Page 34 - Flathead Beacon // 9.23.15

SKI SWAP
Kalispell Ski Club
BUSINESS IS PERSONAL MARK RIFFEY
Saturday, October 3rd - 9am - 5pm
ELIVERY OF A PRODUCT OR service is about far more than the act of your client opening the
box or getting the service they paid for. An example should give my assertion the context it needs to clarify why experience management is so important.
A need-to-know basis
I recently flew a major airline from Chicago to Kansas City. In the middle of the boarding process, one of the gate agents came out of the jetway, halted all boarding halfway through the zone three’s entry to the plane, got on the phone and then disappeared back down the jetway.
About 10 minutes passed without a word from the agent minding the board- ing pass scans or anyone else. Finally, the agent who halted the boarding came back out and gave the agent scanning boarding passes the all clear to resume boarding. All of this happened without a word to passengers. It seems we were on a need to know basis and we didn’t need to know.
After my flight, a subtle dig from the airline’s Twitter account reinforced the culture leadership has established and is perhaps indicative of the kind of mindset the recently departed CEO put in place.
Why experience management matters
Did our lack of awareness of the situa- tion affect the final outcome of the flight – a safe on-time arrival? Of course not.
Did our lack of awareness of the sit- uation positively influence our confi- dence in the provider’s ability to consis- tently and safely deliver the service we purchased? Not really. Instead, it gave the impression that delivery is all that matters – an assertion that doesn’t hold water.
It isn’t as if the passengers on the flight needed to know the gritty details of the delay. This isn’t about needing to know nitty-gritty details that would nega- tively affect your confidence in the busi- ness delivering the service - and in this case, the safety of that delivery. Even so, knowing that the delay is not unusual, will be cleared up in 10 or 15 minutes and will not affect an on-time departure is enough information to calm a ner- vous group of passengers who might be concerned about safety, about making a
Saturday October 4th 9:00 - 5:00
Sunday, October 4th - 11am - 3pm
Sunday October 5th 11:00 - 3:00
Consignments taken Friday, October 2nd 1:30pm - 8pm
Consignments taken Friday, October 3rd 1:30 - 8:00
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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
Flathead County Fairgrounds Kalispell
• Large Selection of New and Used Winter Gear
• Large Selection of Children’s Equipment
• Local Ski Representatives on Hand for Season Passes • Waxing Available
• Sign up for Kalispell Ski Club Membership
Proceeds support the Kalispell Ski Club’s FREE learn to ski program
For More Information Go to Our Website:
www.kalispellskiclub.com
FVCC Festival of Flavors
September 25 - October 3
Proceeds support FVCC scholarships.
for scholarships
Fullscheduleofevents,menus&tickets: 756-3632•www.fvcc.edu/festival
Festival Kick-off
Spanish Paella Party
Friday, Sept. 25 6 p.m. ~ FVCC Campus
Culinary Students Sangria, Spanish Wines, Local Wines & Brews Spanish Guitarist -
Leif Christian
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? Email him at [email protected].
EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
DMATTERS
connection, or the likelihood their flight will actually happen.
Simply stating these three details (sit- uation normal, expected time until reso- lution and lack of impact on delivery) will do the trick. Taking these few issues off the table improves the experience, com- municates that you have your clients’ back and understand that you get the importance of delivering the service as well as the issues that define its impor- tance to your clients.
An opportunity to build
When you can build the client’s con- fidence in your ability to deliver and improve the credibility you have to trust that you can handle whatever comes your way, use the opportunity humbly.
It reminds me a good bit of the refrig- erator sheet story that I use to demon- strate how a real estate agent provides a confidence building framework of “things that frequently happen during a real estate transaction that I routinely handle for you so don’t sweat them.”
The same airline missed an opportu- nity to show their understanding of the nature of their clients’ use only a week earlier. I was flying out of a small rural airport on a very small regional jet. It was the first flight of the day in this tiny plane leaving an airport that is not a hub. This means that the first flight of the day is always going to be boarded by clients who need to make a connection in a hub city so they can reach their intended destination.
On a plane that only seats 50, this produces a group of people who are not inclined to give up their seats, unlikely to miss a flight due to a connection and unlikely to have an opportunity to easily book the next flight out without reper- cussions. The logic that this sort of rural flight would be overbooked by 20 percent ignores all of these qualities/needs of the passengers involved, yet the 20 percent overbooking is exactly what happened.
At a hub airport, we may not like over- booking, but it’s easy to understand the justification. The combination of first flight out, rural airport and small plane make it an anti-customer decision that sets the company up for a bad experi- ence for their entire service delivery experience – a situation you don’t want to create.