Travel is back, so are delays
Following my time off, I remained on the mainland to visit some colleagues and clients. As far as the vacation, most of my travel plans went off without any problem. The first part of my return to work went that way as well. Seems all the planning surrounding flights and busy times had worked out.
It was time for the first hiccup on my return home. I had planned to leave on Thursday to stay ahead of the vacation traffic that starts up on Fridays heading to where I live. As I arrived for my connecting flight, things started to go wrong. My connection was delayed. As the delays mounted, the airline offered to put me on the next flight which departed only ninety minutes after my originally scheduled departure time. Seemed like a good plan.
It could always be better… and worse
As the delays mounted for the first flight, many other passengers took the same option. It seemed the later flight would take off and arrive at our destination sooner. Just before boarding, they changed the aircraft, which meant reseating a now full flight. A small delay, but we were still going to get out sooner. Once we were all on board, we found that a few families had been split up, a few minutes of getting that in order, then we were ready to go. As we started rolling out from the gate, the next delay happened. There was an issue with the hydraulics. We’d roll back into the gate and get that fixed, but a thunderstorm meant that the maintenance crew could not start working on the seemingly small maintenance concern. After more time passed, we were ready to get going again. As we prepared to take off, another situation on board came up and we had to return to the gate. In all, we tallied nearly four hours in delays, and my plans for the evening after I returned home had to be cancelled.
Interestingly, despite the longer expected days on the earlier flight, it arrived a couple of hours ahead of the one I ended up taking. So much for planning and good advice.
Looking optimistically, I still made it home. Had my flight been cancelled and I had to take a flight on Friday, there were many more problems that came up at Denver International Airport which probably would have delayed me another day. Things could always be worse.
Customer experience planning can fall apart
No matter how much time you spend planning your customer experience strategy, things can always go wrong. You can pick the best customer experience management platform, like QuestionPro, and still not be able to measure a key CX touchpoint because you have no customer records for that touchpoint. You might ask many questions, but miss opportunities because people are not completing the survey due to length when perhaps you should have used a measure like NPS+. Getting feedback from customers, but having no means to action because you have not set up workflows for your closed-loop tools or not finding strategic direction because you lack customer sentiment analysis.
Still, when things fall away from the plan, things can still work out. It is a good reason to work with a partner like QuestionPro, not just a measurement platform. At QuestionPro, we like to help keep our clients’ programs on track – even when things don’t work out as planned.
Theory vs execution
Even if you already know the theory of how to manage customer experience, implementing is different. Watch our webinar recording to find out more about best practices and insights on how to make the most of our customer experience management software. Learn how to boost your customer’s loyalty and gather insightful data by effectively employing all the features CX provides you with. Connect with Sally Donovan and Crystal Wiese to discover the best tips and tricks on how to execute CX in your organization and turn your clients into brand advocates.
You can watch the recording and deck slides here.
QuestionPro offers some of the most advanced customer experience tools available. Gain valuable insights into your customers’ thoughts and feelings using QuestionPro CX software today.
