What I Learned About Customer Experience From A Recent Vietnam Trip

I’ve been known to be impatient and demanding of good service. Believe me, I’m constantly reminded by family and close friends, so it’s got to be true. But I prefer to view my “quirks” as me being curious and fascinated by passionate and/or highly skilled people.?

Perhaps it’s due to my early years training as a designer, but as far as I can recall, I tend to go through life with a curious eye. I like to observe and analyze each experience, to dig out insights from it. I break down both good as well as bad experiences and work backwards to draw key lessons.

Recently, I took a vacation to Da Nang, a beautiful coastal city in Vietnam, with my family and couldn’t help but make a few observations about customer experience during this journey.?

Here’s what I learnt about customer experience from my recent trip:

This was the first time we’ve traveled outside of Singapore since the start of the pandemic. And when we arrived at the hotel, it took my breath away. Stunning, modern, spacious grounds with beautiful landscaping. The main swimming pool had a lovely pool bar, but as I walked closer to it, I noticed that the bar stools inside the swimming pool were quite a bit higher than the water level. This made it very difficult to actually sit on the stools and because they were “out of the water”, the seat was scalding hot. Now, if you’ve been to Da Nang in the summer, you’ll know that the afternoon sun and the resulting heat is truly something else. Over the next few days, I started to notice a common theme around the property - they replicated the designs from world-class hotels, but forgot to think about how things were actually being used.?

My takeaway: Use your own product and get a sense of what it feels like to be your own customer.

One of the things I love about Vietnam is their people. They have a great sense of pride, are friendly, genuine and sincere. And our Guest Relations Manager that was assigned to us upon check-in was exactly that. Instead of having to call the front desk or fill in an online form if we needed any assistance, she was actually reachable on channels that was convenient for me. Being on vacation, with great wifi, we could easily connect with her on Whatsapp for anything we needed and receive a response almost immediately.

My takeaway: Be where your customers are. If a majority of your customers use a particular channel, show up on this channel and meaningfully engage with them.

After a couple of days at the hotel, our Guest relations Manager asked my wife if it would be possible to send to her a family picture. We thought it was quite odd and wasn’t quite sure why she needed it. But because we didn’t want to come across as rude or ignoring her, we decided to send her a low quality, and quite frankly, terrible picture. As it turns out, she printed it, put it in a little frame with a thank you note and left it in our villa. What a wonderful surprise!

My takeaway: Go the extra mile for your customers but be mindful of cultural nuances. Set clear expectations when needed. In this case, when we sent back a hazy photo, our Guest Relations Manager could have responded by clearly stating the purpose and assuring us our data is safe!?

During our stay, we made several day trips to various other places like Ba Na Hills and Hoi An. Being touristy places, and not wanting to deal with touting and scams, we figured the best way was to hire a private car to take us there. This was arranged with the help of the hotel and the process was straightforward with all the cost, such as entry tickets, best time to visit, how long we should plan to stay and what to expect clearly shared with us. There were no additional hidden costs, or unexpected surprises.

My takeaway: Be transparent with your customers. This goes a long way in building trust and long term customer loyalty.

Our Guest Relations Manager (did I mention how much I appreciated her and what an asset she is to the resort?) always followed up to make sure we were taken care of, checking on us to see if we had enough water in the room, if the turndown service was done, if we needed a buggy to ferry us around, if room service was on time, essentially making our trip care-free and enjoyable.

My takeaway: Remove friction from your customer’s journey.

The entire process from check-in to check-out was elegantly simple. When you travel with young children, “simple” is really appreciated. Resting on a couch with a welcome drink in hand and a cold refreshing towel to cool down from the scorching summer heat, all we had to do was to provide our passport for reference and log onto their free wi-fi. Everything could be done via Whatsapp on my mobile, which was with me all the time. There was no need to use any technology or channel or download their own mobile app. Brilliant.

My takeaway: Solve for your customer, not for your systems!

Looking back, I realized what I really appreciated was how personalized and easy the whole experience felt. In a world where time is a rare commodity, finding ways to treat your customers as human beings and creating end-to-end seamless & personalized experiences has become even more important. And I am not the only one who feels this way. A 2021 study revealed that 71% of Singaporean consumers are more likely to buy again from brands which treat them like an individual, rather than the same as any other customer.?

This got me thinking about an important question: Personalized experience is easier to deliver when a business is just starting out, but at some point, most companies make the decision to scale their business. But how can they continue to deliver remarkable customer experiences at scale with limited resources?

When a company is ready to scale (i.e to grow its business faster than its investments), numerous challenges crop up. They have more customers to support, more tools to manage, and more customer touchpoints to maintain. All while managing increasing expectations on the experience the company delivers.? In essence, the business needs to support a growing customer base without continuously adding headcount, and without the quality of its customer experience declining. This is where smart investment in technology can help.

Essentially, you need a single source of truth that empowers your front office teams to deepen their relationships with customers and provide a best-in-class experience. A CRM platform can solve this.?

But a CRM platform is only the first step. In addition, you need a suite of products built on top of the CRM which provide your Marketing, Sales, Operations, and Customer Service teams the tools they need to utilize the data to serve their customers. For example, HubSpot offers Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub, built natively on top of its CRM platform.?

Every customer interaction is seamlessly synced to the contact’s timeline so your whole team has a clear understanding of the person, not just the persona. For example: when a Sales team uses Sales Hub and a Customer Service team uses Service Hub, both teams gain access to the same customer data in a centralized CRM. And because each Hub follows the same approach to recording and storing data, it becomes equally easy for each team to access not only the data they generate, but also the data that the other team generates. This gives both the Sales team and the Customer Service team a holistic view of the customer, enabling each of them to tailor their tactics and personalize their outreach. This level of alignment and data allows your team to create a more personalized and seamless customer experience — ultimately helping your business grow better.

And finally, I hope my Guest Relations Manager in Vietnam is reading this article and conveying the key insights to their Management team to encourage them to scale their operations to new locations. Hopefully, I have the chance to enjoy their service once again in some other part of the world!