Back in the summer, my wife and I decided to take our two children to Legoland in Windsor. Their Lego Club magazine included a Kids go free with “Full Paying Adult” offer, so we booked two adult tickets for my wife and myself, through the Legoland website.
Note: When booking tickets on the Legoland website, the price varies depending how soon you are going to visit (higher price for same or next day, slightly cheaper if it’s a few days away etc). If you want to go on a specific day, there is just one price to pay, per adult.
We arrived at Legoland and presented the kids go free vouchers, along with our adult tickets, only to be told they weren’t valid, because we didn’t have “Full Paying Adult” tickets.
The Legoland employee told us that only adult tickets purchased on the day of your visit, which are the most expensive tickets, are classed as “Full Paying Adult” tickets.
We pointed out that neither the voucher from the Lego Club magazine, nor the Legoland booking website, used the terms “Full Paying Adult” against any options and the terms of the voucher didn’t mention it either.
A member of Legoland management told us that we needed to either purchase two full paying kids tickets, or two full paying adult tickets, and it wasn’t their fault, Legoland and the Lego Club magazine aren’t the same company.
After a lot of discussion, they finally agreed to admit us to Legoland, but only if we purchased two full paying adult tickets, at a discounted rate, to match the price we paid online. They agreed to refund our original online ticket purchase, but we would have to wait 5-7 days for the refund.
This is a classic example of issues that can be caused by a company or brand not thinking through the customer journey, from all angles, or considering all channels as entry points to the purchase.
It’s also an example of poor customer care. There was clearly an issue from the seller side, whether it was caused by Legoland or Lego Club magazine, but it took too much discussion to convince Legoland to honour the offer as it had been presented, and even then, it required us to pay again, with nearly a week delay on the refund.
My feedback as a customer – poor experience, unhappy and out of pocket £100 + for over a week.
So how can you learn from this quite trivial situation?
Take full responsibility for how your products and services are presented, sold, delivered, maintained and upgraded, no matter whether your company or a 3rd party was involved with the transaction. After all, it’s your brand the customer is engaging with, and they don’t know, or don’t care, that there are separate companies involved.
Taking ownership builds trust. And trust was recently highlighted in a survey as the most important trait to be displayed by a company, followed by dependability.
Using customer journey mapping, which includes all possible inbound channels (those you manage, as well as any 3rd party, such as partners, resellers, publications) helps you identify what should and would happen at every stage of the pre and post sales process.
This customer journey shows all areas of interaction between your company and your customers. You should consider how you interact, support and influence at each stage, for the best customer experience.
If any part of the customer journey is managed by a 3rd party, make sure you consider specific requirements for these channels. Treat anyone involved in these external channels as an extension of your company, ensuring they understand what you expect from them and how they can use you to help with any issues.
Along with helping make your customer experience the best it can be, customer journey mapping will also help identify areas for improvement in process for your company, which will deliver efficiency, provide transparency and keep you legally compliant.
Finally, as the process of mapping your customer journey involves people from all departments in your company, it’s also a great way to share deep insight into each department’s processes & challenges, while bringing teams together to think creatively & innovatively to solve challenges.