In the May 2011 edition of Entrepreneur Magazine, The Best in Business Travel article compared different levels of hotel service, and the description of top-of-the-line Premium service was inspiring!
It described how the hotels in this class remembered a guest’s allergy to feathers and adjusted the bedding, remembered his favorite wine and provided it complimentary, provided an outdoor temperature reading in the room so the guest could dress appropriately, had an enormous fitness center with 30 complimentary classes per week, delivered comic books instead of a newspaper because of the guest’s offhanded remark, and made a special trip to purchase a case of a guest’s preferred type of bottled water.
While I have never held a job in this top of the line hospitality environment, I think it would be incredibly fulfilling. Or can we provide this level of service in every one of our businesses? Logistically, it requires two things to excel in service – employee time and resources (labor costs) and money (to purchase preferred wine, bottled water outside of a purchase agreement, etc.). Many businesses, if they don’t charge premium prices, don’t have the revenue or profit margin to add awesome customer service perks.
So, unless you are a 5-star hotel or a Nordstrom’s, are you out of luck?
Ask yourself, “What is it that the guests really like about this Premium service?” In order to answer that question, we need to look at two types of premium service that I have experienced: Perks Service and Custom Service.
Perks Service – This is where every amenity is present. Anything that you think of is readily available at no additional charge. From the example above, that would be the 30 complimentary fitness classes a week. This level of service is expensive to provide because each of these perks cost the company money, but the return on investment can be significant depending on your product and your customers.
Custom Service – This is where the customer service is tailored to each customer’s needs and wants. This requires that we listen to each customer to hear what they really want and what is important to them. From the example above, this is delivering the guest’s favorite wine or comic books that they mentioned the last visit.
Both levels of service require that we listen to the customer. The Perks Service requires we listen to them as a group and offer what is important to our customer base as a whole. The Custom Service requires that we listen to an individual, remember what they’ve said and deliver that customized service next time we interact with them. This is more difficult, more often overlooked, can have a tremendously powerful impact and has the potential to cost a lot less to implement than the Perks Service. But, it requires that you hear and remember what the customer says.
Listening is like riding your bike next to someone who is walking. You can think at 400 words per minute and most people speak about 100 words per minute. The danger in listening is that your brain is thinking about something else with that excess capacity.
It doesn’t cost anything to listen to someone, and often it doesn’t cost much to customize the service they receive to some degree. Where are those opportunities in your business and your industry?