Would You Put Your Customers Through This?

There has been a lot of talk over the years about managing the Total Customer Experience. This is a Utopian view, of course, given the span of control that would be required to truly influence the myriad of events, factors, and third parties that make up the total customer experience in most industries.

Let me explain.

The travel industry, perhaps an easy target for criticism, is a perfect example. In order to get from one city to the next, we engage several entities, each one serving its own unique purpose. We need them all to accomplish our mission, yet none of them are necessarily motivated to work together.

You see, I’ve experienced these challenges firsthand. Admittedly, I am a frequent traveler and have logged an embarrassing number of airline miles and hotel points over my 20-year career. I’ve had my share travel miscues over the years, but a recent trip from San Diego to Kansas City this past weekend really highlighted the problems associated with any attempt at managing the total customer experience.

In this case, the total customer experience began when I checked myself, my wife, and three kids out of our hotel. It would end when we arrived safely at our home in Kansas City. Along the way, we would interact a hotel, a rental car company, two airlines, the transportation security administration (TSA), an airport terminal bus, and a parking lot attendant. In short, it was less than smooth.

Mysterious Beginnings. We began our day by trying to check out of our hotel in San Diego. Amazingly, the front desk said they had no record of our reservation, nor did their system have any record of anyone staying in our room. Apparently, we didn’t exist. Confused, we piled into our rental car and raced to the airport to return our rental car.

The Bad. We returned our rental car, full of gas, and void of any new scratches or dents. Hurray! But when we received our bill, they had not credited us for the coupon we provided for a free weekend rental day. Simply put, they made the offer – they should honor it. With little time to argue, we continued on to the airport with the issue unresolved. Needless to say, our experience wasn’t good so far.

The Ugly. Upon arriving at the airport at 7:30AM (have I mentioned the challenge of getting 3 kids out of bed at that hour?) we checked in to find out that our American flight had been cancelled due to weather in a city nearly 1,500 miles away. Obviously the airline industry can’t control the weather, but it impacted our customer experience greatly, to say the least.

The Good. American Airlines was able to book us on a direct flight (our original flight included a connection) on Midwest Airlines. Now, if you’ve flown Midwest – you know that this was a major upgrade; All seats are first-class leather seats. Although the flight departed nearly 4 hours later than our original flight – we took advantage of the time. We enjoyed a great Mexican breakfast in Old Town San Diego, and toured the Marine Corps Museum at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) before returning to the airport. Fortunately, we were able to make the most of our setback.

The Bad. If you’ve ever changed a flight at the last minute, you know that your ticket will be flagged for extra security screening. Now don’t get me wrong, I completely respect the TSA and personally thank them for the job they are doing. But the extra attention we received with three young children in tow added a bit of extra anxiety to our already bumpy customer experience ride.

The Good. We boarded our Midwest Airlines flight after confirming that they had meal service on this nearly 3 hour flight. In the air, however, they sold out of meals before we were served. Our kids didn’t seem to mind since they filled up on the warm chocolate chip cookies that followed. As you can imagine, dining on only cookies can have a potentially undesirable affect on any child. The pilot’s announcement that we would arrive 10 minutes early was a very welcome sound, indeed.

The Bad. At Kansas City International (MCI) airport, we arrived at a different terminal than where we started our trip, so I was required to jump on the terminal transfer bus that is supposed to run continuously in front of the terminal. After twenty minutes of standing and waiting, the first and seemingly only bus running, arrived to take us to our original terminal. This was just another weak link in a long chain of events.

The Ugly. We were ecstatic to see our own car and quickly loaded our luggage, anxious to get home. But not so fast. We pulled up to the parking lot toll booth and handed over our parking ticket and a credit card. I won’t go into details, because I don’t want to rehash the amazing incompetence we experienced. To cut to the short of it, our car idled at the booth for a full 25 minutes. No exaggeration. No apologies from the parking lot operators. No offers of rebates. Just an indignant notice that they were having ‘technical difficulties’ and that we would have to proceed to another toll booth to pay and exit the lot. There are a lot of four letter words I could have inserted here, but I bit my lip and proceeded on.

We did eventually arrive home safely, happy to have made the trip, albeit a full twelve hours after it began in San Diego. You might say our customer experience was less than ideal, but the point here is that there were many unrelated factors, entities, and third parties involved that all contributed (or detracted) from our experience.

In this example, the total customer experience was comprised of multiple independent links in a long chain. In order to manage the total customer experience, all of the entities would need to be well coordinated and tightly integrated. In addition, each party would need to share a common goal of optimizing the customer experience.

I don’t see that happening any time soon.

In the meantime, it’s the customer that must just grin and bear it.