What can happen in 3 seconds?  The difference between positive and negative, that’s all.

At a recent conference held in Philadelphia, a panel devoted to the “Guest Experience” spoke to the need for organizations to build well-rounded guest experience guidelines. In building that experience, there were 3 distinct “experiences” that an organization must help facilitate: the Pre-Experience, the Actual Experience, and the Post-Experience. The Pre-Experience includes all things that lead up to the Actual Experience, including all information the guest might acquire from social media, friends, websites, as well as email and phone exchanges with the organization. The Actual Experience was just that, the time with the organization itself. The Post-Experience was the feeling and memory the person develops, as well as any post-visit exchanges. And for each “experience”, it was noted that it takes only 3 seconds for that particular experience to be set in a certain direction, either positive of negative. 3 seconds!

If the experience falls into the positive category, great, a job well done and perhaps some goodwill gained. Now, should that experience fall into the negative category, complaints will follow. And to whom will they complain? 5% will complain to management, 45% will complain to front-line staff and 50% will complain via social media. To put it in a slightly different way, 95% of complaints will be aired to those who have little to no authority at the organization itself. That’s an astonishingly high percentage, and it’s important to recognize that building a lasting, positive, and sustainable customer experience for any organization or entity is going to be dependent on those who have the least amount of decision-making authority.

The upside to this fact is that organizations and entities can empower their front-line personnel and social media personnel with the tools necessary that give them some agency in creating a great experience, or at the very least the tools needed to mitigate a negative one. This is where good training and communication skill development comes in handy. This vast democratization of experience empowerment can provide opportunities for even the most recent hires to feel as though they can have a lasting impact on the organization and how it is perceived. That alone is empowering and may be the nudge that is needed to get those on the front lines to transform negative experiences into positive ones.  As goes the percentage of those who can transform complaints into compliments, so goes the likelihood of a positive guest experience.  And everyone benefits from that.