I was speaking at a large Credit Union conference in upstate Michigan at the Traverse City Resort, a large complex with many different buildings and a beautiful location on the shore of Lake Michigan. I had spoken that morning in Orlando before taking two flights to get to the venue. It was late, almost midnight, and I had an eight o’clock keynote first thing in the morning, so I was really looking forward to finding my room and getting some sleep.
After checking in, the receptionist tried to give me instructions on how to get to my room. I was not in the main building, and her directions were to go outside then walk down a path, turn one way, and then another. It was lightly raining, though, so I asked her if there was a way to get there under cover. She told me to go downstairs, then follow a corridor, go through some doors, and so on. I followed her instructions and, after some missed turns, actually found myself in the building where I was supposed to be. My room number was 5041, and yet, there was no room 5041 where the receptionist said it was supposed to be. I kept going over and over the rooms to make sure that I hadn’t missed it. I even checked the elevator, and sure enough, the sign verified that my room was on the floor I was on.
After several minutes of a very frustrating search, I attempted to call the front desk. However, since I was essentially in the basement of the building, I had no signal. So I walked about halfway back to the hotel to a place where I could get a signal. Finally able to reach the front desk, and talking to the same clerk I had checked in with, I told her the room she had assigned me was not on that floor. She assured me it was. I told her that I had checked every door in that area; it was not there. I insisted that she ask her manager. While she was a bit frustrated with me, she did, and, returning to the call, she informed me that I was on the wrong floor. I needed to go up to the first floor. I reassured her that I was on the first floor of this building. She replied, “There is a ground floor in that building; the first floor is the floor above that.”
Setting aside the ridiculousness of having a ground floor as well as a first floor that is actually the second floor, setting aside that the room number meant nothing in telling you what floor the room was on, it was her attitude that put me off a bit. She wasn’t unprofessional, but her tone was less than helpful. There was no apology; she was just matter-of-fact. It felt like she had essentially said, “You screwed up and went to the wrong place.”
So I trudged with my computer bag and suitcase back to where I had started. Entering the elevator, I reexamined the sign where I had verified my room number and now saw that my room number was listed on both the ground and first floor. A very helpful sign, don’t you think?
Thirty minutes later than I should have, I arrived at my room. It was actually a very nice suite. I’m sure that the meeting planner had asked them to give me the nice room because I was a speaker for their conference. If I had been there earlier, I know I would have enjoyed the room a lot, but it would have been much easier for me to have just had a regular room in the main hotel area.
This whole story reminds me of the need to examine the usability of our service. If there are aspects of your business, your website, your sales, or your marketing messages that would leave reasonable customers or prospects confused, then you need to fix it. You may not even notice it — you are involved in your company every day, and it is possible that these types of issues go unnoticed. I suggest you get additional experienced eyes that are unfamiliar with your business on a day-to-day basis and let them take a hard look at your operation to identify any areas where usability may be turning potential customers away without you even realizing it. It may eliminate some or all of the abandoned clients that walk away without you ever knowing.