Style or Substance?
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Last week was a busy week on the road, which of course meant bouncing between different hotels. For part of the week I was lucky enough to be attending a conference with a client held at the luxurious Four Seasons Resort located within the Disney World property Orlando.
It was a great facility and a lovely place to be holed up for a few days. Excellent facilities, kind knowledgeable staff, and lovely comfortable rooms. As is my usual practice, once I'd unpacked and settled into my room I wanted to get on to the WiFi network to check email and do a little catch up.
So my first question was what’s the network and password? These days it's usually just a login needing your name and hotel room number, but I always like to check. On the desk was a lovely well designed and produced 18-page book that promised to be an Activity Guide for the hotel. While it did indeed tell me how to book a spa session, a round of golf, and many other delights, what was missing from its pages was the basic information about the hotel itself, such as when and where breakfast was served, restaurant locations and hours, and that all important WiFi code.
Earlier in the week I was in Dallas for a couple of client visits and had picked a Doubletree Hotel to use as my base as it was by a freeway, near some restaurants, and equidistant between the places I needed to visit. It was an aging hotel, clean and comfortable, but nothing spectacular.
But one thing I really appreciated was a small slip of paper included in the envelope that contained my room key. It may not have been pretty, and perhaps it could have been more professionally designed. But it told me everything I needed to know about when and where to get something to eat, and how to get on the all-important WiFi. - A simple yet effective way to provide the most common basic information that any guest needs.
While the 18-page glossy brochure for the Four Seasons may have been on brand, and was an enticing way to upsell the experiences available at the resort, it failed in its most basic task when compared to that slightly crumpled slip of paper I’d been given a few days before.
It was a good reminder that it is all too easy to overlook the basic information that our customers need in favor of the more extensive information that a business wants to promote.
Alan
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Weekly #CX Thought
Development teams and technologists need to be aware of what others are doing, and their awareness of the customer experience needs to cross all boundaries.
Content Discovery Workshops - Now Booking for Q2/24
THE CONTENT POOL is offering a special discount on our two-day Content Discovery Workshops for newsletter subscribers and readers.
We still have two slots for March available, plus we have just opened up workshop scheduling for Q2/2024, and we wanted to make sure that as a newsletter reader you got an early opportunity to lock-in a date.
As a reminder during these on-site in-person workshops workshop we will:
Develop your content vision
Identify opportunities to leverage your content in new ways
Map out the path to transform your enterprise content.
It will be followed by two deliverables:
Key observations document
High-level content transformation plan
A quick overview of the standard workshop format can be found at https://the-content-pool.com/workshops/
If you would like more details, or you like to discuss reserving a date for yourself and your team to benefit from a Content Discovery workshop, just email us at info@4jsgroup.com
Sitting on the Desk
Engineering Words - Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham Gonzalez
XML Press - 2023
The latest volume from XML Press to arrive on my desk has already become one that I have recommended to several clients. Building on both authors' years of experience teaching at the University of California, this is an excellent guide to building a skill set around clear writing and developing the communication skills to present your ideas effectively.
Although primarily focused on helping engineers, I have also found it useful for clients in other professions who need help in presenting complex ideas to customers and business colleagues alike.
In The Bookstore
If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter and would like more, we have three books always available from XML Press.
You can also check out The Content Pool website or follow us on FaceBook or on Twitter/X at @TheContentPool
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Till next time - have fun paddling in The Content Pool.
Alan Porter
The Content Pool™ is a division of the 4Js Group LLC