I’d prefer to let you know a few tales about some issues that occurred to me whereas travelling to talk at an occasion in Munich just lately and why I believe they’re necessary, notably in the case of customer support and expertise.

The primary incident occurred when it got here time for me to test in for my return flight from Munich.

Now, my flight tickets had been booked for me by my host. All the main points used to ebook the flights had been appropriate. I checked and made positive of that. However, after I tried to test in on the airline’s web site, their cellular website and their app, I couldn’t.

Each try, whatever the channel, was greeted with totally different variations of the identical response……my passport quantity was both invalid or incorrect.

It isn’t and wasn’t.

Subsequently, I wasn’t in a position to test in remotely and, so needed to go to the airport early and try to test in utilizing the self-service kiosks.

I did. And, hey presto, I used to be in a position to test in with no issues by any means.

This made no sense to me, notably as a result of I used to be in a position to test in simply nice on the way in which out to Munich utilizing the airline’s web site, however I wasn’t in a position to do the identical factor on the way in which again. Furthermore, why did the self-service kiosk work, however the web site and app didn’t?

The second incident occurred whereas I used to be on the airplane flying again.

I used to be scheduled to fly again to Edinburgh through Frankfurt on Thursday night, and every thing on the flight from Munich to Frankfurt was going nicely til the pilot got here on the tannoy and advised us that Frankfurt airport was briefly closed on account of some enlightened particular person flying their drone within the neighborhood of the airport.

Sadly, we didn’t have sufficient gasoline on board to circle and wait til the airport reopened, so we diverted to Nuremberg airport to land, tackle extra gasoline and await directions. That each one went comparatively easily, and we had been shortly down, refuelled and again within the air heading again to Frankfurt. However, our drone-imposed delay meant that I missed my connecting flight.

This was the identical state of affairs for a lot of different passengers, and on condition that it was now late within the day, we had been notified by the airplane’s crew that these passengers who had missed their connecting flights could be met by airline employees on the gate once we had landed, and they might assist us make preparations concerning staying over and reserving new flights the next day.

Regardless of the inconvenience, that every one sounded good.

Nonetheless, once we landed in Frankfurt, I switched on my cellphone and nearly instantly acquired quite a lot of SMS messages informing me that I had been routinely booked onto a brand new flight to Edinburgh the next morning and in addition providing me three choices of lodges near the airport that I may select to remain in. I clicked on the hyperlink in one of many messages and picked a lodge. I used to be then despatched a affirmation message, together with particulars of the place to catch the shuttle bus that will take me on to the lodge.

That was a sudden however very welcome shock. It made the top of my night time a lot simpler and smoother than it may have been.

The issue was that the couple that had been sitting subsequent to me had additionally missed their connection. However, they acquired no digital messages, SMS or in any other case, telling them what to do or what their choices had been. As a substitute, they confronted the very unattractive possibility of getting to go and queue with numerous others to rearrange new flights and lodging on the airline’s service desk.

I ought to level out that I used to be simply an extraordinary buyer getting back from a piece journey. My flights had been all booked for me; they had been commonplace financial system flights, and weren’t connected to any airline loyalty programme. So, I used to be not entitled to any particular remedy.

The couple sat subsequent to me had been in precisely the identical state of affairs as I used to be in. They’d booked their flights immediately by the identical airline. And but, they ended up having a really totally different expertise to the one I used to be having.

That troubled me and made me marvel why that will be the case.

Sadly, there was nothing that I may accomplish that I apologised for my success and wished them nicely.

Reflecting on these two occasions within the following days, it struck me that they shared a typical theme: lack of consistency.

Within the first occasion, there was no consistency throughout channels in my check-in expertise.

Secondly, there was no consistency of messaging or remedy of shoppers who, on the face of it, had been all the identical, had missed their connection and had been dealing with an enforced layover.

Now, I get that journey is sophisticated, and there are a whole lot of shifting elements and plenty of issues that may go mistaken.

However consistency is the bedrock of a optimistic buyer expertise. As human beings, we worth and crave it as a result of it promotes consolation, ease, familiarity, peace of thoughts, and belief.

Not solely that, however it delivers enterprise outcomes, too. A chunk of analysis by McKinsey discovered that eradicating inconsistencies throughout a buyer’s journey and maximising satisfaction may assist enhance income by as much as 15 % whereas, on the similar time, reducing the price of serving prospects by as a lot as 20 %. They went on to say, “It might not appear horny, however consistency is the key ingredient to creating prospects completely satisfied.”

Subsequently, whereas inconsistencies within the service and expertise that manufacturers ship to prospects is probably not instantly apparent, it’s of their pursuits to hunt them out and take away them.