In a recent blog about technology-enabled
customer experiences, I introduced the concept of the “microtouchpoint” and
its importance on delivering a great customer experience in a technology-enabled
world. Think for a moment about all of the interactions you have in daily life
– at retail, at restaurants, while traveling, etc. that incorporate high-tech
elements.
At hotels we have electronic keycards tied to an app.
At airports we have self-serve kiosks to access our boarding
passes.
At restaurants we can order and/or even pay the bill via
tablet.
All of these technological advancements can make you feel
like we have officially moved passed the imaginary technology that captured our
imagination in the original Star Trek series or the Jetsons cartoon!.
My
story about Starbucks in that blog is a perfect example. I now order
everything from the app on my phone and simply pick up my completed order, but
still have microtouchpoints that build my relationship with the baristas at my
local spot.
Recently I was traveling for business (I know, shocking) in
San Diego and was looking for a spot to grab dinner. I hopped in an Uber (chalk
that whole model up to a pretty spectacular tech-enabled customer experience
too, btdubs) from the airport headed to the area I would be staying, which was
a very industrial office park. Wanting something in walking distance wasn’t
going to leave me with a ton of options, but I happened upon one of those
conveyer belt sushi joints.
A host greeted me warmly and walked me a short five feet to
my seat (microtouchpoint 1 = 20 seconds). Then I was asked, by a bus boy, for
my drink order (microtouchpoint 2 = 5 seconds). For those of you who have not
experienced this dining trend yet, you basically sit at a sushi bar with
conveyor belts moving in front of you carrying every different variety of
sushi. You simply pull the plates you want off the belt. When you finish you
insert the plate in a slot in front of you and it calculates your total based
on the number of plates you deposit. This particular restaurant had two belts –
one for the standard menu items and one for custom orders that would stop right
in front of you. An iPad was affixed to each station allowing you to order.
Pretty much everything was automated, from ordering, to plate removal, to
paying my bill. In addition to the first two human interactions mentioned
above, there was one more and it was my drink refill (microtouchpoint 3=10
seconds). An entire meal (and I was lingering awhile – over an hour) with less
than a minute of human service combined, and all were seamless and pleasant.
Then there was one last, but meaningful, microtouchpoint. An
employee saw that I was about to order a soft serve ice cream for dessert on
the iPad and in one swift move, whispered a recommendation for a frozen tea
dessert instead in the same area. I checked out sans dessert and took his
advice. It was packed when I got there and amazing! I spent my time at the
restaurant catching up with my older son by phone and still had a great
customer experience made up from microtouchpoints that not only provided me
with the service I wanted and needed, but also gave me a great local dessert
recommendation. My only question
was trying to figure out how does one tip with this minimal about of
service. What do you think?
Another recent example of technology changing the customer
experience in the hospitality industry, is at hotels. As a matter of fact,
several companies have made it possible for you to check-in and access your key
, allowing you to skip the whole old-school check-in process, and instead head
straight to your room. The
unintended impact is a shift away from the guest and employee creating a
personal connecting during check-in.
This inherently changes the roles of staff at hotels. The
front desk employee will of course still be there, and happy to help.
However, I now see a bigger role
for the folks who used to be seen as much more peripheral – like the bellman
and housekeeping. You may have more contact and engage with these roles for a
greater length of time than you do with a front desk person. A hello in the
hallway from a housekeeper might become your only human touchpoint in a hotel
stay. This creates a heightened
need to truly understand and define the microtouchpoints. and maybe equally as
important to think about, how it impacts hiring decisions for these roles. If
the people on the periphery are not our key touchpoints, do we have to change
who we are hiring and why? What we pay them? How we train these employees? It’s
the same thing that happened with the person who sat me and refilled my water
at the sushi restaurant. There was no waiter. But my engagement was at least as
strong with someone refilling my water because he took the opportunity to
engage via a microtouchpoint!
The roles that used to exist in the background, are very
much evolving with the microtouchpoint model. In a way, each one of these roles
– from busboy to housekeeper – are now wearing a chief engagement officer hat,
aren’t they?
Businesses are moving toward tech-enabled experiences that
are helping people move past the mundane, transactional stuff more quickly and
spend more time in the heart of the customer experience. The under-a-minute
microtouchpoints are very much a new and unique opportunity to engage customers
and enhance their experiences.
One last story that relates to this. Recently a friend was
with her young daughter at Disney World in Orlando. Now, it’s no secret that
Disney hires very uniquely. We know, for example, that they refer to their
staff (all of them) as cast members. Everyone from the parking ticket
attendant, to the custodial staff, to Cinderella, has the same cheery
disposition and will tell you to have a “magical day” and mean it!
On this trip, my friend was sitting outside at one of the
restaurants in Tomorrowland as a man walked up to sweep up some trash.
Simultaneously, a little girl walked out of the restaurant in full Elsa garb
and wearing an “It’s my birthday” sash. Without missing a beat, the man stopped
sweeping and used a tool he had on him that had a piece of chalk at the end, to
draw a 15-second picture of Mickey Mouse with a Happy Birthday message right in
front of her. It was so slick and subtle but an incredibly amazing example of a
microtouchpoint that certainly impacted that little girl’s (and her parents’)
experience. He saw her birthday sash as a cue, and sprung into action to do
something that had been ingrained into him somehow through Disney. Happiest
place on earth indeed!
Here’s the net net of the whole thing. You can absolutely
enhance the customer experience with technology, as long as you maximize the
microtouchpoints.
And now more than ever, they are coming to life through unexpected people. It changes the
perspective about who you hire for these roles. People who used to blend into the
woodwork are now your primary touchpoint, and people who used to be primary
have a reduced role but they still need to make it count. So how do you
accomplish that?
Authenticity.
Your front line employees need to make the experience personal, like the dessert recommendation
from the busboy and the impromptu street art from the sweeper at Disney. The
possibilities are there and they are endless and it’s up to you to help your people make each interaction count,
no matter how small. Engage them in how important they are to the customer’s
experience and how they can elevate the customer experience by making it magical… one
micro experience at a time.
