Customer Experience isn't rocket science

Thursday night, checking-in into the Novotel at Munich airport. Due to stormy weather KLM cancelled my flight and since I still haven’t reached frequent flyer level gold, I'm rescheduled to tomorrow. In the hotel there is a queue for checking-in. It takes forever. The ladies at the reception take their time for every guest, and then it is finally my turn. The receptionist explains everything carefully, she’s extremely friendly and although I have a bad cold, I'm tired of the week and feel like falling asleep right there and then, she manages to make me feel a bit better than minutes before (yeah! way to go). 

“The funniest thing just happend...”

I take the elevator to the second floor and make an unplanned stop in the basement because I didn’t use my key to choose a floor. It’s one of those days. Finally I open the door to my room, in my mind already crashing on the bed. How convenient that the lights are on, I am always struggling to find the light switch in a hotel room. But… Is that the man who was standing next to me at the check-in counter? What is he doing in MY room? What a surprise. I smile ‘You don’t want to share the room, do you?’. The man looks shocked and doesn’t seem to want to share the room. Neither do I. I head back to the reception and tell the ladies: ‘the funniest thing just happened’…

So let me analyze this situation. I arrive at the hotel and I don’t feel too good. I have to wait forever, or at least it feels like forever. Then this friendly lady enters the scene. And even though she has already checked in hundreds of guests today, she takes her time for me (guest 274 I guess) does her routine and she even puts in a few jokes. Then something goes terribly wrong, but... I don’t care. Because I’m okay. Running into a stranger in my hotel room even feels like the funniest thing in the world, it really does. 30 minutes later I've already called Jeroen to share the story and texted it to my fellow commuter colleague. 

Sometimes it strikes me how simple thing are. Creating a great customer experience isn’t rocket science.