2B… or not 2B?
By Giacomo Squintani, Marketing Manager EMEA, Servigistics
Greetings from Paris.
That always sounds extravagant, doesn’t it? Well, don’t get carried away. I have a checkered history with accommodation in this beautiful city, and tonight’s tipped the balance the wrong way.
I am here for a two-day User Conference with our European Pricing customers. And ‘here’, more specifically, is the Radisson SAS near CDG: convenient, practical, respected. The sort of place you associate with good service; an impression that I have had reinforced in the past few weeks, during which I’ve dealt from afar with the hotel’s Commercial Department to get the event set up. Nothing has been too much trouble for them.
Then came tonight. I cleared customs, and duly waited for my shuttle bus at Terminal 2B. It’s a Sunday night, so I appreciate the service will be relatively infrequent. Some thirty minutes later though, having seen the Hilton’s shuttle go past me for the fourth or fifth time, it’s hard not to wonder.
A couple of hotel guests waiting with me are on the phone to the hotel, who assures them it’s ten minutes away. Trouble is, they had done that 25′ earlier - equally abruptly. Now it’s bad enough when expectations are mismanaged by the local pizza delivery joint: but this is a hotel brand that prides itself on service, leveraging it to charge a premium price. Does it know what’s going on? If not, why not? If so, why the blatant misinformation?
In the end, I waited 50′ for the shuttle. How long the other two guests waited, I daren’t imagine because when it finally arrived, there was only one seat available. Since they were travelling together, they kindly offered it to me. They weren’t as docile towards the driver or the hotel reception, over the phone. The waiting had been bad; the deceit, unnecessarily aggravating. I wouldn’t want to be in the driver’s shoes as he heads back to pick them up from here, which he seemed to be doing - even after Reception had guaranteed them another shuttle was already en route and would be with them five minutes after ‘mine’…
Whatever you sell, your customers are not idiots. Most customers tend to have greater patience than you may think. They accept things go wrong - indeed, fix their problems well and their loyalty will be higher than had they never existed. That’s why Dell showcases its Enterprise Command Center to illustrate how it helps its customers: because doing so exceptionally well is a true competitive differentiator.
What customers don’t accept is being lied to. That’s just insulting. While it’s no more insulting than it ever was, it is easier to get found out, since there are just too many sources of information available for customers not to verify what they’re being told. And it’s too easy for customers to share their dissatisfaction within minutes, as you are proving by reading this.
If you can’t always be truly exceptional, at least always be exceptionally true.
Tags: Dell, Enterprise Command Center, Radisson SAS, service, Service Pricing Management