interesting content.
Food blogs have always been huge online and this one fits into that space nicely with tips and recipes as well as company news.
Virgin Atlantic
The Virgin Group and Richard Branson are marketing experts. Their social media accounts are always full of dynamic and interesting content, so it comes as no surprise that their company blogs show the same creative flair. Although all of Virgin’s blogs are excellent, the Virgin Atlantic blog is one of the best.
The Virgin brand as a whole is about the experience – holiday upgrades become ‘Mojo Boosters’, and Virgin Galactic’s on-board safety measures are the company’s ‘North Star’. The Virgin Atlantic blog follows this brand tone – visitors to the site can enjoy posts about extreme sports, fine dining, and the airline’s myriad destinations. They do also write about their own services and products, but these posts are in the minority.
Ikea Design Blog
The Design Blog team is a group of IKEA co-workers sharing DIY and decorating tips and ideas to help you improve your life at home. Check out their diversity in blog categories: before and after, behind the scenes, colors, done in a day, sustainability, and organization. Some cool ideas, yes?
Southwest Airlines
One of the most original airlines in the world has been blogging for a while now and it shares tons of information about itself as well as content that could be useful for any traveler. You’ll hear about new services it’s offering as well as tips on keeping children happy while flying.
While the company clearly focuses on aviation, Southwest Airlines’ content is more diverse than you would initially assume. Covering an area that is linked to travel (like an entire two-part series on roller coasters), its posts are lighthearted and easy to read.
Zappos
Zappos has built its entire culture around social media and wonderful customer service and it has a number of blogs. Its main one is where it shares a bunch of information about products and services and selects the best from the others. Lots of contributors.
ComScore
ComScore is one company we check out consistently. It is an online company first and foremost so you would expect it to have a very good online presence. Its blog is so original and features such good content that it always pops up in the mainstream news.
Dell
Another company we follow closely for its ability to do new things. Proving that more can be better; Dell has a vast number of blogs that it links up together in the one landing page to create a comprehensive resource. Dealing with enterprise IT, customer tips, consumer service, and education, new articles are regularly posted so you’re always kept up to date with new subjects.
Adaptive Path
This San Francisco design company focuses on the technical side of things, covering design and development. Keeping a personal touch and making sure most of its employees contribute to the blog means that you will get something different every time with lots of viewpoints.
Adobe
Like Dell, Adobe makes great use of its employee blogs, allowing them to post tutorials, guides, and other bits and pieces that help enrich the reader experience. Another important part is that they’re not required to reference Adobe products in their posts meaning that the reader gets more value as a result.
The bottom line
It starts with researching your target readership thoroughly. Understand who your audience is, and what type of content they’ll enjoy reading – and, more importantly, which posts they’re likely to share on social media.
If you have the expertise, share it. Sharing your insights can drive traffic to your blog, and raise the profile of your brand.
Be authentic. Personality is a vital ingredient for any company – it separates great companies from the rest.
Research your target readership thoroughly. Understand who your audience is, and what type of content they’ll enjoy reading – and, more importantly, which posts they’re likely to share on social media.
Find the story. Top bloggers find interesting angles, and approach stories in unusual and innovative ways. If your product or service isn’t exciting on its own, find a way of making it dynamic.
Engage with your readers. Interacting with your audience is one of the best ways to encourage social media shares – hashtags are one way of doing this, although you could also open a conversation in the comments section under each post.
Blog about current affairs. Diversity is always appreciated by blog readers, and topical posts often tend to do well in terms of page visits.
Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to be creative in your social media strategy?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
14 Jaw-Dropping Guerilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
Get Rid of Mistakes in Marketing Messages to Improve Competitiveness
Visual Content … 13 Remarkable Marketing Examples to Study
Examples of Employee Empowerment: What is the Payoff?
Is achieving a remarkable customer service top priority for your business? If so, you should be looking for a better combination of examples of employee empowerment and trust. There are many examples of great customer service companies: Wegman’s, Ritz-Carlton, JetBlue, Disney, and Zappos, just to name a few.
Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.
– Peter Drucker
Here is the deal…
Let’s examine some great examples of employee empowerment from a few businesses as a way to best illustrate what we mean.
PF CHANG’S RESTAURANT
My wife and I stopped by our local P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch recently. It was a beautiful Florida spring day, and since it was mid-week the restaurant wasn’t too busy, so we decided to sit on the patio.
Now …
When we asked the hostess to be seated outside, we were told that it would be 15-20 minutes before we could be seated. However, we could be seated immediately if we wanted to sit inside.
When I asked why we couldn’t be seated immediately … since about half the tables were open, we were told that there wasn’t enough staff scheduled on the patio to serve more tables.
This service staff did not have the decision-making authority for creating good customer experiences!
Here is the kicker … my perspective:
If there were enough staff in the restaurant to serve the total number of customers, then why couldn’t they simply reallocate some of the inside staff to serve outside on the patio?
If the hostess was delegated the decision-making authority to take the initiative to make every customer experience a good to great one, then perhaps this might have resulted differently?
I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready.
This is crazy … so many problems, and it started as a significant customer failure.
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even,’ continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service … using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.
Improve Employee Motivation: How to Completely Change Techniques
He made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Remember …
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue.
All customers deserve our best service … but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem.
So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.
Why should any company not want to seize such an opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.
Here another great example …
of how Zappos employees are empowered to use the element of surprise with customers so effectively. Note this story is told by a customer:
When I came home this last time, I had an email from Zappos asking about the (returned) shoes, since they hadn’t received them.
I was just back and not ready to deal with that, so I replied that my mom had died but that I’d send the shoes as soon as I could. They emailed back that they had arranged with UPS to pick up the shoes, so I wouldn’t have to take the time to do it myself.
I was so touched. That’s going against corporate policy.
Yesterday, when I came home from town, a florist delivery man was just leaving. It was a beautiful arrangement in a basket with white lilies and roses and carnations.
Big and lush and fragrant, I opened the card, and it was from Zappos. I burst into tears. I’m a sucker for kindness, and if that isn’t one of the nicest things I’ve ever had to happen to me, I don’t know what is.
Those kinds of examples are justified by almost any cost, and the cost hit Zappos takes by doing this is paid back multiple times over by the customer loyalty they generate from making people happy.
Here is the deal …
… a company’s brand communicates every time an empowered employee takes the initiative on behalf of a customer.
JetBlue
Now … this is a story of JetBlue’s customer experience strategy built on its employee empowerment culture. I experienced it first hand and was duly impressed.
The story started a while back while I was sitting on the runway in Orlando as my homeward-bound Jet Blue flight was about to taxi toward takeoff.
Like just about every other flight that hadn’t already been canceled that day on the Eastern seaboard, ours was a couple of hours late departing. The lead flight attendant gets on the P.A. system and says something very close to:
Ladies and Gentlemen, we know we’re late taking off, and even though it’s the weather and not something we caused, we’re going to comp everybody movies for this flight.
We know you’ve all had a long day and we want it to end with something nice and relaxing.
And for those of you who were supposed to be on the Continental flight and ended up here, we don’t ever want you to go back.
The mood on the flight which could have been a rather dreary late evening affair took an immediate upswing.
People joked and smiled and made eye contact. They were noticeably brighter and calmer as the flight progressed.
What enabled this relatively small act of kindness and allowed it to become a major brand statement?
Midflight, I went to the back of the plane and asked. I wanted to know the policy that allowed a flight attendant to make such a call.
We’re allowed to make almost any decision, the flight attendant explained, as long as we can justify it by one of the airline’s five core values: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun or Passion.
If we can tie doing something back to one of these principles, the decision is going to be supported by the company.
What JetBlue is saying to its employees … if you act in support of the values that matter to our business, we want you to take risks to care for our customers.
This is a very simple concept, eh? But how many of us put such a thing into practice with our people?
Here is the bottom line …
Sit down today with your employees and do what Jet Blue did. Start building your employee empowerment culture today.
Create a culture of empowerment based on the values that YOUR business is built on.
We must revive the feeling of empowerment and trust in our employees. When we can empower them to act in the best interest of customers, reflecting the goals of the business, and trust them, then they are accountable and act responsibly.
When this happens – we create an environment that propels a sense of community that is trustworthy and where employees thrive and love their jobs all the more.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Do you have a lesson about making your customer focus better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
9 Things to Know About Creative Visual Design Content
8 Presenter Mistakes That Are Rarely Made Twice
Know These Great Secrets of Collaboration and Co-Creation
How Good Is Your Learning from Failure?
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
8 Extraordinary Brand Story Examples to Study
If you haven’t figured out how to employ a brand story well, you’re missing out on the huge revenue-boosting potential of your content marketing efforts. The right brand narrative has the power to increase the value of your business’s product or service by over 20 times.
Why does the story matter? It is what makes your brand significant.
It’s the inspiring copy, the well-thought-out Instagram posts and website design, and the compelling video that turns mashed peanuts into Peter Pan Peanut Butter.
Related post: Walmart E-commerce Strategy … 6 Reasons Why It Won’t Beat Amazon
Brand storytelling … what defines a great brand story?
When marketing storytelling is done well, it:
Establishes what your brand is all about – its purpose, core values, and mission
Offers the consumer more than just a product or service, but rather an experience that transcends mundane reality
Motivates the reader or viewer to step into that experience. This is done by crafting content in such a way that your audience feels as though they’d risk losing access to this somehow sublime experience of being a part of your brand if they don’t buy, follow, or sign up right now.
Whether you are trying to convince someone they can’t live without, vacation-filled retirement, it’s the way you tell the story of your brand and what you’re selling that you make an impact.
This is how you can wield the true magic of experienced content marketers.
Here are the brand story examples that will show you just how powerful your content can be.
Brand story examples … Guinness
Guinness is no stranger to effective brand storytelling. This video reached three million views within four days of online release.
This is another exercise in concise brand storytelling with a big heart – the concept sees a group of guys playing wheelchair basketball. A simple plot; a game of wheelchair basketball followed by a pint of Guinness.
The twist is that only one of the men in the group is an actual wheelchair user – the rest, it seems, are his friends who are playing wheelchair basketball so that they can all play together.
So what on Earth does this story have to do with Guinness?
It is when the voiceover kicks in that the storytelling ramps up though: “Dedication, loyalty, friendship – the choices we make reveal the true nature of our character,” says a gravelly voiced chap.
The choice the men in the ad make to play wheelchair basketball is a testament to their character, and so is the choice they make when they are at the beer taps.
It almost tells viewers to be the best person they can be, and drink the best quality drink they can get their hands on.
You simply cannot argue with that as a memorable and evocative piece of brand storytelling – and the image of the group walking (and wheeling) away from the court will stick with you.
Marriott’s #at the Moxy
Moxy is Marriott International’s new boutique hotel brand that caters to millennial globetrotters. The brand is a trendy harmony of luxury-chic accommodation, youth hostel, and all-night bar.
The marketers for Moxy have crafted a brilliantly entertaining video series, Do Disturb, which features the host, Taryn Southern, dishing up her best cheeky antics with social media influencers like Amy Pham and Oli White.
Every episode, uber-cool Instagram shot and even the hip black and magenta site design tell the Moxy story – and allude to expert mixologist services.
What wanderlust-struck 20 or 30-something can resist?
Warby Parker Eyewear
Positioning themselves as the alternative to the high-priced, oligopolize eyewear industry, Warby Parker doesn’t just sell quality glass frames and sunglasses.
It invites its customers to become a part of the brand’s movement
Never heard of Parker Warby?
As they write on their website, Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to create boutique-quality, classically crafted eyewear at a revolutionary price point.
Eyewear with a purpose
Almost one billion people worldwide lack access to glasses. This means that 15% of the global population cannot effectively learn or work – a problem that Warby Parker is determined to address.
They’ve partnered with non-profits like VisionSpring to ensure that for every pair of glasses sold, a pair is distributed to someone in need.
Eyewear startup Warby Parker’s 2013 Annual Report, is a perfect example of how important tone is in creating great visual content. This very different approach to a year-end report uses a calendar format, highlighting company events on each day.
Some events are significant company milestones; others are little anecdotes showcasing office life and culture.
Wow … what a change from the typical financial results and strategic initiatives that typically fill the pages of annual reports.
The report is an excellent example of a brand showcasing its ideas, creativity, and culture in a visually engaging way. At its core, the strategy of content marketing is not just about distribution and visibility.
It is about telling the world who you are and what you stand for. This design goes a long way in turning customers into brand advocates.
The design shows how to empower your content. So many companies just don’t take advantage of their great content, or they don’t know how to present their content creators.
Often, in the end, they are fighting for survival as we all are.
However, the brands that can express their personality, creativity, passion, and manage their content in a way that speaks to people will create loyal customers.
That’s a story every hipster with less than 20/20 vision would appreciate – and tell their friends about.
Warby Parker gets the whole storytelling thing right, providing a socially-conscious brand with a genuine vision.
The company donates a portion of their monthly profits to its nonprofit partners to make basic eye care and affordable eyewear available to communities in developing countries.
This huge gesture is just a part of the Warby Parker story. And one which can yield a lifetime commitment from customers.
Zendesk alternative
Zendesk, the makers of customer support software, created one of the most hilarious and ingenious marketing campaigns to drum up interest in their company.
Their ‘anti-storytelling’ has the effect of making their brand extremely likable and even trustworthy as they cast a very human impression – something any small business owner would appreciate from a SaaS provider.
Instead of creating a video to tell the story of Zendesk, they crafted an entertaining video about Zendesk Alternative.
Which happens to be a fictional indie rock band, frustrated that a customer support company ‘stole’ their band name, yet admitting their need for Zendesk’s services to keep their careers going.
To finish this masterful example off beautifully, the band writes a cheesy jingle about the importance of customer service.
Dawn
We recently viewed a Dawn Liquid Detergent story told in one of their advertisements that caught our eye for several reasons. An effective TV ad that combined traditional advertising with advocacy advertising and creative storytelling. Something you don’t see very often.
Have you seen this recent Dawn story in their TV commercial? If not, you should invest 1 minute now and check it out. It will prove beneficial in reviewing their great story.
Interesting information, well presented, showing emotion, always holds attention, yes? Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your stories must be interesting to your target communities.
This story message certainly grabs and holds attention based on emotion, superb visuals, and great issue advocacy.
Mouth Foods
Mouth is a living, breathing anthology for some of the most passionate food and beverage makers in America.
The company exists to tell the (really interesting) brand stories behind the indie creators of everything from artisanal chocolates and hand-made pasta to small-batch tequila and gourmet honey – and to sell the food and beverage products as gift packages and subscriptions on their mouth-watering e-commerce site.
You have to admit, learning about apples, grown on a small orchard in upstate New York by people who view making cider as one of the last vestiges of true American folk culture, is pretty compelling marketing.
By posting the personal stories of the small business owners who make these products, Mouth adds a whole new level of meaning and value to the items they sell.
Nike – equality campaign
Nike has always excelled at brand storytelling. One of their best campaigns is Equality.
It makes a strong statement about the company as a force for positive social change, offering something more to today’s athletes than just a pair of sneakers and branded workout gear.
This is an example of using brand storytelling to connect with the audience, inviting them to become a part of a collective movement by wearing Nike products, or at the very least, engaging on social media, such as sharing one of the brands always inspiring videos.
Soulcycle – find your soul
SoulCycle has come up with a powerful story to compel people to pay close to the price equivalent of a monthly membership at your typical gym, for one 45-minute class.
While this brand does offer a high-end fitness experience, with a focus on atmosphere (there’s music, the instructors are more inspirational speaker than fitness coaches, and there are candles), it’s the narrative that entices people to try it out.
SoulCycle offers a tribal, transcendent experience with each workout. “Our riders share a SOUL experience.
We laugh, we cry, we grow – and we do it together, as a community.” There’s the promise of real motivation and a sense of belonging.
The high-powered workout almost becomes an afterthought to the excitement of signing up for a SoulCycle cardio party.
Great brand stories may not change the world, but they will let your target market understand why your brand is worth their time and money.
The bottom line
To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views or social media shares.
We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.
We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.
There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement in brand marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. It seems many brands are looking to take their success to a new level.
This is an excellent time to make a statement with their brand storytelling marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
What Everyone Ought to Know About Rebranding a Business
How Creative Branding Helps Your Business Marketing
A Crash Course in Creative Branding by Using a Distinctive Voice
Like this short blog? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.
Examples of Customer Experience: 4 Awesome Stories to Share
The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them— preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.—Richard Branson. How many of you learn from examples of customer experience for elements of your marketing?
Consider this … if done well; don’t you think both could create things for customers to talk about? And therefore be enablers for your word of mouth marketing strategy. Let me share a story with you as an example
Recently I took my sister to our local credit union branch office to take care of three different transactions: getting a credit card reactivated, depositing coins, and ordering checks.
The coins required a visit, but the other two transactions could have been done by phone or maybe online. I hoped one visit to a local branch would be easier, but deep down I feared it wouldn’t.
Frankly, I expected we’d be shuttled around the branch to different people to take care of each transaction. Or, worse, told to use the phone to call the credit card support number directly.
Related: 10 Ways to Employ Customer Experience for Influence
Instead, it turned into a quick and extraordinary experience. Because when we entered the branch, a banker warmly greeted us and asked how he could help. After learning what my sister needed to do, he invited us to sit down at his desk.
He then took care of everything: Called the credit card division of Wells Fargo to activate a credit card, took the coins to the teller to make the deposit and returned with a receipt, and ordered new checks. I call attention to the fact that the banker didn’t know us or how much money we had with the credit union
My perspective:
So you see how these events represent a great way to market to customers, don’t you? Think I would talk about my experience with my friends and neighbors? Most definitely.
Let me share 3 more personal experiences, 2 very good and 1 not so good:
Examples of customer experience … PF CHANG’S RESTAURANT
My wife and I stopped by our local P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch last month. It was a beautiful Florida spring day and since it was mid-week the restaurant wasn’t too busy, so we decided to sit on the patio.
However, when we asked the hostess to be seated outside we were told that it would be 15-20 minutes before we could be seated. However, we could be seated immediately if we wanted to sit inside.
When I asked why we couldn’t be seated immediately … since about half the tables were open, we were told that there wasn’t enough staff scheduled on the patio to serve more tables.
Clearly, this service staff did not have the decision making authority for creating good customer experiences!
My perspective:
If there were enough staff in the restaurant to serve the total number of customers, then why couldn’t they simply reallocate some of the inside staff to serve outside on the patio?
If the hostess was delegated the decision making authority to take initiative to make every customer experience a good to great one, then perhaps this might have resulted differently?
MARRIOTT
I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready.
There were many problems, believe me, and it started as a significant customer failure.
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service … using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.
He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service … but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem. So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.
My perspective:
Why should any company not want to seize such an opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.
Examples of customer experience … JetBlue
This is a story of JetBlue’s customer experience strategy built on its employee empowerment culture. I experienced it first hand and was duly impressed.
The story started a while back while I was sitting on the runway in Orlando as my homeward-bound Jet Blue flight was about to taxi toward takeoff. Like just about every other flight that hadn’t already been canceled that day on the Eastern seaboard, ours was a couple of hours late departing.
The lead flight attendant gets on the P.A. system and says something very close to:
Ladies and Gentlemen, we know we’re late taking off, and even though it’s the weather and not something we caused, we’re going to comp everybody movies for this flight. We know you’ve all had a long day and we want it to end with something nice and relaxing.
And for those of you who were supposed to be on the Continental flight and ended up here, we don’t ever want you to go back.
The mood on the flight which could have been a rather dreary late evening affair took an immediate upswing. People joked and smiled and made eye contact.
They were noticeably brighter and calmer as the flight progressed. And I’m writing about the experience today and business travelers are reading about it.
What enabled this relatively small act of kindness and allowed it to become a major brand statement? Midflight, I went to the back of the plane and asked. I wanted to know the policy that allowed a flight attendant to make such a call.
We’re allowed to make almost any decision, the flight attendant explained, as long as we can justify it on the basis of one of the airline’s five core values: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun or Passion.
If we can tie doing something back to one of these principles, the decision is going to be supported by the company.
My perspective:
What JetBlue is saying to its employees … if you act in support of the values that really matter to our business, we want you to take risks in order to care for our customers.
The bottom line