Message in a (wee) bottle

Those of you of a certain age, and I count myself in this cohort, will be aware that the first signs that the ageing process has begun are diminishing eyesight and the addition of Specsavers to our retail repertoire.

And this is a problem when staying in hotels.

Last week I had occasion to stay in quite a few hotels while travelling. And in each of these hotels I encountered the same problem.

( Those of you of a younger generation will not know what I am going to talk about now so you can skip the new few paragraphs but please come back before the end to learn the moral of this tale and its application to marketing practice).

And it is quite a simple problem.

In a hotel room where is the last place you are likely to wear your glasses? In the shower, of course.

And yet the writing is so minuscule on the wee bottles that anyone with less than 20:20 vision must surely struggle to work out if they are putting shampoo or conditioner or even perfumed hand lotion on their tresses. It never seems to occur to anyone in the hospitality industry that this might be an issue for the ageing who are becoming visually challenged

I mentioned this insight first to the woman in the corridor with the trolley who makes up the rooms and then to the reception staff and was informed that everyone says the same thing; that they are sick and tired of flagging this up through line management, staff suggestions schemes and the like; but 'they ' just don't listen.

And here is the paradox-those closest to the customer have no influence or ability to make things happen; and those with most influence in any business are the furthest away from the customer. I call this the Customer Experience Paradox. And it is a puzzle that all businesses should be looking to resolve.

Sure businesses will listen to the customer by conducting large scale customer research programmes and no doubt the hotel chain mentioned above will have some sort of C-Sat tracking, though curiously I have not yet come across this. Maybe this is a business that isn't after all interested in hearing what its customers think.

In any event I doubt that such studies will pick up the small but irritating critical non essentials like the size of writing on the shampoo bottles. But it is by paying attention to the small details, the small irritations, the small delights that can set a brand apart.

And to do this it must find ways to solve the Customer Experience Paradox. Perhaps by paying more attention to the collective wisdom of its staff and finds ways to ensure that their wisdom is collected and shared. And I don't mean the usual Staff Suggestion Scheme but a channel where those closest to the customer are brought face to face with those with the ability to bring about change.

Alternatively those at the top of the organisation commit a day per month to spend on the shop floor, working with colleagues who deal with customers and even with customers themselves. Nothing could do more to help 'them' understand the frustrations, needs and emotions of their customers. Walking in the customers’ shoes is a very powerful catalyst for chance.

Hopefully someone in the hotel industry is listening and when I next stay in a hotel I might be able to wash my hair without fearing I am putting the wrong substance on my locks and that my hair might fall out.