Its been a long long time since I published a blog. This is a promise to be more regular.
Coming back to the topic of Customer Experience and Delight much has happened these last few years.

Last week a thought about service quality standards and metrics struck me as I landed in Bangalore airport from Mumbai. As part of the airlines metrics to show good service one parameter is time to get the baggage on the delivery belt. As I reached the baggage belt, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the baggage had already started coming in from this full service carrier. This  reinforced my belief about the quality of this airline.To my dismay and finally to irritation I found that after the first few bags on the belt the next lot of bags came after almost 25 minutes and it took me a full 30 minutes after the first bag came to get my bag.

This led me to think of how companies might beat the system of presenting service quality metrics. If the airline is measured on the time it takes to get the first bag on the belt they do everything to get the belt moving. But the large part of the bags actually got delayed inordinately.  In this way while the airline will show a good delivery record , the have in fact got the customers even more upset.  Not only  has the baggage taken too much time, but by bringing the first lot in fast the airline has also raised customer expectations and not delivered.

Lesson : Consistency of service delivery is absolutely essential to give customers a good experience and thus build loyalty. Metrics should help us deliver superior customer experience but should not become an end in itself.