How One Employee Can Make Or Break The Customer Experience

This week was a special week. Not only did my eldest daughter finish pre-school (off to big school in September) but I worked from my new office for the first time.

I've been procrastinating over the 'office' decision for a couple of months but last Friday I took the plunge and signed a co-working contract with Regus.(Exciting times - my business is growing up!)

Anyway, I hadn't planned to visit this week but thanks to OpenReach, my home office became unusable on Tuesday afternoon. No phone. No internet. So I jumped in the car and headed unannounced to my new place of work.

I turned up all flustered and hot (it's been over 30 degrees on the sunny south coast) explaining to the receptionist my situation including how I needed to work late for a webinar commitment. This was my first encounter with my new supplier - totally unplanned, unannounced and rather frantic.

Business Back Up And Running

She calmly sat me down and said "our co-working space isn't ready yet" to which my jaw dropped. She then said "but if you're happy to work in the room as it is, we'll set you up".

What impressed me most was that Sheila understood my predicament even without really understanding my business.

She just cracked on and helped me get back up and running. To top it off she popped her head around the door at 5pm with a jug of hot water, tea bags and milk and said "you're going to be here late so I thought you might like a warm drink to keep you going". Is that great service or what?

One Employee Can Make Or Break The Customer Experience

What I found most profound was recognising how one employee can make or break a customer experience. What Sheila did for Regus was the difference between converting a customer into a brand fan or brand detractor.

When employees are bought into the vision and purpose of the company they work for and they understand their purpose within it, they live the values day-to-day.

I don't mean that employees sit at their desks reciting off the motivational poster in the staff area...they actually live the values in the eyes of the customer.

Now, maybe I'm thinking too deep about this but on the day (in all my chaos) I felt that Regus' purpose was to keep my business moving and growing. Sheila lived exactly that purpose. In fact, she went way beyond it - she gave me PG Tips...my favourite!

Needless to say I'm converted brand fan for Regus now - I've only been a customer for 5 working days but I'm impressed. Very impressed.

Since tweeting my excitement I've already introduced another potential customer to their new co-working solution - which by the way is a great offering for startups and entrepreneurs :-) go check it out...