by Recently I travelled to the US to work with a client, as always it is the experience of the journey in which I find my most relevant stories and there is always no coincidence. I tell a lot of stories and share my experiences to make a point, whilst working through research results that I am there to deliver and work through with the team. This journey was no different. By the time I met with my clients team I had one very juicy, relevant story to tell.
Here’s how that story goes…. I didn’t arrive in Seattle until midnight, so I contacted my hotel from the airport in LAX to let them know I would be a late arrival – arriving at the hotel around 1.00am.
I was taking responsibility to ensure they were expecting me at that time. They thanked me for the call and assured me that a staff member would definitely be there to welcome me.
When I arrived at 1am, the door to the hotel was locked, I pushed the buzzer and waited, I pushed the buzzer again and waited and then I pushed the buzzer again and waited…. 5 minutes later a staff member answered and couldn’t hide their surprise – this staff member definitely wasn’t expecting me. She didn’t say ‘Hello Mr Cherry, we have been expecting you”, or anything like that, in fact it then took her 15 minutes to organise my room even though I had, had a room booked for 7 days. To top it off its now 1.30am and I am starting a workshop at 9am.
Finally, she sent me to room 235. I’m never going to forget this room, it’s on the 2nd floor miles away from the reception area, at the back of the hotel complex. No offer to escort me to my room or help with my luggage so I carried my luggage (one big suitcase and two other bags) up one level and down the long corridor.
I opened the door and the first thing I saw was a pizza box left on the table. I am thinking pizza, that’s a bit unusual maybe if they had clearly been expecting me, I would have thought wow, they knew I was arriving late, and they had organised a pizza – that’s really great service. Then I turned around and noticed the bed was unmade. Bottom line is they she sent me to a room that wasn’t made up and ready for me and it’s now 1.45am. Back to reception I went and as you can imagine, I was pretty grumpy by this time.
Emily was the person who served me, she didn’t say much, she just started the process to find me another room. I interrupted her and said “you could apologise,” her response was simply “sorry” with no genuine feeling or eye-contact.
Once she found me a room, I asked her to escort me to make sure there’s no one in it. I’m tired, grumpy, and clearly, I wasn’t too trusting. Eventually, I got to bed at 2am.
Now my point is this experience relates directly to ‘Above the Line, Below the Line’, I could blame Emily but how was it was possible to book me a room that hadn’t been cleaned and wasn’t ready for the next customer? That’s a system problem.
94% Of Problems Are System Related And Only 6% Are People Related
The next morning, I went and spoke to the hotel manager, who was excellent in handling my complaint. He really listened and got my world.
Being in the world of your customer is like really putting yourself in their shoes and feeling what it would be like for someone who has had to deal with …..
He apologized and reiterated my experience – “I am sorry there was no one waiting to meet you, and that there was no offer to escort you to your room or help you with your luggage and that you were sent to a room that was not made up and ready for you. I completely understand why you would have been feeling grumpy. I’m so sorry. I really apologise. It is completely unprofessional of us.”
He apologized and reiterated my experience – “I am sorry there was no one waiting to meet you, and that there was no offer to escort you to your room or help you with your luggage and that you were sent to a room that was not made up and ready for you. I completely understand why you would have been feeling grumpy. I’m so sorry. I really apologise. It is completely unprofessional of us.”
And he actually told me what he was going to do. “I’m going to make sure you are charged our lowest room rate for each of the seven days you are staying with us.” Which he did.
But here’s the point, if you asked me about this hotel, I’m going to tell you the rest of this stay was fine, but I don’t really want to stay there again. It was good with a big ‘BUT’.
Had this hotel had good systems, they would have been expecting me at 1am, greeted me by name the moment I walked through their door and have had my room ready for me. They would have made it easy for me, especially given I have just landed in the US and I am arriving very early in the morning.
When I look at all the work we do with clients, it’s like the moment you don’t get the beginning right – you are on your back foot and that’s a hard place to come back from, you are in recovery mode from that moment on.
You Always Want Your Best Foot Forward
I often tell the story of Fred Allen, who was a famous All Blacks coach.
One day to prove a point, he lined up all of the All Blacks during a training session and said I’m going to race you 10 meters.
They laughed and responded by saying something like “really, you’re an old man, there’s no way.” But Fred said “there’s one condition. When I say go, you’re going to take two steps backwards. One step, then the 2nd step, then you run.”
He then had them practice – one step, then the 2nd step, then run. Then he asked them, when I say go, what are you going to do? And they replied – take one step, then the 2nd step, then run.
And they lined up and when Fred said go he ran forward and they took one step, then the 2nd step, then ran.
Who do you think won?
After the race Fred asked the guys, ‘Why do you think I won?” They replied because you cheated. Fred listened and said, “No, let’s think about it. How can I beat all of you young, fit men, all in your 20s and 30s. And I’m 80 years old? How can I beat you over 10 meters?
The moral of the story – Fred took away their momentum and put them on the back foot.
When we are on the backfoot… to recover takes so much energy.
If you start on your back foot in the game, you have already lost momentum and it’s really hard to recover that momentum. It’s the same with team members, leadership and customer loyalty.
We want to continue to move forward.
In the movie King Richard, which was about the Williams sisters. There is a scene where Venus Williams is playing her first professional game at only 17 years of age old against the number one player in the world and would have easily won in the first set.
That player knew she had to interrupt the momentum, so she took a break of about 15 or 20 minutes and came back and won the game. Venus lost her momentum.
In sharing these stories in the workshop later that day, the team were able to see the gaps in the hotel’s operating system, which was very relevant to the research results I was delivering and the customer feedback we were working through.
Where this clients system lets them down and puts them on the back foot is delivery, specifically delivery dates. A high percentage of their customers are annoyed that they have to wait longer for delivery than originally proposed.
Where are you over promising and under delivering?
Where is your operating system letting you down?
Where are you losing momentum?.
If you would like to have a chat with me about the ‘‘94% Of Problems Are System Related And Only 6% Are People Related‘ contact me I look forward to hearing from you.
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Warm regards,
Craig