Competing with last best experiences

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime ...
— Eminem, Lose Yourself

We're all competing the last best experience our customer had.

As this year rolls over to 2020 I will have flown 125,000 miles. Five times around the world visiting customers, partners and learning more about my employer's market. As a result I hold platinum status with two airlines, and close to Diamond with Delta.

This story is how United blew their one shot at capturing a high value customer from Delta. It's a story of how every business now has one shot to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

We begin with a frequent flyer hack called a "status match". It's a way to secure status with an airline competing with your primary carrier. Most airlines do this, if you ask. I did the match for several reasons, intended to provide more flexibility as a new role at Tiny sees me create and build our global partner marketing program (aka "channel marketing").

Having completed the match in half the required time, I called United to ask whether they would extend a status match to Premier 1K. It's their highest, public frequent flyer tier. I was advised to email the United address provided as part of the platinum match I completed.

You are competing with the last best experience your customer had.
— Kirsten Kelley, GM Marketing @ HCL Technologies

Easy, except it wasn't. All email from United during the platinum match process was sent from "no-reply" addresses.

Time or money? I choose time. It's the most important resource any of us have, yet few of us know know how much we have remaining. I chose the path of least resistance and booked flights to Boston, Austin, Ottawa, and Paris with Delta.

United had one shot to take a call from a frequent flyer and deliver the best customer experience in that moment.

This is now a truth for every business. Yours. Mine. Everyone. We have one chance to deliver amazing, memorable, loyalty capturing customer experiences.

How do you know which customer matters?

Enterprises can invest in predictive modeling solutions that deliver insights real-time to customer services representatives. For businesses without the resources or technology to do this, every customer matters. Which is how every business should approach customer or client relationships anyway. Everyone matters. We're all competing the last best experience our customer had.

As Eminem wrote, you get one shot.