Customer delight was nowhere in sight during my recent interaction with Envision Eye Care in Bristol, Va., to pick up a replacement contact lens for one recently lost.
Two weeks ago I shared Jeannie Walters’ framework for what great customer experience looks like. Companies that get proactive CX right grow revenue 41% faster and retain customers at a 51% higher rate (Forrester). The math is impossible to ignore.
This week I’m going to take you from the great CX (customer experience) example of the human avocado waiter with the squeaky rubber chicken pen in last week’s message to businesses deserving of being whacked with a rubber chicken by a knight in shining armor for their bad CX.*
I’m sure you’ve all had countless bad CX encounters over the years.
Here’s one I recently had.
When “Policy” Becomes a Customer Experience Problem
Sometimes a bad customer experience isn’t the result of rudeness or incompetence. Instead, it’s the result of rigid policy applied without common sense.
Here’s what happened to me earlier this month. It illustrates exactly how businesses lose goodwill with a customer via one unnecessary frustration at a time.
On April 2, a week after my annual eye exam, Envision Eye Care in Bristol, Va., called to let me know my new contacts had arrived.
The order included a new left lens with an updated prescription and a replacement right lens for the one I had recently lost.
My optometrist, Dr. Spiker, said before they can update the prescription for my right eye, they have to check it one more time with the most recent lens. (At my exam I was wearing an older lens as a backup, even though it wasn’t the most updated prescription and was somewhat uncomfortable.)
Then I was told the optometrist has to be there to check the fit before I can have these new lenses.
OK, great.
But his next appointment wasn’t until April 30 as he’s only in the Bristol office on Thursday.
Ah, not so great.
In fact, that’s a horribly long time.
Well, let’s see how logic and common sense worked…
I asked if I could stop by and at least pick up the right lens since it’s only a replacement lens for the one I had lost.
Nope. The optometrist has to check the fit.
Now, that didn’t make any sense to me.
“You mean I have to wear an older right contact lens that doesn’t give me as good vision and isn’t as comfortable until April 30th?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s our policy,” was the response.
“Well, then you need to change your policy,” I replied.
And that’s where it ended up.
Since I had business in Virginia that day, I thought I’d stop by the office that was on my way back and see if an in-person request would make a difference.
I explained to the office manager it wasn’t a new prescription, nor was it a new fitting. It was just a replacement for a lens I recently lost. Could I please pick it up?
“Sorry, that’s our policy. My hands are tied,” said the office manager.
The office manager, to her credit, was apologetic — but firm. Policy was policy. She wasn’t budging.
And she wasn’t empowered to make a common-sense decision.
After some back-and-forth, the manager reached the doctor by phone, and he approved releasing the lens.
Problem solved? Not entirely.
When I arrived home and put the lens in, my distance vision was blurry. I wear monovision contacts — my left eye corrected for reading, the other for distance — so a potential mix-up between eyes would be a very easy mistake to make, and a very noticeable one.
It felt like this right replacement lens was also adjusted for reading.
I called the office, explained the situation to the office manager, and she assured me my left eye was my reading eye. She had no idea why my right replacement lens would be blurry and promised to follow up after speaking with the doctor.
She never called back.
So now I’m waiting until my April 30 appointment to learn whether I was handed the wrong lens or if some other error was made.
The takeaway for businesses: Three separate failures compounded here: an inflexible policy that didn’t account for routine situations, a product issue that raised legitimate quality concerns, and a dropped follow-up promise.
Any one of these alone is forgivable.
Together, they create a customer who feels dismissed, and a story worth telling.
To top it off, when I arrived back in my Civic, it wouldn’t start.
In fact, it took almost an hour before it finally started.
I wasn’t able to get to Milligan University to teach my PR writing class, which was about 45 minutes away, so I called one of my students and he put me on speaker phone while I taught the class.
When the car finally started, I drove straight to the Honda dealer. A few months ago, they diagnosed the problem as the ignition switch and starter relay.
That repair cost $800+. And it didn’t fix the problem.
For the whole story about my Civic’s Russian roulette starter, read this blog post about the roadside breakdowns and this one about the supposed fix.
Next week I’ll share the sequel to this Civic starter issue and the multi-prong frustrating CX that ran me over.
The 3 Big Takeaways
- Keep your eyes open for a policy that makes no common sense, and change it.
- Empower employees to go against policy when good CX is at risk.
- Have the person in charge issue a personal apology to the customer when it’s determined a policy caused a bad customer experience.
What did you think of this example of bad CX? What could I have done differently? What would you have done? Do share!
Stay authentic — and laser-focused on delivering consistently great CX!
* A reference to a recurring scene in the classic British comedy series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus.Stay authentic — and committed to delivering the kind of CX PR pros feature in their blog.
Jeffery E. Pizzino, APR (seen here in a vintage photo circa 1983 serendipitously doing a Clash impersonation in a since-forgotten location) is a spin-free public relations pro who is passionate about telling the why of your story with clarity, impact and authenticity. He began his PR career in 1987 at Ketchum Public Relations in New York City but has spent the majority of his career as a solopreneur. He’s the Chief Authentic Officer of the Johnson City, TN-based public relations firm, AuthenticityPR. He also functions as the fractional CCO for his clients.
Jeff has an MBA in Management from Western International University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications — with an emphasis in PR — from Brigham Young University (rise and shout!). He’s also accredited in public relations (APR). This Milwaukee, Wisconsin native holds an Italian citizenship and plans to live and work there someday. Jeff and his storyteller wife Leticia have four children and four grandchildren. In his extremely limited nonwork hours, he studies Italiano, practices guitar, write songs, gardens, works out, disc golfs, reads, listens to New Wave music, serves as an assistant communication director in his church, watches BYU football, enjoys watching the original Mission Impossible TV series, and plays board games (mostly Dominion and Seven Wonders). No, this guy’s never bored and looking for something to do. Email Jeff.
