I find I seldom if ever blog about mediocrity. But if something great happens or something unacceptable happens, it makes me think and then I start to write. So it happens with anything related to how businesses treat their customers. I had two experiences recently, one good, one not so good.
Minus One
I was on expedia.com doing some travel planning and an offer to do a survey popped up. Most times I will opt-out but for some reason I thought I'd go ahead and help them out a bit. After all, it said it was a short survey! Once I got started, there was no progress indicator whatsoever. I had no idea whether I was 10% or 90% complete. There I was answering question after question. They would throw in a short question and the only one on the page, which led me to believe I was on the last or next to last page. After that happened a few times, I realized this was not a short survey at all. I cancelled out of it and wrote up my frustrations to them. They did write back and apologized. However, you ask your customers for a favor, which takes time, but you give no candid indication of how much time this actually will take. It's not a way to win over the hearts of your customers. I also have bookmarked in my mind to never take an Expedia survey.
Plus One
I go to my local Starbucks on an almost daily basis and I usually use a prepaid Starbucks card to get my coffees. I have also registered on Starbucks.com and this allows me to check my balance, add money to it, and should my card be lost, I can get the funds back. Not that there would be much of a loss as I seldom have much of a balance.
But in the last couple of years, Starbucks has added $10 to my card, most recently a couple of days ago. The reason? Simple appreciation that I am a loyal customer. They also sent me two complimentary tickets to the movie Akellah and the Bee, which I consider one of the better movies of this year.
So I have a nice warm and fuzzy feeling about Starbucks. I do not have that same feeling with Expedia. Now there is nothing wrong with Expedia.com and I actually like their website. But businesses should make it part of their corporate mission statement to treat their customers well. It is simply good business.
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