CUSTOMER CARE, RULES AND EVERYTHING!

Allow me to introduce this month’s column with a recent ‘fresh’ experience of customer care. My 17 year old daughter has just passed her driving test and whilst legally entitled to drive, is still in need of practice. Recently she has been driving with one of her parents in the car effectively adopting the role of chauffeuse!  She drove my wife to an ASDA supermarket in Brighton Hill and whilst there they stopped and decided to try getting the weeks’ worth of groceries. Having filled the trolley with the week’s requirements and queued up at the manned checkout the now familiar bleeping of bar code scanning was in full swing. Once the perishables and fragile items were scanned, the heavier frozen and bottled items followed until the checkout person encountered a box of wine. The checkout person asked my daughter how old she was and on the grounds that she was under 18 refused to sell ‘her’ the wine. My wife explained that it wasn’t for her and that my daughter was just accompanying her (as she has done since birth). Long story short, the manager was summoned who recited the Licencing Act 2003 and seemed unable or incapable of differentiating between who was buying the alcohol. ‘Debate’ ensued but the manager was not going to back down and seemed upset when my wife refused to proceed with her purchase if the offending wine was not included.

Well there you have it – justifiable enforcement of rules or another example of the nanny state regulations being implemented ridiculously? It made me think about some of the Health and Safety Regulations we are required to comply with during an event and the hordes of parking attendants up and down the country who patrol our venues. Most of us cannot escape either, but it seems how these interactions are handled is much more salient than what the specific ‘rule’ happens to be. If we religiously enforced every rule, regulation and guideline I suspect we could actually prevent any show from ever opening or any exhibitor from successfully complying, not to mention any car driver from emerging unscathed from our car parks! I know from personal experience that most event directors and senior managers are only aware of specific health and safety issues if they are escalated and for much of the time are blissfully unconcerned by the convoluted regulations that can make life hellish for exhibitors.  The guidelines are the same for all of us in the industry, but it appears that how they are enforced and managed that makes exhibiting with some organisers an altogether more painless experience than with others. When is the last time a review was carried out to ensure the exhibitor journey was as easy as possible? In these times we cannot afford to create barriers to participation at our events. I recall a few years ago speaking with the enlightened CEO of a Midlands based venue who claimed he wanted to improve the image and visitor experience of the venue. I mentioned that the start of the visitor journey was negatively influencing their mood, citing that written directions for exhibitors and visitors were to “report to Control Point A” rather than “please proceed to Gate A” as it is now. . . .