Chief executives must work backwards from the consumer experience to effect real change, argues Digital Drums’ Steve Dunne
The great Steve Jobs was once asked how he effected change or introduced innovation. “You have to start with the customer experience and work back from there,” he replied.
It’s something that many travel industry leaders could do well to adopt as part of their management style. I had an experience with a leading cruise brand a few weeks back that made me wonder whether the chief executive knew what his customers experienced when dealing with his company.
I had seen the line’s advertisement on TV the night before and it had resonated with me – which, I imagine, was clearly its mission – and had received an email that morning with a couple of exciting offers for a future cruise.
So I rang the cruise company – only to be greeted, as is the norm these days with big brands, by an automated message that informed me that my call was very important to them.
However, at that time, it said they were experiencing a high volume of calls and it would be a long wait before I would be able to speak with someone.
For that reason, they would be terminating my call, and I was invited to ring back later in the day. And with that, my call was ended. I don’t know what the architect of this message and policy had in mind when they came up with the idea to implement this approach – and certainly little idea of how they assumed that I, a prospective customer, would feel about it.
I doubt, if they had seen my reaction, they would have congratulated themselves on a job well done.
Managers’ perceptions
However, even in my frustration at being treated in this way, I found myself asking one question over and over again. Did the chief executive know that this was how their customer experience was being perceived by consumers?
That led to a second question – one I asked of several leading travel brands. When was the last time the boss of an airline, cruise line, tour operator or hotel brand tried to interact with their own company without identifying themselves?
When did they last try to do business with their brand, as an ordinary consumer? We often see politicians of all parties – be they in government or in opposition – say and do things that clearly indicate that they have no idea about ordinary people’s lives and concerns.
We see it at showbusiness award ceremonies too, where celebrities who don’t live in the same world as many of us pontificate on stage.
Mystery shopper
In my flight of fancy, after this negative experience with the cruise brand, I found myself thinking that perhaps industry elders should pass a rule whereby every travel brand boss should, for one day a month, go back to the shop floor or become an anonymous customer of their own company.
Think of how revealing it would be for a travel industry boss to experience, for themselves, what their customers go through when they deal with the brand, be it trying to buy a service or product, ask a question, make a complaint or generally interact with the company.
Services would improve overnight if an airline chief had to sit anonymously on a phone for hours waiting to be put through to someone or had to navigate past a chatbot that never seems to have a clue. And think of the fantastic PR opportunities for a travel brand if it said that once a month its bosses stepped into the shoes of its customers – anonymously.
Steve Jobs was right. To effect real change – to truly innovate and to endear your brand to the consumer and build brand loyalty – you need to work backwards from the customer experience.
So come on, travel bosses, you shouldn’t be too busy to champion your customers internally.
Let’s see you step into the customers’ shoes and experience your brand as most of us do.