Giving a choice to customers helps them to desire to be with you more. The area of choice should be in those areas which matter most to them.
As I type this, I’m sitting in seat 9a on a Red Coach Luxury Bus. I had heard about this before and with a trip to Atlanta in store for me, I decided to try this over flying or driving.
More on the customer service gem for you and me but first, a little background. i often travel from Orlando, my base, to Atlanta for business. Driving by rental car is my preferred method as I like the convenience of deciding when to leave, have access in Atlanta to drive around and the ability to listen to podcasts and have an enjoyable ride up and back. Sometimes flying is good if it is a quick “up and back” kind of trip. This time we decided to take this new-fangled luxury bus just to experience it.
They have done so much right it is amazing. The location in Orlando is near the airport – easy to get to. Parking was a breeze and they also have parking conveniently ready for my next flight. Now that I know that I plan to use them in the future. The waiting area was quite pleasant, comfortable and clean. The bathroom was far ahead of any public bathroom I’ve ever experienced at any airport. The staff were very friendly and helpful.
Then we got on the bus. Yes, the seats are comfortable, leather and they are better than many first class seats I’ve been on with airplanes. I heard they have Wi-Fi on board and when testing, sure enough, they do. In fact, I can write this now on my post because they have Wi-Fi. Another impressive touch was the fact that they have electrical outlets like you’d have at home next to each seat! I’m using electricity now to power my laptop. It is very nice to not worry about losing my charge.
The ride is nice and it is good to know that a professional, well-trained driver is navigating on the roads rather than me driving. I’m able to get some good work done, answer several important email messages, post some tweets and facebook entries and browse some important information on the Net.
The experience is almost perfect with one major exception. They have five large TV screens playing a movie and the sound is way too loud. Ugh! When you’re trying to work that is major annoyance and bother. Why not provide individual locations to view videos with accompanying headsets like it is available on many airlines? Give customers a choice! I can understand that some might want to see a video but why not provide it in a format that is convenient for all end users? If I wanted to sleep on the ride (not an outrageous choice), it would be impossible with the loud video playing.
In business, customers have a choice. They can choose to be with you or not. Sometimes everything can be done right but one, important, seemingly little oversight can make the entire experience very bad. Am I going to ride with RedCoach again? I don’t know but I’d like to. They really need to address this issue as it has come up on feedback forums from other customers. The whole experience has been very pleasant and highly desirable with this one exception. This one negative is huge and could keep many from using their otherwise excellent service.
Think about the mix of your services. What is working well? Do you have any significant areas that would halt an otherwise great experience for your customers? Give them a choice. Besides, this is great market research to find what customers really want. Build the systems in place to meet their needs and get their feedback. Then listen to them and make the appropriate adjustments.
Check out their website at http://redcoachusa.com/. If you are in the market where they serve, check it out. I hope this one feature is addressed soon. I’d like to ride with them many more times in the future.
What do you think? I’d value your comments.
Terry
Terry Brock, MBA, CSP, CPAE
Member, Professional Speaker Hall of Fame
Marketing Coach, Professional Speaker, Blogger
www.TerryBrock.com, Terry@TerryBrock.com
