Listen To Your Team Members, They Are Closest To The Customer

See this insta reel first. It's a Zomato partner sharing what needs to be changed on the app. It is a very specific issue. A customer can record an instruction for the delivery partner that helps the partner deliver with ease. While this feature itself awesome (it saves time for both parties), it has created another issue. The recording was for delivery instruction, and it is attached to every order. The feature now, instead of adding to the customer experience, is creating dissonance for both, the customer and the delivery partner. 

Once you understand the suggestion, it seems logical. You think, that is how it should have been designed from the get-go. Not true. The initial idea was to make delivery easier (think directions, think bell positioning etc), but customers started using it for order-related information. Now, if you have used the app, that is there as well, but for the outlet, not the delivery partner. Hence this reel.

So, why does he need to make an insta reel? Why not tell the company? It doesn't matter. What is important is the realisation that so many must have seen this exact same thing happen, and not bothered. He did. 

And more importantly, he could, because he was close to the issue. He saw it happen, again and again.

What are your people, noticing, going through as you read this? What did the the room service steward notice? Did he notice how the guests kept looking around the room not knowing how to make space for the tray or the trolley? 

And did your Housekeeping notice how guests are increasingly eating on the bed, especially while watching TV? Your HK team is wondering, why doesn't room service bring a tablecloth to spread on the bed? Or even better, a table! It would save so many bedsheets!

Every day, at almost every interaction, your team, is noticing something. Most of them will not even mention it, some coz they think, you know best, some fear you will say that exact thing to them. They will tell their friends though, maybe family, and now, the Social media.

So what can you do?

You can wait, till you get tagged in an Insta Reel, or get proactive.

Reward them. Give them the recognition, let their name be known, make them famous. Let them know you appreciate their wisdom, the insight and the idea. 

How easy would it be for someone at Zomato to tell this delivery partner 'do you know how to code? do you know how difficult that 'little' idea of yours would be to implement?' But that is not the point. The delivery partner's job is not to figure out the feasibility or the project plan or the resources and the what-have-you, his job is to deliver the meal, yours is to help him deliver with happiness.

p.s. Here's a thought! Why don't we refer to any improvement anyone suggests, by their name? So instead of saying, here is the new SOP for Check-In, say, from today we will be following 'Aditya's Check-In Protocol'. Let them own that! Watch with pride, as they make everything come alive!

This is common. Case in point, John Nash did not call the equilibrium point in game theory “Nash equilibrium.” Other researchers did that.