An Interesting Experiment

We did an interesting experiment earlier this week, during the Virginia Society of Healthcare Marketing and Public Relation's Spring Conference. Many times we talk about the importance of creating a great experience at every touch points and we decided to do something that could really illustrate that point.

We had two check-in desks for attendees, one at the front with two people who couldn't care less that you were there. They were reading newspapers, eating and their desk was just a mess. They barely even noticed when you walked up to the desk. And, if you actually did walk up to the desk, they couldn't really help you with anything. The two folks at this desk were actually having a hard time being so rude to people that they know and work with!

A second desk had two people who were outgoing, friendly and extremely helpful. Their desk was neat & organized and they had all of the information about the program at their fingertips. They were very attentive, even if you weren’t actually at the desk and certainly tried to help each attendee with everything that they could.

Since this was an experiment, we didn’t really know how it would play and it turned out it played even better then we had hoped. Even though people spent less them 30 seconds with our “bad” check in hosts, it left a much larger impression then we had anticipated. They got comments throughout the rest of the day about how much they had annoyed or even angered attendees with their attitude. And this was with a fairly small group of people who had some relationship with one another through the association.

And since many of the attendees were with hospitals, it really drove home the point about their front desk/reception staff. And it certainly reminded us all that it takes very little for people to start having a bad experience and, once it’s started, you have to spend a great deal of energy to get it back on track. One of the exercises we asked the attendees to do after the program was to try and go through their whole experience, to see firsthand how their guests see their experience.

What kind of experience does your first point of contact deliver?