experience matters

It’s not very often that I get to have fresh experiences as a customer anymore. After 7 years as an IA practitioner, it becomes all too easy to spend more time with Visio than getting out into the world and paying attention to interactions. In mid-October, however, I took a four-day vacation to Paris. My goal (aside from having fun and eating as many croissants as possible) was to be attentive to the experience of visiting a new city: what was easy, what was difficult, what was frustrating. Here are some lessons I came home with:

1. Don’t make your customer feel stupid. Ever.
I last actively spoke French in 1989 but I was eager to follow the traveler best practice of speaking French first–all the guidebooks make it clear that Parisians will appreciate the effort and will most likely follow up with English. Things were going fairly well until Sunday afternoon when I stopped into a cafe near the Musee D’Orsay. When it came time to order le dessert I looked at the waiter and said, “Un creme, s’il vous plait.” This man who had until now understood me perfectly, furrowed his brow, closed his eyes and re-pronounced the word for me (largely consisting of more emphasis on the ‘em’ sound at the end). I laughed and said “Merci!” as the flush crept into my cheeks.

Lesson:
When a customer is trying to interact with your product or company, give them a huge break and never make them feel stupid or incompetent. Companies have their own internal language. Think of all the phone menu trees we press through, in the blind hope of reaching a human. Or, when we do reach an actual person, being forced to jump through hoops (“Just a few security questions, ma’am.”) to get the answers or service we need. Don’t discourage people who are trying–encourage and reward their effort with kindness and civility.

2. Service matters–empower your staff to exceed customer expectations
The stereotype about the lack of quality service in French cafes and restaurants was, alas, proven true to me. In a busy cafe around 7 p.m., there were three waitstaff for a mid-sized but tightly packed seating area–about 45 two-tops, no bar. For the first time I realized that there were no bus staff at all: all the waiters and waitresses had to bus and set their own tables, on top of taking orders and bringing the food and drink to the guests. My waiter had no time management skills to speak of and would blatantly ignore eye contact and waving hands. He was obviously overwhelmed. More than that, though, he was part of a system that, by law, gives him no incentive to improve. French employment contracts are both hard to come by and, for the employer, nearly impossible to break. Furthermore, a 15% gratuity is included in every bill–no matter how small the party nor how good (or bad) the service.

Lesson:
Don’t let your corporate culture get in the way of helping your customers succeed and feel valued. Don’t sacrifice the quality of service because internal policies or traditions make it difficult. Make sure your customer facing employees have the ability to deliver first-class service to everyone. Customer loyalty is a key to your brand’s survival. Positive experiences lead to good word-of-mouth which will drive more business your way. Never miss an opportunity to go above and beyond.

3. Clean up your messes.
Parisians own a lot of dogs and they are clearly loved and pampered. However, the streets of Paris are marred by dog poop: not scooped at all, smooshed by some unfortunate pedestrian or very poorly scraped up. One often misses the architectural beauty of Paris because one is forced to look down while walking–an endless game of urban hopscotch to protect one’s shoes. There are street and sidewalk cleaners but they are outnumbered by the pooping pooches. I watched many a dog owner look on in boredom as Fifi decorated a public sidewalk before quickly walking away, seemingly oblivious.

Lesson:
Don’t ever leave a mess for your customers to deal with. If there is a mistake or something goes wrong, admit it and fix it. Never walk away from a problem and pretend it doesn’t matter or hope that someone else will fix it or not notice it. Respect your customers.

4. Make a functional thing look functional.
When you have to ask a stewardess how to unfold your tray table, something has gone awry. I’ve flown any number of airlines over the years and on every one, the tray table is lowered via a latch. There was no such latch for my tray table. Centered, near the top, was a square indentation that looked decorative or in some way key to the structure of the tray table. I consulted the in-flight magazine: nothing. There were no instructions on the tray table (a ‘tirez’ or ‘poussez’ would have been nice) so I immediately dismissed it as non-functional. And boy, was I wrong. It was the latch. You pushed the indentation up in order to lower the tray.

Later I arrived at my hotel and decided to have a bath to settle in. There was a pull on the faucet to send the water to the hand-held showerhead, but I saw no such mechanism to pull the metal bathtub stopper down. What I did see below the tub faucet was a round metal disc whose position mimicked that of the overflow drain in American bathtubs. So that, I decided, was what it must be. And boy, was I wrong. It was the mechanism by which the bathtub stopper was pulled down: there were indentations (for fingers to turn!) on the metal disc–turn the disc and suction pulled the bathtub stopper down, sealing the tub. Oddly enough, however, all the bathroom sinks used a pull on the faucet in order to seal the sink stopper.

Lesson:
Don’t break conventions–buttons look like buttons for a reason, latches look like latches for a reason: they are commonly understood visual cues that entice action. Functionality should be predictable, enabling the customer to proceed without having to think. Embrace and extend the familiar–make things easier whenever possible.

As you’re out and about in the world, what are you noticing about your experience as a customer? What are you taking back with you to projects and clients?

Last 5 posts by Gabby Hon

• Design Strategy 99% Bad!: A rebuttal – May 7th, 2008
• Confessions of an Interaction Designer – April 2nd, 2008
• Less Talking, More Doing – February 13th, 2008
• Beacon 2.0: LinkedIn tries a different approach – December 12th, 2007

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