The Robotic Arm of Customer Service

Chartered Marketer and Licensed Customer Service and Digital Marketing Trainer Christine Watson at Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing takes a look for Business First at the changing customer service demands of meeting and conference venues by a key target customer segment – event planners.

robot reception in Japan

July 2015 witnessed the opening of the world’s first hotel serviced by robots. Could Northern Ireland event attendees expect a greeting at a venue reception desk to be performed by a synthetic pre-programmed dinosaur robot, toy-sized robot or humanoid robot like the Henn-na Hotel (which roughly translates to ‘Strange Hotel’) in Nagasaki, Japan?

Devoid of the novelty factor would any local event planner and event delegate be convinced that this recent development is a positive thing for customer service delivery in local venues?

Many of us will have experienced robotic customer service delivery before, either at the hands of the notoriously annoying self-service checkouts in supermarkets, which continually find unexpected items in the bagging area, or by a disengaged service professional counting down the hours to the end of their shift. Whilst avoiding many of pitfalls of service by human error and negative attitude, the question of whether a mechanical question and answer session with a robot could truly deliver service excellence and empathy on the scale that consumers have come to expect from those they invest valuable money or time in. It is also unlikely that pre-programmed service robots can be helpful when service professionals, striving for excellence, are to expect the unexpected from customers.

When the novelty of the robot encounter wears off would the positive lasting impression be of the warm welcome our region prides itself on?

Whilst we, in Northern Ireland, await this novelty (and I, like you, do wonder which of our hotels might invest in this trend first), restaurants in Newark Airport are changing food service with the introduction of ipads to replace many of the human encounters or touchpoints we are accustomed to, such as, viewing the menu, ordering and paying. The role of the service professionals has become one of simply serving food and drinks and clearing tables. I personally found each human encounter rather robotic and unattached, although I admit to valuing the ability to work and surf from their fully charged ipad, saving the battery as well as potential charges on my own mobile device.

Back to Northern Ireland conference venues, many of which I am proud to boast within my client portfolio or have experienced as either an event planner or attendee many times over.

The first step in an organisation’s customer service excellence journey is to understand who their customers are, both internal and external to the business. This is followed by an assessment and understanding of difference customer needs and expectations, which in itself are not fixed and change over time. It is an organisation’s responsibility to match their product and service offering with what the customer will deem satisfactory, or better still – excellent!

Take WIFI for example. Some establishments have chosen to install signs which request their clientele not to dare asking for a WIFI code instead they ask their customers to please talk to each other. Clearly an undesirable venue for a business customer who sees WIFI as an essential necessity in order to meet a deadline. As former Chair of The Chartered Institute of Marketing Ireland board a key consideration in our choice of venues for both the annual Marketing Excellence Awards ceremony as well as our regular training workshops and inaugural conference was a free and reliable WIFI service for both us, as event planners and also our guests. This non-negotiable arises from a brand desire to engage not just the audience in attendance but a much wider base of consumers. Trending on twitter as a result of delegate social media activity is a valuable outcome that many event investors, including sponsors, now wish for. Event Tweetwalls which showcase live tweets are also becoming more common practice.

When was the last time your organisation reviewed who its various target customers actually were, delved into their needs and expectations and measured your deliverables against these various touchpoints? In customer service journey mapping these individual interactions are termed moments of truth, with some more important than others – for example the first impression, made in mere seconds and at times inaccurate and, of course, the last or lasting impression.

A study trip that I attended with Failte Ireland to the Jumeirah hotel group portfolio which included The Burg Al Arab was enlightening for many reasons. The main takeaway focused on a comprehensive walk through process. The Jumeirah group, like Lego, which has overtaken Ferrari as the most valuable brand in the world, do not start their customer journey analysis at the car park entrance or indeed the front door, but from the potential users very first interaction with the brand and the journey to, from and lifetime before and after. If a customer’s mood can impact their perception of service, even reality then long queues at the airport security can taint a brand attempt to create a positive first impression a short time later. Organisations such as Disney and Alton Towers take steps to entertain customers whilst they queue as well as a VIP parking space with your name on it if you pay enough for your room!

To bring this back to our venues for the benefit of our event planners, sponsors and attendees, our tips are as follows:

  1. Understand who your target customers are
  2. Continually assess customer needs and expectations
  3. Do a Walkabout – take the customer journey yourself and with your event planner:

An evaluation of your various deliverables against changing customer needs and expectations will look at the need to provide many things pre visit, during the experience and post visit including the:

  1. Distribution of accurate joining instructions to event planners to assist their communications with attendees – include postcode, directions and parking advice
  2. Brand website and digital platforms are fit for purpose
  3. Offer of Free Wifi that is fast and reliable
  4. Delivery of a welcome at every event – publishing event signage on entrance to direct attendees rather than forcing them to queue at a reception area clogged with customers checking out
  5. Guarantee of food that meets ever-changing dietary requirements
  6. Education of the event planner eg directions to the toilets and fire escapes
  7. Anticipation of late comers
  8. Positive lasting impression – have a member of staff on hand to say goodbye
  9. Thank you to the event planner for choosing your place as their place
  1. Benchmark worldwide
  2. Recruit team members with a positive, customer focused can do attitude
  3. Make team members accountable
  4. Allow autonomy with a customer charter and policies and procedures that enable your team to perform
  5. Train your team to deliver excellent customer service and to recover service when issues do arise
  6. Listen
  7. Invest in customer service – take steps to continually improve your service to ensure the delivery of positive moments of truth