 Brand
Construction or Brand Destruction?
By Ed Rigsbee, CSP
(2951 words)
How you use or lose your
customer value perception opportunities tell much about your style of
leadership. Every point-of-contact you or your employees have with your
customers is an opportunity to increase or decrease your customers’ perceived
value of doing business with you. The key idea here is perceived
value. No matter how important you believe customer service to
be, it is nothing more than a conduit for customer perceived
value.
The crucial question to you, “Are
you embracing, or squandering, your opportunities to deliver perceived
value to your customers?” Too many business people today
simply focus on customer service, erroneously believing that service is
the end game. Further could be from the truth. Delivering customer perceived
value is the end game for today’s successful businesses.
A few years ago, I delivered a
full-day partnering workshop for the management team of a nationally
branded downtown San Diego hotel. The lead hotel executive indicated
that he wanted to increase the average room night rate by about 12
percent. He suggested that better customer service was the answer to
increasing room night rates.
To
the hotel executive’s amazement, I told his group that customer
service was not the answer. In the hospitality industry, this is
sacrilege! Customer service is simply a conduit to deliver perceived
value. I continued to tell the group that their answer was to
increase their customer’s perceived
value of staying at their property. It’s the amplified
customer
perceived value that would
build brand equity and give their guests a reason to pay more.
Regardless of your industry,
every interaction with a customer is an opportunity for you to bolster
or diminish their perceived
value of you, your service or product, and your brand. The
important issue upon which you should focus is the fact that one’s
reality equals the conversation they have with themselves about you.
What are your customers saying to themselves about you, your location
and your brand? What is their reality?
Making the
Point
This idea applies to any business that desires to
move beyond traditional transactional business toward building
long-lasting business relationships. As a professional speaker, I
frequently have the opportunity to visit New Orleans. Because of the
conferences, I generally stay in or around the French
Quarter—frequently at the Sheraton.
A year ago, in New Orleans, I attended a convention
of a group for which I’m a member.
This trip, I stayed across the street at the convention
headquarter, a national brand property which I had not yet visited.
Since I was there for five nights, I had sufficient interaction with the
hotel staff to use this stay as example of value
perception opportunities—sought or lost.
For simplicity, I’ve created a scoring system
from my visit where I award a positive or negative to each of the
hotel’s notable perception value opportunity areas. While my example
is a hotel stay, you can easily apply this kind of scoring system to
your business, no matter the industry. Apply this system idea to your
business silos where your customers have contact with the people and
systems of your organization.
Room Rate
The room rate the association negotiated with the
hotel ended up being no less than 75% higher than rates at comparable
hotels in the Quarter for that same period. While this is not the fault
of the hotel, the hotel management should have been aware that many of
the attendees knew they were paying much more to stay at the headquarter
hotel and support the association. Many knew that they could have stayed
at the Ritz Carlton no more than two blocks away, and have stayed for
substantially less.
As such, management could have, and should have,
made an effort to balance the value
perception problem with an inexpensive gift basket in the room,
drink vouchers or some other added value idea. These ideas are not
expensive and would only have cost the hotel the wholesale and not the
retail. Thereby offering high perceived
value to guests at a low exposure to cost. If you charge more
than your competition for a similar product or service, what do you do
to increase your customers’ perception of your total value package?
What do you do to justify in the minds of your customers the increased
cost over your competition? Unfortunately, this hotel did absolutely
nothing. For the first customer perceived
value opportunity, I award the hotel a negative.
Guest
Arrival
Upon my midday arrival at the hotel, there was not
a bell person in sight to help me with my baggage so I just carried it
from the taxi myself. In this value
perception opportunity, even though the hotel management knew the
arrival flow for the day and that many attendees were paying a much
higher price than the going Internet and city special price, management
selected not to schedule additional bell staff help for the arriving
conference attendees.
If you know a busy or challenging time is
approaching, do you plan, implement and execute for the impending
situation? Or, do you take the business as usual approach? If you
do not plan, implement and execute, your customers’ mental
conversation they have with themselves about you will certainly be a
negative. For the second customer perceived
value opportunity, I award the hotel a negative.
Check-In
At the registration desk of this national brand
hotel, fortunately there was plenty of help so check-in went quickly and
uneventfully—as it should. Additionally, the woman that assisted me
was able to accommodate my location request without a problem. For the
third customer perceived value
opportunity, I award the hotel a positive.
This sizing of positive value opportunities is what
every business wants to hear from their customers. But, at this point
the hotel has twice as many negative awards as positive. Related to
this, in the world of providence, it generally takes ten Atta Boys
to overcome one Ah Shucks and every negative is an Ah Shucks.
Housekeeping
The second day of my visit, after being gone all
day, I had to call housekeeping in the late afternoon to get my room
cleaned and prepared as this basic service had been overlooked. Later
that evening, when I returned to my room, I again had to call
housekeeping as the maid overlooked replacing the in-room coffee package
for the next morning. When a customer requests that your organization
meet their expectation of base-level service, doesn’t it make sense to
be sure that it is done thoroughly? Perhaps you might even want to do
just a little extra? New Orleans is the home of lanyap, meaning
to give a little extra. The next day was a repeat of the previous, as I
again had to call in the late afternoon to have my room cleaned.
Shouldn’t one learn from mistakes and not repeat
the same mistake two value
perception opportunities in a row? To add to my strong feelings
of being ignored from the experience the night before, the next morning,
the last morning of my stay, the maid knocks on my door (to see if I had
checked out) rudely waking me up. Isn’t that why they have a computer
system? Can’t the front desk communicate with housekeeping? Do you
have capabilities you do not use, perhaps because it takes a little bit
of time, in serving your customers? How could your technological
capabilities better serve your customers and help them to have a more
positive conversation with themselves about the value you deliver? For
having to call two days in a row and being so rudely woken up, I award
housekeeping a negative.
Bell Desk
Staff
While the Bell Staff was missing upon my arrival, I
see that as a scheduling issue. Most other times they seemed to be
present and quite helpful. One day, during my visit, I returned to the
hotel with several boxes of beads for an evening activity. The doorman
was quite helpful in assisting me to my room with the boxes.
Additionally, when he realized that I had several more boxes that needed
to be transported to another venue that evening, he suggested that I
contact the Bell Captain and request one of the hotel’s complementary
cars to transport my stuff the couple blocks. I took his suggestion, the
car was provided and the Bellman was very helpful. I rewarded that
bellman with a $40 tip for his effort. That was a great experience! The
only thing the first bellman could have done better was to arrange the
car himself. But, I do not fault him for not doing this because in
chatting with the bellman, I read between the lines and understood hotel
politics were involved. I award the bell staff a positive.
Banquet
Staff Interaction
Unfortunately, during my stay, most of my
interaction with the hotel banquet staff was far less than desirable.
From the arrogant behavior of a banquet supervisor to the utterly rude
behavior of an event bartender, they missed the value mark completely. I
could not believe my eyes when an event bartender was more concerned
with chatting on his cell phone then interested in serving myself and
other attendees—this is an area hugely ready for the opportunity of
improvement through better staff training.
Think about it, for conferences held at hotels,
attendees generally have more interaction with the banquet staff than
any of the other departments. Or, in a retail situation, it’s the
clerks working the sales-floor, or in distribution it’s the customer
service representatives. These lower-paid front-line employees have a
huge influence in how your customers perceive and then determine the
value your organization delivers. While it may be unfair to the scores
of servers at this nationally known brand that did an acceptable job,
for this value opportunity, I award the banquet staff a negative.
Hotel
Management
My early interaction with hotel management had been
quite positive. Unfortunately, the last evening at the hotel was
indelibly distinctive and branded in my mind forever. The sad fact of
the matter is that it was easily preventable.
On this trip, I took my 18-year-old son along so he
could enjoy the French Quarter of New Orleans first hand. This last
evening, I happened to go up to my room to pick something up. When I
arrived at the room, my son was standing outside. He could not get into
the room because a hall door was locked. Having been waiting for over
ten minutes, he had twice called the front desk asking for help getting
this needless hall door unlocked.
Why I say this situation was easily avoidable is
because the hotel had a door at the end of the hall that was be used as
a single entrance door to the last two rooms as in a suite situation.
But, when the rooms were sold individually, neither of the two rooms had
access to unlock the outer door—which rocket scientist made that
decision? The hotel management simply determined that it was best to
leave that door open but not code the individual room key cards to have
access. Wouldn’t you know it—the door was somehow pushed closed
causing my son and I denial of entry to our room.
When my son told me of the situation, I too called
the front desk requesting assistance. We waited another 10 minutes but
no help had arrived. Being a solution driven person I took a new
approach. I called the front desk again and explained to them that I’d
be forced to sound the fire alarm if nobody cared enough to come and
give me access to my room. Amazingly, that worked. A security person
instantly arrived out of nowhere with an electrical unlocking devise.
Why must I resort to threats to get people to
simply do their job in a timely manner? Besides not how I want to
operate, the need to become aggressive basically ruined my last evening
at the conference. To the credit of the security person that did unlock
the outer door, he offered me dinner for my trouble. Since I was leaving
the next morning, that offer created zero value for me. By this time
though, his offer was just not good enough.
I asked the security guard to call the night
manager up to the room. And for
effect, I asked the security guard to stay, telling him that
I might not be able to control myself. My, for
effect strategy did not work. When the night manager arrived,
he spent more time telling me that the hotel was full and that they were
short of staff and that is why their service was so poor. My Gosh! Never
admit to your customer that you did not care enough about them to have a
reasonable complement of help for their visit. I told the night manager
that I wanted an adjustment on my rate for that evening for all the
grief—he passed the buck saying he’d have to get it approved by the
hotel’s general manager.
If you want your employees to have an emotional
ownership in the success of your enterprise, empower them to make
decisions, especially in this case, as it was not a huge decision. Heck,
even the newest front desk clerk at the Sheraton across the street could
make that decision. This empowerment is a chain-wide policy allowing
Sheraton employees to do what’s necessary in the area of guest
satisfaction.
The next morning, over the telephone, I chatted
with the general manager—we’ll call him Mark, since that is his
name. After explaining my total dissatisfaction with my stay at his
property, Mark was basically cryptic and unwilling to make an adjustment
decision, saying that he would look into it and get back with me. He
asked if there was anything else he could do for me that morning. I told
him that there was—a late checkout would be nice. He said that he
would take care of it.
A few days later, I received a letter from Mark
stating, “I can assure you that the feedback from hundreds of your
peers, as well as the meeting planner for the XYZ Association, has been
nothing short of outstanding…” Mark basically told me that I was
full of it, and rather than make the requested adjustment for the last
night, he welcomed the opportunity to host me for a weekend stay as his
guest—like I’d want to stay there again?
For the grand finale, a couple weeks later when my
credit card bill arrived, I noticed that I was charged an extra $50 on
my guest folio from the hotel. I called the hotel to inquire about the
additional charge and was put on hold for five minutes (I actually timed
the hold). When I finally
got a person at guest relations, I was told the extra $50 was a late
check out charge! Holly cow—and to add insult to injury! It took some
doing, but I did get the $50 charge credited. To the management of this
property I award three negatives. One negative for the lack of
empowerment, one negative for the general manager effectively negating
my experience as not valid and one negative for the general manager not
doing what he told me he would do in reference to the late check out
charge.
Let’s total my “conversation I had with
myself about this property and brand”
Since this appalling visit, I have many times been
tempted to mention the property by name at a number of meetings industry
events at which I have been invited to speak. While I have not yet
mentioned this visit from the platform, in private discussions with
meeting planners I most certainly have. Recently, I was the closing
general session speaker for an association of meeting planners at their
annual meeting and had the occasion to meet a sales person from this
property at that meeting. Needless to say, in a private chat with this
salesperson, I didn’t hold back.
About a week after the meeting planner’s annual
meeting I received another letter from Mark, the hotel’s general
manager reiterating his offer in which he stated, “…and you may
be assured that your next stay will be memorable for all the right
reasons.”
It’s been about a year since this dreadful hotel
visit and since have attended the same association meeting in a
different city. The convention used the same national brand again and I
had an awesome visit—a memorable visit for all the right reasons.
But, as I sit at my desk finishing this yearlong article writing
exercise, I can’t help thinking the visit a year ago has done
permanent damage to my perception of this particular national brand. And
even though I just recently had a wonderful visit at this same brand I
think of Atta Boys vs. Ah Shucks in as much as it takes
ten positive experiences to just equal out a negative experience.
In constructing a memorable brand, the lesson for
us all is to be aware of how our actions and decisions not only affect
us at the local level, but also the brand nationally. What are you doing
to be sure that you and your employees are doing everything necessary to
insure that you seize rather than squander the value
perception opportunities given to you by your customers?
You Vote
As a final note, perhaps I’m being too hard on
Mark? Please share with me your opinion by emailing your vote—which do
you suggest?
- Accept
Mark’s offer of a memorable visit.
- Start
telling the story from the platform.
PS. Your Vote is No Longer Necessary
In a December 2007 meetings industry
magazine there was an advertisement for this property that announced its
post Katrina $38 million "wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling"
renovation. And, to my excitement, Mark is no longer the general
manager. As you might imagine, I'm now looking forward to my next visit
at the New Orleans Marriott.
To
access helpful additional information from Ed Rigsbee at no charge,
please visit www.rigsbee.com/downloadaccess.htm.
# # #
Adapted from Rigsbee's
forthcoming book titled, Customer Service Screw
Ups--Learn from the Mistakes of Others. In this book, Rigsbee rants
about the crummy customer service he has received and offers suggestions
on how you can truly partnering with your customers.
Ed Rigsbee, CSP is the author of PartnerShift,
Developing Strategic Alliances
and The Art of Partnering. Rigsbee has over 1,000 published articles to
his credit and is a regular keynote presenter at corporate and trade
association conferences across North America. He can be reached at
800-839-1520, ed@rigsbee.com, or
visit www.rigsbee.com.
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