Do you innovate with customers in mind?

Innovation is a word that is thrown around a lot these days, but I see far too little innovation in the customer experience. A case in point is the Short Line Bus company (part of CoachUSA). I ride the Short Line bus several times a month, and there are many innovations that would be nice, such as heaters at the bus stops, or electronic displays that tell you when the next bus is coming. But that’s not what they changed recently. They made the tickets bigger.

Yeah, I expect that was at the top of every customer’s wish list. Bigger tickets. And I don’t mean just a little bigger. No, these new tickets are the size of a small Latin American country. We’re talking mega-tickets. If they were any bigger, you could board a plane with them. Take a gander for yourself:

The ticket on the left–the old one–was about the size of the credit card. The right one won’t even fit in my wallet.
Now, understand, this isn’t a big deal. I mean, I’ll get over it. But if they were going to innovate in ticketing, why not do something customers care about? Why not offer a monthly pass instead of making people buy tickets for every blessed bus trip? Since most customers are going into New York City, why not let them use their NYC Metro Cards as their tickets? In short, if you’re going to change the tickets, why not make a change that improves the customer experience?

Image via Wikipedia

But that’s not what they did. I still don’t know why they changed the tickets. I was hoping that maybe it helped people who were visually impaired, but when I asked several Short Line people, they either didn’t know or told me that this was due to “the new ticketing machine.” I hope the next time that they change the tickets that they do it for a reason that customers care about.
How would your company pass the same test? When you innovate, when you improve things, are you improving things for your customer or for yourself? If you think your customers aren’t paying attention, you’re wrong.