the Portal

Houston: we have a problem.

Or, at least, House of Blues has one and, from my sense of the culture, it may extend beyond my own hometown. In a little over two hours on Thursday, I watched HoB Houston squander an opportunity to provide some 90 to 100 communicators and marketers with a WOW! experience in customer service.

Each of those patrons has reach and influence to steer a boatload of corporate and non-profit business to the venue. Ironically, HoB’s full-press courtship of repeat business (special “welcome tour” and all) came at the expense of the luncheon service we all were there for.

Bottom line: at a 1-1/2-hour lunch expected to end at 1pm, the entree was served at 1pm; preceded a mere 15 minutes by delivery of the tea and sodas.

Was this an isolated incident? Perhaps.

No need to belabor the minutae here. B-4-U-Eat, Houston, is full of hair-raising tales — in addition to the people I talked to while we waited for our cars. One had attempted to buy Gospel Brunch tickets, only to be sent to three different locations in the enormous, three-story facility — and never got the tickets. Pricey valet parking ($10) is offered with no signage or verbal cue to alert the customer the service is cash only. Those carrying only plastic are directed to an ATM machine that charges $3.75 (in contrast to the $2 – $2.50 charged elsewhere around town).

All of this leads me back to Zappos’ Tony Hsieh at the recent South by Southwest, describing his company’s singular focus on providing every customer with a WOW! experience, every time.

If I were coaching HoB’s manager and staff, I’d make these suggestions — based not just on Zappos but on dozens of successful hospitality providers as well:

• Stick to what you do best. Low lighting, loud music and bar service can create a great vibe. Do “tamer” daytime business events really fit within this company’s culture?
• Don’t nickel-and-dime staffing requirements in a customer-service industry. $$s spent on attentive,  professional service delivery trump marketing $$s any day.
• Don’t roll out a new service until it’s been thoroughly rehearsed, timed and tested. ‘Nuff said.
• Train your people; anticipate the questions. If every person on staff can’t answer the simplest inquiry, you’ve failed at customer service.
• Run to the problem. Better yet, identify a problem in formation and head it off.
  
• Acknowledge a difficulty and fix it. Offer remedies and bust a gut to see the customer — every customer — goes away happy.
  
• Ask for feedback. Hard to provide high quality service without some mechanism for measuring customer satisfaction.

In House of Blues’ defense, I don’t know how strongly the organizers of this event officially conveyed their dissatisfaction to the management. Nonetheless, I came away wondering whether this company realizes what an opportunity it squandered . . . and if it even cares.

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