If ever you find yourself in the position of having to apologize to one customer -- or legions of them -- here's a word of advice. Figure out what you're apologizing for. If the one thing you say or do is not healing for the offense, it's almost worse than not apologizing at all.

Just a few years ago, customers weren't mobilized to share their brand love -- and brand hate -- with the masses. But now they are. So you need to monitor the blogosphere for disgruntled customers and make it right with them.

This post is motivated by an incredibly bad -- scratch that, and substitute legendarily bad -- customer experience I had in Chicago while attending the Marketing to Moms conference. Here was the "service" I got from my hotel:

1). Didn't have a room for me when I arrived in Chicago, despite my reservation.

2). Put me up at a neighboring hotel for the night but insisted I return for the remaining nights due to the terms of my reservation (gee, thanks, Hotels.com).

3). Did not, as promised, fetch my luggage the next day from the "spillover" hotel while I was attending all-day conference.

4). Stuff that didn't work: card key, hallway lights, Internet, TV remote control, hotel-provided umbrella (very, very necessary the last 2 days of my trip).

5). Unrefrigerated minibar (warm drinks and spoiled chocolate).

My experience was so bad that I wondered if a new reality TV show were being launched in Chicago where folks from unrelated industries got to pretend they worked in the hospitality industry for 72 hours.

How did the hotel "make up" their no-reservation gaffe? By giving me a penthouse suite and free passes for a full breakfast. Sounds generous. But clearly no one considered what mattered to me.

Does a scaredy cat like myself value sleeping alone in a large suite with full dining room (complete with mahogany dining room table) and two bathrooms? No! Just give me a tiny room. But, please, make sure my Internet works so I don't have to return emails from the lobby of the hotel at 11 p.m.

Does a conference attendee value free breakfast? No, we're up and at 'em at the crack of dawn, eating breakfast at the conference.

So you see, they tried to say they were sorry. But they overlooked me, the customer. And all they needed to do was ask: "how can we make this right?" Remember these six words. They are perhaps your most powerful defense against an unhappy customer.

Labels: Bad Customer Experience, customer service

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

Yes, yes, you read that right.

The 10-years-in-the-making, greenest museum on earth is the recipient of this month's uncoveted wet blanket award.

Here's why.

There are 895 reviews on Yelp for the Academy. Of the 20 most recent posts, 18 come from mothers. Of just these 20, 17 make reference to crowds, lines, difficulty parking, and cost.

Some excerpts:

"And the crowds are thick...really thick."

"We did not get to see that exhibit as there were no passes available. That was a big bummer. Even if we had gotten passes, the people in line waited a long, long time to get into the exhibit."

"Parking is very frustrating. We were at this place for less than 3 hours, parking was $10 AND there was only one, yes one, parking ticket paying machine on the entire and huge parking level. The line was ridiculously long. The machine location is
downright stupid...right in the path of cars driving in the ramp."

"Just far too spendy to consider revisiting; $24.99 per person."

"Overall, it was a great experience minus the crowds and minus the price."

"Arrive before the doors open if you want to be assured a spot inside. There was a HUGE line ALL DAY."

These quotes are nothing compared to those on TripAdvisor, likely because those visitors traveled from other states or countries to see the museum. Their postings have titles like "Totally underwhelming" and "Overhyped and overpriced."

What these reviews reveal is a critical truth every marketer must know. Your customer's entire experience is your brand. No matter how glorious your museum's architecture appears, nor how pithy your tagline, the single most critical thing is the takeaway for the customer. Your "living rooftop" gets lost in a customer's mind when all she can remember is the gridlocked parking lot she endured with her cranky kids.

My biggest beef with the museum is that they don't seem to be minimizing these well-publicized problems. Case in point. When you finally join the huge line out front, ticket in hand, you aren't able to just file in at once.

No.

That.
Would.
Be.
Too.
Swift.

Instead, they pull each group aside to pose in front of a blank backdrop and have their picture taken. This delay is entirely in the interest of the museum and another profit source that seems usurious given the steep cost of admission, parking and food here. Whoever at the Academy greenlighted this offering either doesn't know how frustrated museum-goers are or, worse still, doesn't care.

Labels: Bad Customer Experience, California Academy of Sciences, marketing to mothers

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.