What Lessons Does This Customer Experience Story Teach Us?

Here is the story.

I was moderating a panel discussion recently, and one of the panelists shared this scenario with us during the session.

He booked a hotel for a 4-night stay in Gurugram using an Online Travel Agency. It was a non-refundable booking. When he checked in, he somehow did not like the hotel and expressed that to the hotel staff. The hotel staff apologized and suggested upgrading him to the suite room.

He wasn’t convinced and decided to shift to a better hotel.

So, he called the Online Travel Agency and told them he had booked this hotel and wasn’t comfortable staying there. The agent said he would see if something could be done while listening to this.

If he had followed the Standard Operating Procedures, the agent would have said, “We are sorry that you don’t like the hotel, but since it is a non-refundable booking, we are not in a position to help you.”

However, this agent took this up with the higher-ups within the online travel agency, ensured that he got the refund, booked him in another hotel, and helped him check in. The agent even checked whether he was comfortable with the new place.

The agent had enough data to know that ‘So and So’ has booked more than 500 nights through their portal in the last ten years. The agent knows he is a loyal portal customer because of its integrated omnichannel infrastructure. He was empowered to decide to push for a refund of a non-refundable booking by going against the SOPs.

The agent ensured the customer’s lifetime value increased with this phenomenal customer experience.

What Is the Learning Here?

This guest told this story in 90 seconds, but the lessons it contains can change your entire customer experience framework.

You can use a story like this to bring your CX prowess.

• Is it a signature story?
• Is it worth sharing?
• Is it rememberable?
• Is it understandable?
• Is it retellable?

I’d say yes to all of these questions.

Signature Customer Experience Story

The portal story is a signature customer experience story that educates, inspires, and instructs people on what customer experience is all about. 

Instead of going through hours of training, you can get inspire people with a bunch of stories that would resonate with all your stakeholders. It changes the complete perception of the brand in the minds of the customer. 

It makes it easier for your resources to internalize CX and how it has to be delivered.

It is stories in action, values in action, culture in action.

You are talking about empowered representatives who can make decisions on your organization’s behalf for customers’ benefit.

Share This Story as Many Times as You Can

I have personally shared this story multiple times across forums, blogs, articles, thought papers, panel discussions, and webinars.

This story resonated so much with me that I can never forget it. Identify that signature story you want to share again and again.

Now, why did I share this story many times?

I am in the customer experience space, and we deliver a platform that empowers your employees to make decisions.

After I tell people this story, I always ask them whether they have empowered their employees to make decisions. How are they supporting them with technology to make decisions? That’s when I bring in the platform that we have.

Wouldn’t this resonate better than me talking about the features of my offering?

You can also check our guide on: Six Excellent Customer Experience Examples

Create Stories That Your Customers Will Share

We work with a BPO that handles more than 40 processes. They have migrated five of their processes to our platform based on the ease of use of our platform.

Once they migrated, they realized that our support is truly 24×7, and every time they try to reach us, they get to speak to a human being. Their requests are addressed within hours and not days. We don’t provide them with an impersonal ticket number for their requests.

We delivered all their customization requests in record time. Besides, our reports were so easily configurable that it reduced 80% of their managers’ time in putting together reports.

This allowed them to offer similar SLAs to their customers back-to-back. Now, they include our support SLAs in all their proposals.

They share our support capability as a story to their customers. They don’t look beyond our platform for all their new processes.

Ensure you create such stories that your customers would happily share.

All of us talk about transforming our customers into advocates. What better way to do this than provide them with a story currency they’d remember for ages?

All of us are human beings, and we love to tell and share stories and anecdotes by nature. Come up with stories your audience craves –ultimately, something they say to their colleagues, friends, and family.

Focus on your customers. Convert that focus into memorable stories, which becomes story currency that your audience will happily share.