What Cocktails and Doorknobs Do for Building Customer Relationships

Bite-Sized Delight From the Episode:

• Encouraging employees to walk a mile in customers’ shoes can only make your customer experience better.
• Shockingly few business owners prioritize building customer relationships.
• Often, it’s the tiny details that elevate a customer experience from lackluster to luxurious.

CX PRESS: Hyatt’s New HQ Puts Employees in Customers’ Shoes [01:19–12:35]

Hyatt has designed its new Chicago headquarters to mimic the lobbies of its high-end hotels. This design choice—which includes a luxurious dining area and guestroom-style conference rooms—makes the customer experience a real, tangible part of coming to work every day. Hyatt’s decision reminds us just how closely linked the employee experience is to the customer experience.

Tweetable Quotes

It's critical that employees experience what your customers experience. #CX http://bit.ly/2hD2dAx Click To Tweet
Make your office the kind of place that employees and customers alike enjoy visiting. #CX http://bit.ly/2hD2dAx Click To Tweet

Takeaways

• Hyatt’s office design ensures employees understand the customer experience of staying at a Hyatt hotel—simply by showing up to work.
• The empathy an employee gains from walking a mile in a customer’s shoes makes customer experiences better and leads to new insights.

THIS JUST HAPPENED: Flight Attendants and Feature Woes [12:51–19:07]

On one of Joey’s recent overnight flights, a flight attendant introduced passengers to a quirky feature of the aircraft in a clever and memorable way. This smooth move pre-empted future headaches and improved the flying experience for everyone on board.

Tweetable Quotes

Takeaways

• Small details of the user experience—button placement, color, etc.—can have a massive impact on the quality of the customer experience.
• Test any new feature of your product or experience as much and as realistically as possible before rolling it out to customers.

I LOVE IT/CAN’T STAND IT!: Hotel Edition [19:30–28:32]

There are the little things that make hotel stays great experiences, like complimentary room upgrades, fluffy towels, and water bottles. And then there are the infuriating things: early morning housekeeping, ignored complaints, and tiny signs a room hasn’t been properly cleaned.

Tweetable Quotes

Takeaways

• Small, inexpensive details of the hotel experience can go a long way to putting guests at ease.
• Customers will remember—and appreciate—the choice to offer high-end perks to guests staying in mid-range rooms.

CHECK OUT THIS NUMBER: Too Few Business Owners Care About Customer Relationships [28:51–31:11]

Shockingly, only 35 of small business owners report worrying about proactively nurturing customer relationships. Dan and Joey discuss why that number shouldn’t be any lower than 100 percent.

Tweetable Quotes

Takeaways

• Proactively reaching out and building customer relationships isn’t an optional aspect of good business—it’s vital.
• If your company isn’t leaving a lasting impression, consumers will find a company that is.

Be a Part of the Show!

We’d love to hear about your great customer experiences, which segments you like, and your ideas for future episodes!

Are You Looking for Things We Referenced?

• Why Hyatt Designed Its New Headquarters To Feel Like Its Hotels
• Sleepless Over Customer Experience: Small Business Leaders Top Sales and Service Concerns and How to Fix Them
• Digital Transformation: 3 Areas of Customer Experience to Invest in Right Now

See you next week!