Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A thought on service: "Does your coffee cup fit?"


Last week, I was on the road for business. Five hotels in five days meant that I saw a wide range of facilities and met a lot of people. From simple to fancy, happy to apathetic, you see quite the variety over the period of a week.

When I wake up in a hotel, it doesn't matter what hotel, I normally need coffee. See, I don’t sleep well in hotels when I travel on my own. After close to 20 years of marriage, I sleep well when my wife is lying beside me and after I've checked one last time at night that the kids are comfortable in their beds. My body doesn't understand alone – and I'm perfectly alright about that. This being the case, to me, coffee in the morning in a hotel room is very important.

Every hotel seems to offer a different in-room coffee experience. Some have the older classic two-cup pots; others have upped their game with single serve Keurig machines. In one of the rooms I camped out in, they had a low tech, single cup machine. To add ‘value’, they provided take out cups. No mugs, just the to-go cups. Fine – a trade-off to keep the coffee station simple. I can live with trade-offs.

Unfortunately, all this good intention was scuppered by one small detail. 

The to-go cups were too tall to fit into the coffee maker.

Yes. The one vessel in the entire room that was put there for the sole purpose of capturing the beautiful coffee nectar as it came forth from the machine (I did say I needed coffee...) didn't fit into the machine.

I was stunned. How had no one bothered to see if the travel cup they provided, an intentional decision made most likely with the best of intentions, actually fit into the machine?

So what do I do? Being me, I change the cup and make it work. I carefully fold, twist and crush the edges of that cup down until the rim is low enough to fit into the machine. Once the coffee fills the ‘modified’ vessel, I pour it into the other non-mutilated cup. I have found a solution to an operator’s problem, one that impacts the overall value of the experience.

Here is the real question. How many times have you done something for your customers with the best of intentions, say change a segment of a product or a service, but failed to check and see if it fits within the existing delivery system? Are you making decisions from the position of a disengaged operator or through the eyes and actions of a customer? 

Too many business operators think that when we preach about amazing service, we are simply putting personal interactions above product interactions. This is where you would be confused.

The second that my coffee cup doesn't fit into the coffee machine, we have a service delivery breakdown. My private interaction with the coffee cup, a product interaction, has created mental disharmony and service disappointment, a personal interaction. They are combined, intimately related and ultimately inseparable.

Service is about every moment that your customer interacts with your brand, whether that is a person or a product. Customers don’t differentiate disappointment.

So – go check. Does your coffee cup fit?

6 comments:

  1. That's a great post! Thanks for sharing your observations. Now, where's my coffee?!

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    1. Lol - coffee's on me next time I'm in C'town Hannah!

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  2. Ha, ha...nice written example of the importance of looking at the entire process. Imagine you got some points at home with your wife with the introductory comments above. Nice going...totally support you with those efforts.

    It would be interesting to investigate further to why the cup was to small for the machine...can just picture an employee being required to reduce supply cost and thus goes out and sources a cheaper cup but does not consider that it does not synch with the coffee machine.

    Nice job...certainly a good story to share.

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    1. Thanks Jim! I think that it was a simple case of someone not checking, substituting a cup used in location A with the in-room system. Cheers for the comment!

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  3. AWESOME post! I love the analogy to customer service. But to do this in true @unmarketing style you need to call out the hotel LOL.

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    1. Indeed Anita! The only issue with this great stay was the coffee maker / cup that stimulated me to write about it. My brain works in metaphors.

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