I walk a LOT. Partly as a healthy hobby and a mental break, partly because my 19-month-old is almost always nice and calm in the stroller, and partly because I have LADA and walking lowers my blood sugar.
So, I was on a walk one evening (as fate would have it, withOUT baby girl) and heard a crash, followed by someone shouting. I wasn’t sure if it was a noisy game at first, but I got closer and saw a 60-year-old woman laying at the base of a ladder in her garage. Her husband was there and I asked if I should call 911.
He said yes.
And boy, did my customer experience Spidey senses start tingling.
First, I talked to an operator for the County and had to be transferred to my city’s center.
Then, I was on the phone and while the attendant was calm, he wasn’t remotely reassuring or empathetic. He started in with a barrage of questions—nearly none of which I knew the answer to or felt was pressing.
I had to (or felt compelled to…) ask 3 times: “Are you sending someone as I answer these questions???” I felt they should have already been on the scene. This poor woman was immobile on the ground and here he was asking me how old she was and how far she fell. My “I don’t know, it’s a medium-sized 6-rung ladder” felt pretty irrelevant and useless.
An instant fix would have been to tell me from the beginning: “Help is on the way. In the meantime, I’ll ask you some questions to they can be as prepared as possible when they arrive.”
The call was only 4 minutes long (seriously felt like 10) and the husband sent me away once we hung up and after the operator passed along some generic and what felt like tacked-on advice about not moving her, not letting her eat or drink, etc.
I heard sirens a couple minutes later.
I’m not sure if the ambulance left the station AFTER he collected all the info, or if they were on their way the whole time, but I walked away from the call feeling like my emergency wasn’t urgent for them. Like my concerns didn’t matter. And like I was at the mercy of their protocol without knowing what protocol I was even part of.
Maybe I was over-reacting. (Although, I swear I was cool and collected on the phone, if not a bit miffed.) But maybe I’m onto something—this idea that empathy goes a long way.
Let’s create a better experience for our customers than this 911 call did. Let’s make them feel cared for and guided. Let’s show up in partnership, rather than sifting them through an undefined system.
Having a solid backend is one element to this. And confidently sharing cohesive messaging is another part of a clear, caring customer experience.
Hop on a free Collaboration Call with me if you want to chat about co-creating a brand messaging strategy that will make your clients feel cared for.
Toward Purpose & Progress,
Ashlee
This is an excerpt from Toward Purpose & Progress, my newsletter where I share business tips, good news, shoutouts to Founder Friends, and other juicy snippets. Subscribe here for more rants, reflections, and resources.
