Punctuation marks are a common phenomenon in writing- more
like the unique straight or overcast stitches, which holds together and
garnishes the literary attire. These tiny but significant elements act like a
concierge- by helping show a reader where a sentence starts and ends. Punctuation
marks comprises of: full stop, comma, semicolon, colon, apostrophe, hyphen,
brackets and a host of others. The presence of these marks, make reading and
comprehension a lot easier but the absence of this on a particular occasion transformed
my customer experience.
A few days ago I launched a new landing page vibevox, for a voice of customer platform
that is currently in development. It took a few days for Google keyword
research, logo design and conceptualisation; to craft the landing page- powered
by Launchrock. The landing page went live by 2 am a few days ago; I was super
excited and went to bed really pleased with my efforts. Before going to bed, I did
send an instant message to a friend intimating him about the site. After a few
hours ticked by, the alarm clock goes off- accompanied by a worse alarm, not
the fire alarm, in case you are wondering. The alarm was an instant message
from a friend saying the site was down. I panicked, as a chill of despair
consumed my sense of reasoning. I quickly sent an email to my web host, citing
the error 404 that was appearing on my landing page. They replied with a
recommendation of some few ways of resolving the issue- tried these but to no
avail. The page was intermittent, coming on for a brief moment every other
hour. My customer experience was at an all time low as I had adhered to the
outlined instructions from my web host. I watched a host of YouTube videos,
addressing how to resolve similar issues- adjusted and tweaked the
configuration, still fell at the feet of error 404.
I finally decided to resort to an online tech support chat, with
the hostgator technical support assistant. Hoping this would be the climax of
my customer experience journey, after a bumpy and foggy ride. Within a few
minutes of investigating my web control panel, the tech support assistant wrote
the best phrase every worried customer longs to hear- ‘Got it.’ He then further
added that the problem was caused by a punctuation mark- full stop (.). This
happens to be the tiniest punctuation mark but on this occasion it was a
differentiator between a very satisfied customer to a disgruntled one. If you
were wondering what category I was affiliated to, I would say between the
former and the later- owing to the recent assurance from the tech support
adviser. I was relieved that he had discovered the fault was a full stop (.),
at the end of my domain name on the control panel. To be honest, I was not super
confident that a tiny mark could distort a landing page- nonetheless, was
advised to give it about three hours. I had no choice but to adhere to the
instruction- countdown three hours, the site was back on and has never
flickered for a fraction of a second. I was impressed and left a very good
feedback on the hostgator feedback tool- sharing my utmost relief at the ease
at which the technical support team resolved my humongous challenge.
John Wooden poignantly enthused, “It’s the little details
that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” It is against this
backdrop that I would like to state that companies striving to enhance her
customer experience should acknowledge at times, the elements that put off
customers may not be the large punctuation marks like question mark,
exclamations, hyphen or brackets. In most cases, the granules or the minute
elements like a full stop or dot, (figuratively speaking) might transform the
customer experience. The other key element in this school of thought would be
to know when to eliminate or include a granule or minute element- that could transform
the experience. In my case, erasing the punctuation mark made the difference;
another scenario including the punctuation mark or minute element might enhance
the experience. Remember your company is like an article, your customers are
the readers and the right application of punctuation marks would enhance their
reading experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment