Just checked into a hotel, Affinia, last night to discover that they have pillows with built in speakers and provide a cord for connecting them to your iphone, ipod, etc. Needed? No. Surprising? Yes. Is there something small you can do to surprise your customers? Good surprises can put a smile on their face and give them something to take note of, which means they’re more likely to be come back and spread the word.
During the past few months, our family has been traveling to and fro through small towns in Texas. Good or bad, I’ve become accustomed to the pleasure of a homemade cappuccino early in the morning. Since my cappuccino maker doesn’t travel easily and these small towns have limited options, we recently decided to give McDonald’s coffee a try. I’ve ordered four coffee drinks on two different occasions now. Three were latte/cappuccino varieties and one was plain drip. The only drink that was prepared correctly was the plain drip, but that was after a ten minute wait for them to brew a pot. The other three drinks were all incorrect. Flavored instead of plain, unsweetened instead of sweetened, etc.. 75% ordering failure rate and I bet the corporate office would consider the 10 minute wait for the one correct order a failure too. I’ll round down and call it a 99%…
Our family visited the Statue of Liberty this past Memorial Day. First off, the monument is impressive and the visit to both Liberty Island and Ellis Island are well worth enduring the long lines. Security is tight at the monument and a Nat’l Park Service employee was at the front of the line. We watched him bark orders, sigh in disgust, reprimand parents and the like. The irony was thick. The messaging around the monument focused on how Lady Liberty was a symbol of hope, a welcoming sight to those yearning for a new life in America. On Monday, one key person made it feel very uninviting especially for foreign visitors who didn’t understand him any better because he was rude or loud. What was his job? He clearly thought it was to establish and maintain control as if he were working a protest line. I submit that his job…
I was speaking with some friends this week about how companies and organizations can be duped by individuals they believe to be one thing, but turn out to be quite another. Insert your favorite villain here. From Madoff duping the world of finance to George O’Leary duping Notre Dame (at least for a while), I think the reason why it takes so long for these individuals to be found out is the same: credibility creep. As time passes, credibility creeps when potential employers or customers rely on a due diligence process that only includes a candidate’s more recent employer/customer history. Since prior employers/customers did the same, if one employer/customer in the chain is duped, it’s likely that subsequent employers/customers will also be duped since they’re relying in part on the due diligence of a prior employer/customer. This is especially true when the employer/customer list covers a long period of time or contains an marque name. How do you avoid this? The next time…
A new WhichWich franchise opened up near our house and we've enjoyed a few sandwiches there (I recommend the buffalo chicken on wheat). I picked up a loyalty punch card and you know the drill: buy 10 get 1 free. Problem is that I walked in there after the first of the year and there's a new sign that says the old cards are no longer being honored or issued anymore. Sometime in the future, they're supposedly going to implement an electronic loyalty program. I like the improvement, but can't say much for the implementation. Unless you've lost focus on your most valuable asset – repeat customers – I think it's a mistake to justify yanking an older dangled carrot from the mouths of your customers by saying the new carrot will be bigger and better. You're not making good on the first promise, so why should I expect you will make good…
If you travel very much, you know what a hassle it is to keep up with travel loyalty programs. You want to take advantage of available rewards, verify credits and avoid unexpected expirations. On the other hand, you don’t want to spend your weekends logging into one site after another to accomplish this. To solve the problem, I started using AwardWallet last year after evaluating available solutions. Setup was easy (similar to applications like Mint, etc. if you such for viewing financial accounts in one place). The interface is sufficient and the consolidated information is a real time saver. I liked the fact that the plus version, which includes additional info for each account, was free, although they asked for me to contribute what I thought it was worth. I paid $10 and was happy to do so. Now, six months later, I get an email saying my plus account…