Recently, I took a week’s holiday on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. We stayed at some holiday apartments (of reasonable quality) overlooking the beach. On arriving in our apartment, we found there was less than half a roll of toilet paper; enough dishwashing liquid for one wash; and one small soap each. The owners had presumed that everyone who came to the apartments did so on the basis of price (and that was the sole value driver in the relationship); and further more, if we had gone to the property down the road the situation would have been the same. Okay, so they have to be competitive in a very tight market; however if they used the OVE approach (optimal value exchange) they could have made us very satisfied (at no extra cost) and we would have become “allies”.
So, what could they have done?
On arrival, they could have given us a “welcome” note or card which explained the apartment philosophy (especially how it differs in service level to a hotel/motel) and offered to sell a pack of “emergency rations” to save us having to go to a supermarket and buy (relatively large) packets of washing powder etc.This wouldn’t have cost them anything; and, in fact they could make money on the ration packs at the same time as making us satisfied. If only they had understood that “convenience” was a value driver for us (and I would suspect, for quite a large number of their customers)!
Philip Dennett
Tags: crm, customer service, revolutionary thinking, strategy, value chain
