Sometimes in life, it is the little things that really matter. It is no different when it comes to Customer Experience. The Hilton Garden Inn’s team in Beaverton, OR has that figured out.
It was the week after Thanksgiving. Do I really have to I travel from Atlanta to Beaverton for work? That is what I kept asking myself. Frankly, I was not really up to it mentally. It was cold, windy, dark and wet in Beaverton. I simply wanted to stay in the hotel room for the entire week. But no, I had to get up and go to work like everybody else.
To my dismay, as I approached the parking lot and headed towards my car, I realized that my entire car was covered in a thick layer of frost; every inch of it. “Great”, I said to myself. “This really tops it off. What a miserable place. I now have to use a credit card or something and scrape my windshield. I am going to be late for my meeting, too. Just lovely”.
As I was about to open my car door, and tackle this mess, I noticed a young lady scraping her car next to me. Just to create some friendly conversation, I looked at her and said,” Great. Now I am going to have to scrape my car too”. The young lady said with a smile, “No you don’t. I will scrape your car for you, sir”. I started to chuckle thinking that it was a joke. “Seriously”, I asked? “Yes,” she responded, “I work for the hotel and we scrape all our guests’ cars”. “Wow,” I said to myself.
She waved to another employee in the parking lot and asked him to join her. “This is Brandon Carter, our general manager”, she said. “Brandon, let’s do this gentleman’s car first. He is about to leave”. “You are awesome.” I said. “This is totally unexpected”.
Brandon proceeded to explain to me that over the years, they learned that the car rental companies don’t even include ice scrapers in the cars any more. So their guests are caught in a predicament. To help improve their guests’ customer experience, his team will scrape all the cars in the parking lot. I drove away feeling grateful and cheerful because someone has figured out my need and proactively delivered a service that I never even asked for. That is customer experience at its finest!
The moral of the story is this. Sometimes in life, it is the little things that really matter. The little random acts of kindness that we demonstrate to another human being goes a long way to improving the experience and making an emotional connection. This is no different in the business world. The Hilton Garden Inn’s team has that figured out. It did not cost them a lot of money or time to make me feel great; a CX cheap thrill! I went from feeling down and moody to feeling elated! Will I come back to The Hilton Garden again? You bet. And I have told many about this wonderful experience.
So what opportunities do you have in your business to deliver a CX cheap thrill? Keep your eyes and ears open. You won’t have to look far. Thanks, Hilton Garden team for the lesson in delivery a great customer experience.
By the way, as I was doing some research on the hotel while writing this blog, I discovered that they’ve already posted the event on the company’s facebook page. Joanna Richards is the young lady who helped me out. Thanks, Joanna. You have a warm day too. Take care. See you soon.
