On the relative nature of customer experience

A ferry trip from Indonesian Batam Island to Harbour Front in Singapore takes about 50 minutes. Last week, I had to make a last-minute ticket change to catch an earlier sailing on that route. It was that or over two hours wait time. I barely made it – thanks to the kindness of the ferry crew who were willing to wait that extra few minutes at the berth.

On board, happy to be on my way home, I complained to a work colleague about how inefficient the process at the ticketing office was: it took three staff, two phone calls, and endless tapping on computer keyboard to issue a new ticket. Ridiculous!

The said teammate (less than half my age) made me realise I was too quick passing (wrong) judgement. After all, he pointed, I was crossing an international border. As such, travellers on that route were subject to adequate scrutiny, and the ferry operator had to follow strict protocols in that respect – not unlike any airline operating international routes. And, since I was changing my ticket less than 10 minutes before the ferry’s scheduled departure, a special security protocol likely kicked in.

Living on islands for the past nine years, I consider ferry rides indistinguishable from other forms of urban public transport: buses, trams, metro trains, taxis… Getting on and off should be easy; paying the fare should be simple; who would have ever thought about security protocols, right? Well, not quite.

As consumers, not only we are creatures of habit, but also quick to reset our expectations – upwards. We also tend to adopt a peculiar tunnel vision, and fail to recognise the only true king of #CX land: His Majesty, the Context.