Everyday businesses are perpetually driven to increase revenues in a competitive environment. Starbucks has a great idea to aid in this quest–www.mystarbucksidea.com. This website encourages their customers to provide suggestions on how to improve their experience. With an improved experience and a demonstration that they are learning from and listening to their clients, Starbucks is effectively and creatively increasing their revenues through their repeat customer visits.
In a recent blog from Southwest Airlines, one of their employees was explaining her newest Starbucks experience. Turns out that her cup of coffee came with a little green swizzle stick that effectively plugged the hole in the lid so that as she drove the coffee wouldn’t slosh out of the cup. This was one of those customer-based ideas that successfully hit the streets. This experience was a delight and reminded her of the importance of the power of an effective customer experience. I wish she had stopped there.
Unfortunately, she equated this experience the ability and commitment of Southwest employees to delight their customers. “At Southwest, I think our Employees do a great job of serving up those unexpected delights on a daily basis….We want every Customer to walk away with the same feeling I got from that stick. At Southwest, we understand the little things add up to memorable moments and we promise to continue to look for ways to delight you unexpectedly every time you fly with us.” Reality check. Mystarbucksidea.com and my Southwest experiences, are two different models.
Starbucks created a forum that generates, develops, and implements ideas from the customers in an interactive and collaborative model. Then, these ideas are put into action. While the Southwest blog talks about the “promise to continue to look for ways…,” who are they asking? Where is the “mysouthwestairidea.com” forum? If any of the airlines (and my vote is that Southwest or JetBlue have the best chance of pulling this off) is going to increase their revenues and improve their customer experiences, they better start asking of, listening to, and treating their customers better. We currently do not have many choices in the airline industry while overall service merely ranges from awful to barely decent. When I find an airline that gets it right–I am on board and I am willing to pay for it. Hey Southwest Airlines, ask the Sales Cooke, I have lots of thoughts!!