Traveling frequently for business (or pleasure) can tax one’s patience and often leave you exhausted. This, however, will not be a blog post about my favorite travel tips. Instead let’s talk about what I’ve learned based upon how I’ve been treated by the various brands I interact with when I do travel.
Price, quality and service
In business it’s often said that you can pick any two from the price, quality and service trio, but never expect all three at the same time. Before we jump into travel, let’s discuss how that looks for a brand most of us have heard of: Apple. When you choose to own Apple products you get high quality and excellent service, but at an admittedly high price. So you get two of the three while understanding that in a perfect world, you’d want low price, high quality and excellent service.
I fly Delta Airlines as often as I can when I need to travel on business. I’ve traveled enough to know that what I’m about to share could be blasphemy to you, but I’ll frequently pay more (not a ton more but a little) and even accept a connecting flight to stay on Delta. Why would I do this since the goal of air travel is getting from point A to point B as quickly and inexpensively as possible? It’s simple really. In my opinion, Delta offers the highest quality airline experience when traveling from Milwaukee with an excellent level of service. So I’m willing to pay a bit more.
There is a caveat here. I am loyal to Delta because over time I’ve earned a preferred level of service. I can often bypass lines at both the ticket counter and the security checkpoints. Sometimes I’m even awarded no-cost upgrades to first class. I don’t share this to brag but instead to explain why I am willing to pay a little more to get the quality and service I desire when flying.
It’s about predictability
My goal is to make business travel suck a little less. You may want the cheapest hotel room, rental car or flight. I don’t want to over pay but I’ll pay more for consistent service and a predictable quality level. It’s why you might be willing to pay more for Apple products.
Recently, a hotel chain I don’t stay with often had a special running that required two stays to get a $50 gift card to use as I like. This seemed like a good deal worth pursuing with the upcoming travel I was planning. Because I had already attained renewal of the preferred status I have with my preferred hotel brand, I decided to give this alternate brand a try.
The first stay was at a brand new property and was a pleasant surprise. For a reasonable price, I got a excellent brand new room and exceptional service from the hotel staff. A week later, I stayed at a property within the same chain, but this time it was a renovated property. The price however was excellent (very low for where I was). The service from the staff was good, but the quality of the room was below my normal level of acceptability. So once again I got two of the three from the price, quality and service trio.
Are you trying to deliver on all three?
Have you taken a look at your price, quality and service offerings lately? Are your prices too low to sustainably provide the level of quality and service your customers expect? Or perhaps your prices are too high to justify the level of quality and service you provide. Either of these situations can be a real problem for your business.
Achieving the almost magical balance of price, quality and service in your business is an ongoing challenge. What are you doing to monitor where you are with the trio?