By Scott Burns, CEO & co-Founder, GovDelivery

When you think of the stakeholders you serve, how would you
describe your connection to them? Empathy, apathy, animosity, appreciation, or something else?

We’ve been working on customer / client focus at GovDelivery, and we’ve gone through some healthy exercises that have me on the lookout for how I’m being treated as a citizen and as a customer.

Example 1: Hotwire Travel and the Morgan’s Hotel in New York.

When I travel, I always book my hotels on www.hotwire.com which is like Priceline
except you get a little more visibility into which neighborhood you’ll be
staying in (you also get less William Shatner, for better or worse). Over the last year, they’ve added more visibility into the customer ratings of hotels and since then, every place I’ve stayed has been terrific. The Morgan’s Hotel in New York this week had some of the best customer service I’ve seen. At check in, the woman saw a picture of my 3-year old in my wallet and we got talking about kids. She found out that I have twin babies at home and upgraded me so I could get a “good night of uninterrupted sleep.”

The hotels “mini-bar” has the normal assortment, but also
has over-the-counter sleep aids. For anyone who has trouble getting to sleep on the road, like me, this could be a
life saver. It’s a great example of empathizing with what the customer is going through that I’d never seen before. Due to my infants, I can sleep on demand these days so I didn’t have any need this trip, but maybe someday
soon.

Example 2: City of St. Paul Library System

Our library system in St. Paul is truly one of the best. I recently participated in their, brilliantly led, strategic planning process and learned just how customer focused they are. One example: you can drop your library books off at any library in our state and they will count the time you dropped it off as your return date. They find that a lot of people alternate pick up / drop off between the library near their home and the one near their work or on their commuting route. If Blockbuster would have figured this out years ago, I would have rented twice as often. Going into the process, I wondered what the Kindle, iPad, etc. meant for our libraries. Now, I know that they understand their “customers” and will adapt well to continue to provide value to our community.

What’s the coolest example you’ve seen in your organization of how you treat your stakeholders and customers?