Plan for a case of failure: three client service errors on the example of confusion with apartment keys, where nothing lay
Standing in front of the locked door of a rented and paid apartment with someone else's key in hand and a suitcase of things in your legs, you have time to think about many things. Therefore, this Friday post will not be entirely about cryptocurrencies, but inspired by cryptocurrencies, since The office of the cloud miner HashFlare is located in Tallinn, where I occasionally go to, for example, to see how new mining farms are built . One of the last such trips has turned into a story that is perfect for telling her in colors, making the company happy for a couple of bottles of beer.
On one of these visits, I had to stay in an apartment rented by Bestapartments.ee (joke about email at the Institute of Experimental Biology EBI). Immediately after booking, an entire pile of letters immediately fell to me at the post office — a total of five. Part - with questions of payment of the reservation. Part - with instructions for obtaining the key, offering just four options to choose from. And finally - with the explanation that since I didn’t answer right away, they automatically assigned me option c) - that is, to receive the key at the reception of the Hotel Bern, which is only three kilometers away from the address of the apartment itself.
An extra taxi ride, 3 euros strictly cash to the girl at the reception - and I have a tight bag with keys and lots of papers in my hands. Another taxi ride - and I already open the door on the first floor of an apartment building.
')
Perhaps I should have been alerted that the apartment number in the papers attached to the key, which I glanced briefly, was different from the number on the keychain. But how many things are pleasant in Estonia, I thought - the more so the key came up.
The door smelled deliciously. A stupid thought flashed that this is a new customer service - to meet the newly arrived guests with a hot dinner. A hot dinner and a dumbfounded European of about 40 years old in a robe, staring at me with horror, when I opened the door and entered as if nothing had happened.
- What are you doing here? - this question seriously made me think about what I'm doing on this earth and in this apartment, where obviously someone already lives and does not expect other guests. I was lodged in a communal? Bestapartments.ee practices overbooking, and makes strangers sleep in the same bed?
- They gave me the key. This should be the room I'm staying at.
- It's impossible. It's impossible. - she repeated several times. For some reason, her tone convinced me right away that this is really impossible. Apologizing, I went out and called the phone found in the heap of letters sent to me.
Twenty minutes later, an alarmed employee brought me the key to the apartment in which I was supposed to stay. By the way, I choose the option d) (meeting the guest at the apartment with the transfer of the key from hand to hand) right away - and it would cost me 35 euros.
I asked him to apologize to the unfortunate woman - after all, with the same success, she could cook her dinner naked when I broke in - and he reproached me by not carefully reading the papers in the package, because "everything is written there." "What's the difference? The key was still not from that apartment. ” On this we parted.
Despite the ostentatious amazement of the staff of “Best Apartments.” - “For the first time this is in three years!”, I didn’t really believe them. The set of errors of their service is so typical that they have to be very big luckies, so that such confusion happens only once every three years.
When they gave you the wrong key
The first and main mistake: you can not mix advertising information into useful content. Noticed how now in cinemas along with the requested ticket itself, they began to give out a heap of unreadable pieces of paper like advertising spam in your mailbox? The last time I almost missed the movie because I mechanically, together with advertising, broke up and threw out the ticket itself.
Approximately the same content was in my package - a key, advertising booklet, city map, a piece of paper with the rules of placement and apartment number. If you flood an already paying customer with your own advertising, do not be surprised if he misses something really important.
The second error: if the client needs to be sent to the instructions, then something is wrong with your service. "No one reads manuals." Requiring to verify the apartment number on the key with the apartment number in the documents is equivalent to selling a vacuum cleaner, in which a large round button activates the mine and lifts the leg, and the inconspicuous slider on the bottom is responsible for switching on / off.
And the third mistake: the absence of “Plan B” - a deliberate reaction to the case of your own failure. In working with people, the shoals are unavoidable, and it would be good if your employees knew what to do and say in this case - and not be the first to justify what came to mind.
No instructions and even well-organized mailing (five letters in a row for one booking is already Erebor) will not help in the situation when your employee put the key to the apartment in which someone already lives in the package for another employer. But in this case, an excellent apology and any compliment from the company.
What if, in addition to a bunch of emails about how to pay and check in, this Estonian company still had a template with apologies for any trouble that occurred and, for example, a promise of a discount on the next booking? In the end, it is better to once make instructions for employees and a backup plan in case of failure than to write a bunch of instructions for customers and hope that the failure does not come. Murphy's laws don't work like that.
Mine is not too late:
On one of these visits, I had to stay in an apartment rented by Bestapartments.ee (joke about email at the Institute of Experimental Biology EBI). Immediately after booking, an entire pile of letters immediately fell to me at the post office — a total of five. Part - with questions of payment of the reservation. Part - with instructions for obtaining the key, offering just four options to choose from. And finally - with the explanation that since I didn’t answer right away, they automatically assigned me option c) - that is, to receive the key at the reception of the Hotel Bern, which is only three kilometers away from the address of the apartment itself.
An extra taxi ride, 3 euros strictly cash to the girl at the reception - and I have a tight bag with keys and lots of papers in my hands. Another taxi ride - and I already open the door on the first floor of an apartment building.
')
Perhaps I should have been alerted that the apartment number in the papers attached to the key, which I glanced briefly, was different from the number on the keychain. But how many things are pleasant in Estonia, I thought - the more so the key came up.
The door smelled deliciously. A stupid thought flashed that this is a new customer service - to meet the newly arrived guests with a hot dinner. A hot dinner and a dumbfounded European of about 40 years old in a robe, staring at me with horror, when I opened the door and entered as if nothing had happened.
- What are you doing here? - this question seriously made me think about what I'm doing on this earth and in this apartment, where obviously someone already lives and does not expect other guests. I was lodged in a communal? Bestapartments.ee practices overbooking, and makes strangers sleep in the same bed?
- They gave me the key. This should be the room I'm staying at.
- It's impossible. It's impossible. - she repeated several times. For some reason, her tone convinced me right away that this is really impossible. Apologizing, I went out and called the phone found in the heap of letters sent to me.
Twenty minutes later, an alarmed employee brought me the key to the apartment in which I was supposed to stay. By the way, I choose the option d) (meeting the guest at the apartment with the transfer of the key from hand to hand) right away - and it would cost me 35 euros.
I asked him to apologize to the unfortunate woman - after all, with the same success, she could cook her dinner naked when I broke in - and he reproached me by not carefully reading the papers in the package, because "everything is written there." "What's the difference? The key was still not from that apartment. ” On this we parted.
Despite the ostentatious amazement of the staff of “Best Apartments.” - “For the first time this is in three years!”, I didn’t really believe them. The set of errors of their service is so typical that they have to be very big luckies, so that such confusion happens only once every three years.
When they gave you the wrong key
The first and main mistake: you can not mix advertising information into useful content. Noticed how now in cinemas along with the requested ticket itself, they began to give out a heap of unreadable pieces of paper like advertising spam in your mailbox? The last time I almost missed the movie because I mechanically, together with advertising, broke up and threw out the ticket itself.
Approximately the same content was in my package - a key, advertising booklet, city map, a piece of paper with the rules of placement and apartment number. If you flood an already paying customer with your own advertising, do not be surprised if he misses something really important.
The second error: if the client needs to be sent to the instructions, then something is wrong with your service. "No one reads manuals." Requiring to verify the apartment number on the key with the apartment number in the documents is equivalent to selling a vacuum cleaner, in which a large round button activates the mine and lifts the leg, and the inconspicuous slider on the bottom is responsible for switching on / off.
And the third mistake: the absence of “Plan B” - a deliberate reaction to the case of your own failure. In working with people, the shoals are unavoidable, and it would be good if your employees knew what to do and say in this case - and not be the first to justify what came to mind.
No instructions and even well-organized mailing (five letters in a row for one booking is already Erebor) will not help in the situation when your employee put the key to the apartment in which someone already lives in the package for another employer. But in this case, an excellent apology and any compliment from the company.
What if, in addition to a bunch of emails about how to pay and check in, this Estonian company still had a template with apologies for any trouble that occurred and, for example, a promise of a discount on the next booking? In the end, it is better to once make instructions for employees and a backup plan in case of failure than to write a bunch of instructions for customers and hope that the failure does not come. Murphy's laws don't work like that.
Mine is not too late:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/397673/
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