The Small Experiences Matter Too

There are the experiences that are central to your brand—when you deliver your best, most high-touch outcomes.

And there are those that are more peripheral—like how your client pays you or buys an ancillary service.

The challenge is that both can affect clients’ perception of you—so you want to pay attention to every touch point in your delivery system.

Take two big brands I’ve been experiencing lately: Bloomingdale’s and Lemonade (on-line home insurance).

Both have delivered exceptionally wonderful on-line and/or in-person experiences. But when they switched to something ancillary, one broke down irretrievably.

Bloomingdale’s misapplied not one but two payments which took over four months to resolve. Four months of my calling almost weekly and sitting through 20 minutes of escalation to get to a supervisor.

Who still never solved my problem, even when they were trying hard to figure it out. It didn’t help that I had to provide all documentation via snail mail because they only take mail and faxes.

Meanwhile, I got a message from Lemonade that my earthquake policy renewal was coming up. Since those are through another company and aren’t automated quite the same way, I had to call them to renew for another year and pay up.

The outcome was a two minute phone call (with an on-call email of the new policy documents) that I actually ended by saying, “I love you guys”. Who says that to their insurance carrier when you’re paying premiums?

Exactly.

So while I have no doubt I’ll recommend Lemonade, Bloomingdale’s not so much.

My point: those big brand experiences aren’t so unlike how your clients experience you and share with their circles.

Why not make sure every touch point—even the seemingly small ones—aligns exactly with the experience you most want to deliver?