All-Time Favorite Customer Experience

What is a great customer experience? Ask ten customer experience executives, you will get ten different answers. Many experts will say that it is a great experience in customer service. Others will say that it is a frictionless experience.

Allow me to illustrate my interpretation of a great customer experience by using my all-time favorite example. It happened on a cold, icy, windy and miserable morning in November 2014 in the parking lot of the Hilton Garden Inn Portland in Beaverton, Oregon. It has been almost a decade since that life changing event. I have shared this story with hundreds if not thousands of co-workers and customer experience professionals.

My Travel Misery

It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The company that I was working for made me travel on the weekend to the Beaverton Office for a Monday morning meeting. I was not a happy camper. Also, being a southerner in the United States, I was a weather snob. I love traveling to the Beaverton office during the summer when the weather is nice but in late November, not so much.

Once my flight landed, I drove my car rental to the Hilton Garden Inn Portland like I’ve done so many times before. I had a quick meal and went to bed getting ready for my week ahead. My alarm clock went off at 6:00 am. I followed my normal morning routine of shower and breakfast. I grabbed my laptop and proceeded to venture outside via the hotel lobby door.

It was the crack of dawn. The skies were gray and the chilly wind was blowing right through my shivering body. As I approached my car rental, I could see a sheath of ice coated on every car. This added to my misery. What is a southerner supposed to do?

The Red Hair Angel Who Saved Me

When I got to my car, I noticed a young lady with red hair bent over next to my car scraping her car windows. Trying to be friendly, I mumbled, ”Great, now I have to scrape mine too”.

This red hair angel looked up at me and smiled, “No sir, you don’t have to do that. I will scrape your windshield for me.” “What?”, I asked. I thought she was kidding. It was not a joke though. In fact, she waved her arms and flagged another person at the opposite end of the parking lot to assist. When the second person arrived, she said to him, “Hey Brandon. This gentleman is in a hurry and wants to get to work. Would you mind helping me to scrape his car windows?” In less than two minutes, these two strangers cleaned my windows free of ice.

I stood there watching, totally flabbergasted. What just happened? I had to introduce myself to these two strangers to learn more. These two were Hotel Hilton employees. What I discovered was that it was more than just a simple act of kindness. What I learned from them forever changed my perspective on customer experience and customer success.

Customer Experience Lessons from Hilton Hotel Employees

Open Your Eyes - Identify Customer Pain Points

Brandon, the Assistant Manager told me the following. The hotel employees realized that car rental companies were starting to cut back on supplying ice scrapers in their cars. Consequently, hotel customers would run to the front desk to ask to borrow ice scrapers. There could never be enough ice scrapers to meet the demand. Also, they recognized that some customers come from the south not having to ever deal with icy car windows. It often caused undue stress. Even when customers know what to do, it usually adds time to their morning rush hour. The customers oftentimes end up showing up to work late.

The Birth of a Wonderful Customer Experience Program

The staff at this Hotel Garden decided to come up with a program to address this icy issue. They would all listen to the weather forecast every evening. If frost is in the forecast next morning, all the staff members will arrive to work an hour early. They will proceed to scrape ice from every hotel guest’s car windshield in their parking lot.

Proactively Solve the Customer Pain Point Before It Happens

Had I not run into the hotel staff members scraping windshields that morning, I would have never realized that they were the customer experience angels behind this “delighting the customers” experience. Joanna, the red head young lady was the one who made my stay exceptional and extraordinary.

Solving Customer Pain Points Can Be Done With Little Cost

I love this program. It is both simple and effective. Except for an hour of employees’ morning time, this program did not require lots of resources. No formal processes or systems required.

Humans Helping Humans

In the customer experience and customer success disciplines, it all boils down to one thing. Humans genuinely helping humans. Once the connection happens, it will be forever lasting.

What is your all-time customer experience story that you like to tell? Please share it below.