Saying "No Way" but Still Providing an Experience

In customer experience programmes across the region, a real difficulty lies in getting the job done, while creating the intended experience at the same time.

At the very low standards of service we experience across the Caribbean region, it's safe to say that the average service professional, in the process of delivering service to a local customer, does a poor job of creating any conscious experience.

On the other hand, the very best service professionals I have ever encountered are able to take even a denial of service, and turn it into a positive experience. How is that possible?

Well, I am no surgeon, but the idea of undergoing surgery freaks most people out. Yet, as undesirable as it is, a patient who survives can indeed regard the entire experience as a useful and important one in their lives. Childbirth is similar in this regard.

Not that this is easy. It takes practice, skill and awareness, and also the will to serve people in this most sacred of ways.

There are not too many fresh graduates of high schools and colleges who are able to perform this particular trick. Instead, they learn from their management how to disregard experience, and to use force to get the job done. Then, predictably, the professional can blame the circumstances for the customer's experience, and remove themselves from a position of any accountability.

They simply are providing the worst customer experience possible.