Archive for the ‘Customer Experiences’ Category
The better question might be why haven’t I? The cable company that delivers our cable TV and internet service has been advertising a triple option to include cable phone service. You get to keep your telephone number (thanks to a government statute enacted several years ago) and the premise is that overall you will spend less by combining services. And this is certainly true in year one but subsequently it the gap closes a bit but overall it is still less expensive to have cable phone service than a traditional land line.
For years the argument against cable telephone service was that if the cable service went out – so would your phone service. And while all of us at my house had mobile service (spotty service due to where we live), emergency calls might be a problem from a mobile phone (turns out that’s not true).
Last week like many areas in the United States the Northeast was hit by severe thunderstorms and our area on Wednesday in Connecticut in particular. We lost power for nearly 24 hours and many people lost power for much longer than that. But we also lost our home landline phone service at the same time.
Fortunately mobile phones work well enough at our house to be a reliable back up. We have a small generator so we had limited power (no air-conditioning!), and still the phone was out and when we called AT & T told us we would have phone service back after the weekend on Tuesday (tomorrow).
That’s a week without home phone service folks. Since I rarely use the phone at home it was no real hardship for me (come to think of it only my wife really uses the phone at home) or our daughter. Tue result is we are going to dump our AT & T home phone service since the whole reason for keeping it turns out to not be valid.
It’s in keeping with the way telecommunication companies view phone service now with the majority of their focus being (and rightly so) on mobile service. Yet it still amazes me that AT & T could consider a residence without phone service for a week to be acceptable. It’s exceedingly obvious that they’ve given up that ship by their action – or inaction.
Our son has no landline where he lives in Florida – and I doubt he ever will nor will our daughter. People under 30 roll their eyes at the notion of a landline saying – ‘what for?’
So how about you? Do you still have landline phone service at home? Why?
If you live in a major city, (or even smaller town with a really hot restaurant) the process of making a reservation can be onerous, to say the least. As many of you know, in the top rooms, the experience can include having to call exactly 30 days in advance to secure a desired reservation date and time, (of course even doing this sometimes results in getting a 5:45 or 9:30 option for dining!) and then if you are lucky enough to reach a ‘reservationist’ (who comes up with these terms??) leave your credit card number to ‘secure’ the hallowed reservation.
But wait, there’s more. The day before or the day of someone from the restaurant (ok the reservationist – could you imagine telling your parents that’s your job?) calls you at the number you left and asks you to ‘please’ confirm. In fact if they leave you a voice mail you are then asked to call them back to confirm.
Understanding that there are people out there who are no-shows and that can really screw-up a restaurant, I get the idea that restaurants have a need to know who’s showing up and who’s not. But the system still used by most restaurants today is archaic and just bad. It does not serve the customer it serves the restaurant. Making the customer jump through hoops to obtain a reservation does not serve the customer at all and that’s ironic since restaurants are in the business of service right?
In recent years online reservation systems like OpenTable, Tablefinder, Blueskies, Rodeco ICT and Magellan (to name a few) have grown with OpenTable being the most well-known. It’s a good idea. You sign up for an ‘account’ that costs nothing. You log-in with your email and get points for making reservations at participating restaurants (yes multiple platforms means different restaurants are part of different systems).
You pick the day and time, number of people in your party and the restaurant let’s you know what’s ‘available’. Sometimes what’s available is 5:45PM and 9:30PM. I wish I were hungry at these times since obviously I would always get what I wanted but alas my stomach, family and friends are not aligned with this concept. But many times you can get your exact time or something within 15 minutes of your time and that’s fine. Then you hit send and you are all set. A confirming email is sent to you and you are good to go. You are not automatically opted in to receive the restaurant’s emails (another good thing) but you may get a follow up email from the platform asking you about your dining experience which you can ignore which is what I do. The best thing is YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE A PHONE CALL TO REACH THE ‘RESERVATIONIST’ or anyone for that matter.
I have a good friend in the restaurant business who understands the need to have the platform but notes that it can backfire for the restaurant since if the user does not see the time they want they often will just move on to another restaurant without calling at all. If you called the restaurant it would go out of its way to try to accommodate you. Online reservations offer no chance of that.
The other day I made a reservation on OpenTable – got the time I wanted, the confirming email. And I could even invite my guests by sending them an email giving them the details – location, time etc. Cool!
But then something happened I did not like. The restaurant called the number I left to reconfirm and left me a voice mail. Considering I made the reservation 3 days prior WITHOUT CALLING, I now had to call them back to ‘confirm’. I was out of the office and did not have time to call so I tried to text them. That did not work as it was a land line. This is ridiculous! Why don’t the restaurants confirm (if they have to) either by email or leave a number that you could SMS text to? Hasn’t anyone thought of this?
Who wants to call a restaurant to reconfirm a reservation anyway? Anyone?
The worldwide recession appears to be stubbornly holding on and impacting so many people, Here in the United States the talk is all about job creation or lack of jobs in general. Companies that have reduced staff have been running lean for quite some time now. The results often are found in less than exemplary customer service.
I had a taste of that at Stop and Shop this past weekend. Walking in there on a Friday evening after 6PM the store was relatively empty. Having promised my daughter a lobster for dinner I had to pick up a couple of things as well as a couple of crustaceans. These days lobster is pretty inexpensive in the Northeastern U.S. with prices as low as $ 4 U.S/pound. Since a 1.25 lobster is a pretty decent size it hardly seemed like a luxury. At Stop & Shop the lobsters were actually $ 7.00/lb. At least that’s what the chalkboard read in the seafood area in the store.
However when I arrived in the seafood area there was nobody attending the area. And nobody was working anywhere nearby. I waited about five or ten minutes (seemed like 15), finally gave up and walked to the front of the store to ask if anyone could help me. I was first told nobody was working back there. Big news indeed. They offered to page someone which they did and I walked back to the seafood area. Another five minutes ensued but no sign of anyone.
I again walked to the front of the store and was again told that they would page someone. I pointed out that I had already seen that movie and did they want to sell me a lobster or not? They paged again and I again walked back to the seafood area. Finally I saw what appeared to be a manager type and I told him I had been waiting fifteen minutes to purchase a lobster. He again noted there was nobody back there. I am not making this up.
Pete, the manager offered to help me (ok maybe I was finally getting somewhere). After he scanned the area to be sure nobody was there but him he went behind the counter to the tank to (I hoped) fish out a couple of lobsters. But I could tell right away that this 6 foot 4 guy was not at all comfortable around the lobsters. So I offered to go back there myself to fish them out and put them in the bag. Looking incredibly relieved he quickly agreed and back I went. He stood pretty far away from me as I selected two of the 6 or 7 lobsters in the tank. I put them in the bags and then Pete did exactly the right thing. He told me he had no idea how to ring them up and for my trouble he was not going to charge me for the lobsters. I was both surprised and pleased.
The cash register attendant was a bit skeptical but when there wasn’t any tag on the bags he shrugged and checked me out.
So a big negative experience was turned into a positive experience and a story. Pete got it right and by extension Stop & Shop had a happy customer.
Good customer experiences come in many different forms.
How about you? Got any strange but true stories like that?
Full disclosure – first and foremost, I am die-hard Met fan. It is not really possible for me to ever root for the Yankees although as a New Yorker it is tough to root against New York at times.
George Steinbrenner was a complicated man. He was bombastic, tyrannical, profligate, seemingly at times unstable, and yet at times generous. In the early years (he bought the Yankees for $ 10 million in 1973), the franchise today is valued at over $ 1 billion. In 37 years of ownership there are few if any owners that can claim that kind of track record.
Steinbrenner often appeared to be a blowhard and buffoon. But he always exhibited characteristics that are instrumental in the stewardship of a successful brand.
1) Mr. Steinbrenner loved and adored his product and was a fierce protector of the brand. His methods were not always successful but there was never any doubt of his commitment to success.
2) The ‘Boss’ learned on the job and improved his own (and the team’s) performance over time. When Mr. Steinbrenner took over the Yankees they were at a low point and he brought them to back to back World Series victories within 5 years.
3) Harvey Schiller who worked with Mr. Steinbrenner for more than 30 years was quoted saying “Knowing George, most everything he did that appeared to be emotional was actually planned,” “His contributions to the marketing side of baseball are untold. He once said ‘I didn’t buy Seattle. I bought New York.’ He felt he had a responsibility to the market.
4) Once the Yankees became successful Mr. Steinbrenner leveraged that success into making the Yankees one of the most valuable sports franchises on the planet. Creating the YES network in 2001 was a brilliant idea and the Yankees ability to attract advertisers and sponsorships is nearly unparalleled in all of sports.
5) The Yankees had won 20 World Series championships prior to Mr. Steinbrenner’s arrival. But through his hard work and dedication to making the Yankees the best team and best franchise in sports, he created a legion of fervent and loyal fans that wear their Yankee colors with great pride.
6) Mr. Steinbrenner embodied word-of-mouth and viral marketing before those terms became part of the lexicon. The Yankees owned the back pages of the tabloids, and ESPN leveraged Mr. Steinbrenner’s famous tirades and sometimes bizarre behavior into must-see TV. – ESPN owes Mr. Steinbrenner a huge thank you for helping make that network more relevant.
As a Met fan I don’t ever wish that Mr. Steinbrenner had decided to buy the Mets instead of the Yankees. I prefer to live and suffer with my two Met championships in 47 years being the second team in New York. Yet as a marketing aficionado I am still able to recognize a marketing genius and brand champion when I’ve see one. And he never, ever, was boring. That’s more than can be said regarding the ownership of the Mets over the years.
The Yankees may continue to excel on the field but Mr. Steinbrenner will be missed for his commitment to winning and his brand. There will never be another major sports team owner like him.
Last night we picked up our teenage daughter from LaGuardia airport. She came in from Central America through Miami to LaGuardia (LGA). Originating as an international flight but they went through customs in Miami so the leg to LGA was domestic.
It was a bad weather night in the New York metropolitan area with thundershowers all day and heavy downpours. We knew the flight would be delayed and American Airlines updated the flight status dutifully all afternoon on their site as well as through opted-in reminders we subscribed to. It was frustrating for all of us that the flight was delayed more than two hours but pretty good use of communication overall by American Airlines.
The same cannot be said of the baggage handling at LGA. The baggage claim at LGA is not run by American Airlines or any other airline as it is unionized and the handlers are employed independently. Moreover we got into baggage claim and there were hundreds of people milling about with no signage indicating where the baggage was to be claimed. However there were a number of ancient but blank video screens.
We stood at one baggage carousel talking for ten minutes with another family whose son was on the same flight. Finally my wife (she’s the proactive one here) suspected something was not right and found out that in fact baggage from our flight was at a carousel at the other end of baggage claim. Still without any indication but she found someone who seemed to have an idea.
Then we learned that the baggage was being off-loaded to two carousels. So we had to split and have one of us at one, one of us at the other and the third standing on long line for reporting lost baggage as after 45 minutes we had begun to lose hope.
Finally my wife spotted our daughter’s bag and we were able to leave just as I was about to enter the office to report the bag lost.
Aside from this situation proving that carry-on is the only way to go (not an option when you are backpacking for three weeks), I was shocked, disgusted and disturbed that in one of the world’s busiest airports, the baggage handling was among the worst I’ve ever seen. Believe me when I tell you that Hanoi, Vietnam was cleaner and with better signage than La Guardia.
People that travel into NYC hate LaGuardia. Is it any wonder why? How does this show off my hometown to visitors from other countries? Or those that live in the United States?