In a world of online reviews and star ratings, it’s no longer enough to simply to deliver your product or service as expected.
More than ever, we need to delight and surprise our customers to get the kind of rave reviews that propel your business forward. The good news is, there are two proven ways to achieve this.
The first way is to deliver a truly remarkable experience to each and every customer with a big innovation which allows you to deliver your product or service in a way that is superior to anything else in the marketplace.
For example, if your courier service uses drones instead of vans to deliver any package within the hour, your innovation delivers a truly remarkable experience that will naturally spread.
Secondly, and more commonly, a remarkable customer experience is the sum of several small touches that add up to something truly special. Let me give you an example...
A few years ago I took my family away for Christmas, and stayed in a hotel that was a beautiful old monastery once upon a time. And around this time my little boy was 3 years old, and he was obsessed with the Disney movie Cars. So everyday, after being on the beach all day, we’d go to the front desk and ask for Cars from their DVD library.
“A remarkable customer experience is the sum of several small touches that add up to something truly special.”
After a few days of getting the Cars movie out at the front desk it was Christmas eve. And there was a carol service in the main courtyard, so we all went. When we came back to the room, there on my little boy’s bed was a little Lightening Mcqueen toy car, wrapped up in Cars wrapping paper.
Sheesh. Mind blown.
The cost of that toy car to the hotel was small. But the value, to us and to him was overwhelming.
Now the service in this hotel was already good. The staff remembered everybody’s name, and even remembered which coffee blend and newspapers people preferred at breakfast. But with this extra special touch, good service, that we may have mentioned if someone asked us about it, was suddenly transformed into superb service.
Of course, we then left a great review on the hotel website, Trip Advisor, Google reviews - everywhere. Not to mention all the people we’ve personally recommended the hotel to.
The big takeaway here is that the margin between doing what’s expected and what’s exceptional is actually very narrow. It doesn’t take much to make people truly amazed.
Your customers could, but probably don’t receive birthday cards from you, anniversary cards, handwritten notes, text messages... you get the idea.
Try making a list of the special touches that you could include along the way when delivering your product or service. Special touches that would truly delight people.
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