The Sweet Spot

As I was walking through the exhibition area of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last Friday, "The Story of the Three Bears" crossed my mind. (Yes, yes, funny how the mind works!)

Specifically, I thought of the part about porridge that's "Too hot or too cold versus just right."That concept actually has a lot to do with customer experience -- at a trade show or anywhere a company interfaces with people.

Midstep somewhere in Aisle 500, an overly enthusiastic sales guy caught my eye, flashed a wide smile and proceeded to tell me about how his company is changing the way businesses worldwide buy IT. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I don't have a role in buying what he was selling, but if experiences are porridge, this bowl was way too hot by any measure.

A short while later, I stopped at a booth that looked genuinely interesting. Not change-your-world interesting, but on-topic for social media and therefore worth further investigation. Ah, but here the lone booth representative was so engaged with his BlackBerry that, after a few minutes of waiting, I simply picked up a brochure and moved on... porridge too cold.

The exhibit booths that were on-target for my interests and well-staffed with engaging and knowledgable people were, of course, just right.

I attended the Web 2.0 Expo, not as a buyer of products and services, but as someone interested in learning as much as possible about the vendors in the social media space. In other words, nobody made their year or went out of business on Friday because of how I experienced the temperature of their porridge.

But the experience was a good case study, nonetheless, of how opinions are formed and word-of-mouth begins. Interactions matter, whether your customers are external and far away or internal and in the cube next door.

Ask yourself... If customer experience is porridge, what temperature will you be serving today?