Missed Opportunity to Thrill – Part 2 of “A Great Example of A Terrible User Experience”

March 11, 2010

My drivers license expired in February. I had no notice and, like most people, the expiration date of things is not something that I keep track of in my calendar. Why didn’t the RMV send me a notice? Why didn’t other organizations (that have my information) fill the gap?

They all missed an opportunity to thrill me with a great user experience and, more importantly to them, a missed opportunity to get free lead generation services and influence marketing from a thrilled customer (like Virgin America gets from me).

Who missed opportunities? They include:

– The RMV. How about an e-mail with a note “time to renew” and a bright green “click here to renew your drivers license” button. They might even be able to make some money by adding a special offer or two from neighborhood restaurants “celebrate your birthday here” since my license expired on my birthday. Did the RMV give any notice? Strangely, they didn’t (actually, since they are a government agency with little in the way of product and development for user experience, I guess this should be expected).

My car insurance company. They should know my license information and they should also know that the RMV does not automatically notify people that it is time to renew. What a great opportunity to extend their user experience and also maybe try to upgrade me or cross sell me with a related product. Again, this could be a simple e-mail and would be a relatively simple add to their system that I would have appreciated, would have improved their customer experience, and would probably be a good business growth strategy (or at least a business growth tactic).

My insurance Broker. Their approach could be similar to what my car insurance company could have done.

Any of the car rental companies that I have registered with to get preferred service. Again, each and every one missed a great opportunity to thrill me with their warning (and thereby get me working on their behalf as a lead generation service with my positive word of mouth) and they also missed a direct opportunity to sell me something at the same time.

Think about this with your company. You have a set of customers. You have information on your customers. Are there opportunities to thrill your customers by going out of your way to help them with something that you are not currently doing?

Founder & Partner

As the founder of OpenView, Scott focuses on distinctive business models and products that uniquely address a meaningful market pain point. This includes a broad interest in application and infrastructure companies, and businesses that are addressing the next generation of technology, including SaaS, cloud computing, mobile platforms, storage, networking, IT tools, and development tools.