It may be your partners
I was speaking with a friend recently who had some car trouble. Hers is a fancy car (much more fancy than mine) and she’s used to having concierge-type service and treated very well by her car company when she needs help.
However, on this instance, her experience with the tow-truck driver who came to help her was decidedly not luxury. The guy wasn’t offensive or objectionable, but he was late, was a poor communicator (both in manner and style), and sort of curt when it all came down to it.
Now, this isn’t checking into a 5-star resort in a tropical destination…This is a breakdown along the highway and someone coming along to tow your car to the shop. So of course, expectations should be appropriate, and she didn’t overlook the satisfaction of simply getting the job done…anybody’s an angel in a situation like that.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how often Brand Promises are impacted—negatively, often—by the company we choose to keep; which is to say, our business partners. […]
Leave Me Alone as the next CX
I write a lot (these days, at least, it seems) about cars. Last year I had a lot of interactions with my car company and other support organizations having to do with my automotive needs. So I guess with it front of mind, it seems appropriate that this little anecdote popped into my head the other day:
Do you remember in 2022 when BMW decided to make heated seats a subscription service?
The tl;dr on that is that the company was considering (Did they go through with it? I don’t know, but this video posted by BMW a month ago seems to suggest it’s happening in the UK.) linking heated seats—which used to be a hallmark of luxury automotive brands, but like onboard communication systems have since become much more ubiquitous, present in many non-luxury cars as well—to a subscription service. The upshot being that, sure your car comes with seat heaters installed and ready-to-go, but if you want to actually use them—by, you know, turning them on—you have to pay a monthly service charge for the privilege. […]
Your Brand Promise is Everything
I’m not saying I’m a big shot or anything, but mine is a luxury car.
Okay, to prove I’m not a big shot, I’ll concede that it’s the entry-level first-time-buying-a-luxury-car model from a certain German automaker. And, I bought it a while ago. I’ve had it for a while. So yes, boujie I’m not…yet (keep that Growth Mindset going!)
But here’s the thing: Recently I had an experience with this brand that was decidedly not luxury in any way whatsoever. […]
You’ve lost me by then
You know that I’m big into walking in your Customers’ shoes. I write about it all the time and it plays a huge part of the book. But you’ve got to go into it with the right frame of mind. It’s not practical to expect you can shed all your priors and blinders, but you’ve got to assert yourself as best you can and imagine the experience your Customers are having. […]
Why do you ask?
When you ask an analyst a question, ideally it’s met with several in return. That’s because good analysts are inquisitive not just about what you want to determine, but why you’re looking for a quantitative answer. A healthy dialog between you and an analyst will lead to much better analysis and even more importantly, that analysis will come with much better insights. So rather than just sending an analyst off to crunch numbers and produce a figure for you as an output, it’s usually best to chat with him or her a little about what you’re trying to accomplish. […]
I don’t care that you care
I wrote recently about an interaction I had with a support representative in which I told her I was sorry that she was working for a brand that disrespected her enough to preclude her from being allowed to help me. I’m not sure if she appreciated that I was being honest and sincere in my sentiment, but I imagine the interaction made more of an impression on me, as she surely had other calls to take the rest of her day.
Reflecting on that, it occurred to me that ‘sincere’ apologies are often the norm when an agent isn’t allowed to help me…but going the other direction. […]
