The Customer Experience & The Managewich

Sep 30

Photo by Tamer Shabaneh

My hubby and I  just got back from an awesome trip to Cancun.   I bought the trip somewhat last minute from Sams Club of all places.  It was a surprise for Russ’s birthday, so I wanted it below the radar.  The trip was almost too good to be true price-wise, and even though I did my research, my biggest concern was that the hotel was going to be awful.

The trip included transfers to and from the airport.  If you’ve ever been to Cancun, then you know what that gauntlet of people trying to trick you into a free van ride looks like.  The service was flawless.  Our plane was 2 hours late, and they were still right there to meet us in a nice, air-conditioned, reasonable late model van.

When we got to the hotel, the lobby was clean and cool.  We had welcome drinks.  We met with the concierge so that he could share with us what was going on in town, at the hotel, and the amenities that were available at their sister resorts.  Never once were we pressured into taking the “3 hour tour.”

Then, they took us up to our room.  It wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  From the looks of it, the hotel’s being remodeled, and our room, while habitable, was not finished.  The floor was still the old brick, not the marble tile that was in the other rooms we’d seen.  There were no pictures on the walls.   Some of the fixtures were new.  Some needed replacing.

What does this have to do with you, the managewich?

I was thinking back to my experiences in IT.  Most of the time, I was brought in to “turn around” failing projects, products or systems, and there were times that it was really frustrating.  There were times that I was tired of trying to fix a crap product that I didn’t have the resources to fix.  I bet a lot of you are stuck in that boat in an economy where companies aren’t spending.

We used the phrase “Putting lipstick on a pig” a lot in IT.  There was a school of thought that if we made pretty screens, no one would notice that the program behind it sucked as much as our attitudes.

So, thinking about lipstick on a pig….  I was amused that the cleaning staff made towel animals, toilet paper flowers, and fans out of the bedspread in a room that looked like a low end Motel 6.  Still, the room was spotless.  We had nice toiletries.  Good TV.  Decent bed.  Ample air-conditioning.  The product wasn’t that bad.  It just needed some lipstick.

And, the lipstick was in the experience.  Everything in working order. Kindness.  Flawless service.

In the past, I too was prone to throw in the towel when I worked on a product that I felt was substandard.  I think I would have been better off had I learned to make towel animals.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Tags: Action Coach, Brain-based Coaching, business coach, Carolann Jacobs, coaching, Corporate Coach, DFW, Executive Coaching, Extraordinary Results, facilitation, Inspired Workplace, Leadership, Legacy Leadership, managewich, Middle Management, middle manager, Neuroleadership, vivid epiphany