From Boardroom to Bedlam: What Jason Manford’s Hotel Nightmare Teaches Us
Plus my book now out on audio
Before we dive into this week’s CX Story, I’m delighted to share that The Human Experience is now available as an audiobook, available on Spotify, Audible, and pretty much everywhere else audiobooks exist. Sadly / thankfully it’s not me reading it, but someone with far more dulcet and relaxing tones.
‘That’s somebody in an office, that makes a policy, that makes them more money - but they don’t have to deal with the sh*t.’
It’s not often I quote the philosophical musings of comedian Jason Manford. But after a tip off by an actual real journalist (who also happens to be an old friend), the story of him trying and failing to check in to a hotel seemed like something worth exploring.
The story emerged when Manford posted a video about his stay at the Village Hotel in Bournemouth. After a gig, him and his team headed to the hotel to check in. By this time it’s late, around 1am. Tired and ready for bed, they speak to the receptionist to get their keys. And like another famous J, they’re told there’s no room available.
It turns out, the hotel had over-booked, presuming people wouldn’t turn up. Or, as the hotel claimed afterwards, they re-sold the rooms, presuming Manford and co weren’t going to arrive, as it was so late.
Either way, the room he’d booked, and paid for, wasn’t available. And that’s not great, when you think you’ve booked a room, and had paid for it.
It’s fair to say the video caused quite a stir. The General Manager of Village Hotels spotted it and spoke to the local hotel manager, who spoke to Manford the morning after. He apologised profusely - and asked Manford to take the video down.
As you can see from the above, he left it up.
There’s a lot that interests me about this story. The policy decision in the first place, designed to maximise income at the possible expense of customers. The way it was handled, with no back-up option in place should this situation occur. The apology and request to take down the video - but no suggestion they might change the policy. Or perhaps the miscommunication: Manford did end up in a room, albeit a shared one, so maybe things aren’t quite as clearcut as they seem.
But it was Manford’s point about the front-line colleagues that really got me interested:
‘That’s somebody in an office, that makes a policy, that makes them more money - but they don’t have to deal with the sh*t.’
Because he’s right. As people climb the corporate ladder, they gradually lose touch with what really matters to customers and colleagues. They start to become more inside-out, surrounded by colleagues, regulators, and shareholders, more distant from the reality of their customers’ lives and colleagues’ experience.
Whilst frontline staff are left to experience the visceral anger and frustration of customers, leaders are (inadvertently) shielded from it. Data is presented in PowerPoint and PDF, with averages obscuring the real experiences customers are having.
Sometimes, it’s only by getting back onto the frontline that leaders can properly reconnect with the reality their customers are experiencing - even when they don’t mean to.
Like when the boss of Network Rail got stuck on the Elizabeth Line for over three hours due to problems with overhead cables.
For those of us who use that line regularly, the problem wasn’t new news (even if the delay was at the more extreme end). For him, it was a revelation, causing him to admit that ‘we have gone backwards in customer service’, something that has been obvious to every other commuter for years.
Or the time I got an easyJet flight from Jersey to London, and watched as the airport staff checked the size of every bag at the gate, and charge anyone who’s bag was too big for the new, ‘smaller’ size allowed on the plane.
Customer after customer complained, moaned, and yelled at her. Speaking to the staff member afterwards, she said it was a regular occurrence. She’d even had a fire extinguisher thrown at her once.
The thing is, she said, I don’t even work for easyJet, I just have to enforce their policy.
They just stay on the plane and act all cheery when customers get on, leaving me to deal with the fallout of their policy
Everyone in an organisation impacts the customer experience, whether they’re delivering it directly, or making decisions that dictate what happens further along the line. But most are shielded from the experience their customers have, from the impact of the decisions they make.
To truly understand what matters to customers, leaders have to spend real time with real customers, not with the red carpet rolled out, not with carefully curated focus groups.
If not, the first they might hear of it is when a tried and grumpy celebrity decides to share their story on social media - and by that point, it might be too late to do anything about it.