XM Weekly Inspiration | 29082022
onome deBBie akwara
Organizational transformation leader driving strategic shifts in customer, product, employee, and brand experience | 4x Top 100 Global Thought Leader | Keynote speaker redefining global perspectives on Africa
Hey!
We are just 2 days away from the last quarter in 2022. Isn't that amazing?
One of the things I like to do with my daughter during the long school holidays is going to the movies and my favourite day of the week is Wednesday because movie tickets are cheaper in my city. ??
Guess what? I am not the only mom that does this! Every time I go to the cinemas on a Wednesday during the holidays, the people I find there are mostly parents and children.
From a customer journey perspective, our routine is pretty straightforward. Starting on Tuesday evenings we:
From our routine above, you can see that timeliness plays an important role in the kind of service offered to not just my daughter and me but other parents and children as well. Herein lies my experience management (XM) inspiration for this week.
Timeliness & Customer Service Delivery: A Filmhouse Cinema Case Study
On a certain Wednesday, my daughter and I went to the cinema to see the movie; Superpets.
As is our routine, we arrived at the Filmhouse cinema about 15 minutes before the 12:30 pm movie and discovered that the front office team was just setting up for the day. We waited in line for about 10 minutes and yes, all parents waiting in line started expressing our dissatisfaction wondering why they had not started setting up earlier for the day if they had communicated a view time of 12:30 pm. #timeliness
The clock hit 12:30 pm and we were still waiting. While waiting, I overheard a mom (customer) complaining about the quality of the popcorn. Apparently, they were serving popcorn made the previous day and the customer was expressing her dissatisfaction about it stating that if she was going to pay a premium for popcorn, it should be freshly made requesting to speak with the manager. Out of curiosity when I made it to the payment counter, I asked the lady at the counter why they were unprepared before customers arrived and she said they had a meeting.
It sounded familiar. I remembered my experience working in the frontline as a customer service officer at a bank. I recalled how we would have meetings before the branch opened for operations at 8 am and how mandatorily, we had to end the meeting at 7:30 leaving 30 minutes for all operations branch staff to get prepared for customers. It was considered an offence for you not to be at your desk all prepared when the doors open at 8 am no matter the issue that needed to be discussed. My head of operations at the time was very strict about it.
The same attitude should apply to every business, especially at cinemas where time is of the essence. The movie comes on at a specific time and using insights from the average ticket sale start time and the volume of tickets sold before a movie starts, cinema managers should predict when to get all set up and give the frontline employees enough time to prep - no meetings. ??
As a cinema customer working with a 12:30 pm movie start time, I expect that:
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It all comes down to timing. Timing has a huge impact on the quality of service a cinema offers its customers. You can train your team all you want, and provide all the tools they need but if you don't work within a specific time window, you are bound to have dissatisfied customers.
Your Experience Management (XM) Inspiration For The Week
What role does timing play in your customer's experience particularly as it relates to service delivery? It is not enough to know your customer's expectation of timing, it is important to understand why. When you understand why, THINK DIFFERENTLY about how you design and manage your operations to fit within specific timelines out of respect for your customers.
You are bound to have customers that stick to time and others that really don't mind but if your service/product is time bound, it is important to think about your time to serve in relation to your customers' access to products/services after a purchase.
Great customer service is delivered on time. Not on time from a business perspective but on time from a customer's perspective.
The truth is, not adhering to timelines you have set negatively impacts your customer's perception of your business. As in the above-cited experience, customers described the cinema employees as being 'disorganized' and I noticed right away that the ladies at the counter serving customers were trying really hard to get things going amid the complaints and questions.
Not keeping to time negatively affects your team as well. Why make them do things in a hurry and make them look inefficient when you can plan ahead and make them look like geniuses?
Think about it this week and:
Remember that when you respect your customer's time, they will love you for it and that can give you a competitive advantage. You can gain brand integrity through timely service delivery.
Have a good one! ??
deBBie akwara?(Pan Africanism CX Advocate)