I was speaking at a conference in Hamburg last week and we stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel which was all very pleasant. Because it was our first time in the city we took the opportunity to spend a couple of days exploring it. We were keen to see the sights, but unfortunately we had no ideas where to go.
That was until we met Jesko, a 64 year old waiter who looked after us during our evening meal. As well as providing us with exemplary customer service throughout our meal, he completely engaged with us and having found out what we were looking for, he gave us details of all sorts of places to go based on what we said we liked!
No ‘scripts’ or ‘automatic responses’, but a genuineness and a real interest in us as individuals… and some great tips on what to see. We could see him doing it with other customers too! It’s clear that Jesko took great pride in being a key ingredient of a great customer experience. He was allowed (even encouraged?) to be himself – simple really isn’t it? The result? Customer Delight!
We had a second great customer ‘experience’ on Saturday night and it was from our friends Northern Trains that I blogged about last week. I criticised them because of their ‘automated responses’ and their ‘apology’ that we couldn’t pay for our journey!
Well, we travelled back with them from Sheffield on Saturday night and had the totally opposite experience! We met a wonderful conductor called Kay who had an incredibly cheery approach despite a large number of ‘drunken’ and ‘disruptive’ passengers (not us of course!). She told us she’d been working on the train for 17 years and absolutely loved it – you could tell she did by her whole demeanour. She restored our faith in Northern Rail – we were even happy to pay our fare!
So, although it is simple stuff…
- Are your front line people encouraged to create great customer experiences and show their personality?
- Do they actually do it?
- Do you recognise and reward them for doing it?
