Kaizen Tip 108: If Carlsberg did Taxis

This week's KaizenTip was written by Alastair Olby of the Kaizen Team.

"Would you prefer to take the autobahn round town or go through the middle and see some of the sights?" asked the young taxi driver who had picked me up at the airport. "It'll only take 5 minutes extra to go through town."

As I'd never been to that part of Germany before, and as I rarely get to see much of the places I travel to I appreciated the question. We took the scenic route, taking in night markets, a beautifully lit cathedral and lots of great architecture en route, which brightened up the journey.

Then the driver, Rolph, asked what sort of food I liked, and started calling restaurants for me to check they were open. Next, he shared some great local information to help make my stay easier. The conversation was great too, so the journey flew by. He then suggested I check in at the hotel while he waited to take me on to the restaurant - no charge - as it was getting late.

Now in the line of my work, I've taken a lot of taxis and had lots of great conversations with drivers, but none have ever came close to this guy. The experience stands out as memorable, enjoyable, and different, and I can only imagine he was practising for a Carlsberg advert!

So, can you imagine what would happen to your business if every customer left every contact they had with your people with a similarly great impression and memory? Maybe this is already happening in your organisation, but for many it's still an aspiration. Here are a couple of examples:

• You go to a café midweek. All is clean, the ambience is great and you're happy to pay a premium for a good drink. Then you go at a peak period. There are tables free, but they're covered in rubbish, the tables and chairs are dirty and it looks like the place hasn't been cleaned properly in months. You queue for ages and finally have to clear the table you want to sit at yourself. Not the same experience, though it costs exactly the same. Surely it's at these times that the focus needs to be even more on customer experience as number of customer contacts is at a peak?     
• A repair man/woman comes to fix something in your home and is outstanding. They even put on cloth overshoes on so as not to dirty the carpet! However a successive visit is really poor: the person is brusque, and leaves a mess. They're from an outsource partner.

• Get a team of customer facing staff to think of the most important person in the world to them. Maybe a child, a grandchild, friend or other family member
• Ask them to imagine that person is a customer of your company. What sort of experience would they want their loved ones to have? What would be happening at each contact with the company? List their ideas, or capture in an imaginative 'customer journey' rich picture.
• Now create a team charter to summarise the important points that have come up, and draw up any actions that arise.
• Take action: start bringing the ideas to life!