In business, a consistent experience is often the key to establishing comfort among your consumers. While I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't surprise them by going above and beyond their expectations, it's important to get the basics right first and deliver on your promises.


Here's a recent example of a situation that didn't add up. I recently visited Toronto for a family event. And, while standing at the check-in counter of our hotel, I listened to a woman explain her problem to the attendant at the desk. Seems the representative she spoke to when she called the hotel's reservation line had told her something about this particular location that wasn't true.
So here she stood pleading her case to the person on site .... and that person was stuck in the unenviable position of having to explain that what she was told wasn't true. Of course, she explained, the only reason she had booked at this particular hotel was because of the promise that had been made to her. While the attendant was very apologetic, it hardly solved the problem.
So why did this stand out so much to me? Because I was waiting at the desk to clear up a similar issue. We were told something through the reservation line that wasn't true at this location either.
It's a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. And here's why this is so troublesome.
1. You're creating an expectation that can't be met, leading to frustration, wasted time and a negative experience.
2. You're giving the consumer reason to doubt anything you say in the future. After all, why should they ever trust the reservation line again?
3. Worst of all, you're giving your customer a reason to go to the competition.
And, within your organization, you're making things very hard for the people on the front lines who have to clean up the mess.
The lesson? On a smaller scale, make sure not to arm one team with generic answers to questions that will give people a reason to doubt the overall experience (or make another team look bad or worse, stupid.) On a bigger scale, if you're going to departmentalize any aspect of your business, make sure all the departments are in sync, so you're all set to offer a consistent experience. Rightfully so, that's what people expect.
What about you, have you ever experienced a case where one hand didn't know what the other was doing?