Anticipating, Meeting and Exceeding customer needs

Hi all, it has been a week since my last post?

Well, here is another one.

Last Monday I went to "The Living Room", Westin, KL for light lunch alone. I am quite frequent over there as i am a Starwood Privilege member. The ambience is great, has free wifi and the price. There was buffet lunch served but i just ordered "murtabak" as i had late breakfast. And the story begins here :

"A win win strategy"
After i have placed my order, i logged into the internet to reply some of my emails. Then a waitress come by and asked "Have you placed your order?" "Are you able to log into the internet?" well, i answered Yes! After a one minute the waitress came again with a bowl of "crab meat+cucumber soup (looks n taste like sharkfin soup) and some bread and butter. "Your murtabak might take a while to cook, why don't you enjoy your soup and bread while waiting for it?" Well, since it is free food why not? Such proactive action does not only mitigate the risk of any customers having the long waiting face, they understood their client dining experience (do not want to wait long). What does Westin have to loose? Nothing! THe soup and bread are from one of the buffet counter. So less wastage, more satisfied customers - win win . We call this Anticipating and Meeting customer needs.

Be Proactive and Decisive
My murtabak came to me after 15 minutes. Taste good plus with my membership privilege, you won't believe how value for money it is. There were 2 big pieces. While i was finishing my 2nd piece, i have bitten something hard. Ohh! it is a small bone / stone. Not too sure. Well, I know that that is accident as from my many past dining experience here, everything is ok. So i leave it and continue with my food. Some how, one of the waiter noticed my weird face looking at my food. he approached and ask" Is everything ok , sir?". Well, since you asked, i will tell you. He apologised and immediately went into the kitchen and brought the TaiKo of the restaurant out - The Chef! The Chef asked again and i told them about the small stone. THe Chef ,immediately acknowledged their mistake and offered to change my meal and says he will look into the ingredients in the kitchen immediately. But i was nearly full and turn down their offer. The clever Chef then offer me a platter of fresh fruit. hmm1 dessert, why not. Am i mad with what i have in my food? Well, a little concern initially but after their explanation , action taken and offers to me, I believed that the case is just incidental. i am ok and enjoyed my fresh fruit platter (not from the buffet counter)

So what is the lesson learned?

May of us in business focuses our effort in meeting customer needs. Have we actually put more thoughts into anticipating customer needs or even exceeding it? Does our company has such brand culture? Have we use such high standard of customer service to differentiate us from competitors? We should constantly ask ourselves such questions. Branding is not just about, promotion, taglines or advertisement. It involves the whole operation of a company.

Points to note/lesson learned :
1) anticipate customer needs : just like the offer of the soup and be sensitive to customer experience by offering assistance and take quick and effective action.
2) meeting customer needs : having to do this is not good enough. meeting customer needs is already basic requirement for any services industry or even product focused companies. It is a MUST have attributes in all companies
3) Exceeding customer needs : If you want your brand to be differentiate from others, exceeding customer needs might be your key success factors. we should go beyond meeting needs, we should constantly talk to our customers, understand them and offer solutions to them sincerely. Stop the attitude of "We have done enough for customers!" Customers preference and needs changes by time and we should to.

Either we take good care of our customers or our customer will "take care" of you (also by viral marketing but in the negative way)