Here's a great story about 'Customer Delight' that's created a real buzz in the social media world! Peter Shankman is a social media expert in the US and was flying home after a long day. Jokingly, sat on the plane before take off, he 'tweeted'...
and switched off his phone.
Two and a half hours later, he landed in New York and went through to get his car, and as he walked though he heard "Mr. Shankman - There's a surprise for you here."
Stood there was guy in a tuxedo and he was carrying a Morton's bag! His name was Alex from Morton's and he walked up to Peter, introduced himself, and handed him the bag!
He said that he'd heard that Peter was hungry, and he gave him the bag. Inside was a 24 oz. Porterhouse steak, an order of Colossal Shrimp, some potatoes, bread, two napkins and silverware!
Apparently they'd read his tweet, cooked him a steak, packaged it up and delivered it some 20 odd miles personally on his arrival at the airport!
Now, THAT's Customer Delight!
A few learning points for all of us:
- They were LISTENING! Morton's obviously have someone watching social media for mentions and comments so that they could react
- They REACTED! Someone took action!
- They EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS - that's what Customer Delight is all about!
- They created something WORTH TALKING ABOUT! Peter Shankman blogged and tweeted about it (he has over 10,000 'followers'!
- Others SPREAD THE WORD too! The 'buzz' was flying all over the internet!
Now, I don't know much about Mortons Steakhouses, but I certainly do now, and next time I'm in the US, I'm sure that they'll be on my radar!
The whole incident has caused quite a stir on the internet - not all of it good, though. Some people are saying it's a great example of customer service, others are saying it's a PR stunt. I'd say it's both, and fair play to them for doing it!
Others 'complained' that Morton's wouldn't have done that for everyone. Again, I have no problem with that. By definition, some customers are 'worth' more to a business than others, whether that be how much and /or how often they spend, their potential to spend, and their influence and potential influence to signpost people your way. Apparently Peter Shankman was a regular customer and clearly has some 'influence'! At the same time, it's obviously important that every customer gets a certain level of service because
a) you can't always 'spot their influence' and
b) it upsets some people when others get 'preferrential treatment', particularly if your service has been poor (banks, utilities, phone companies and building societies please note - preferrential rates to new customers over existing ones isn't clever!)
The challenge for any business is to establish and understand who your 'best' customers are, and make sure that your people know who these customer are! The word 'best' can create a huge debate and discussion, and that itself is no bad thing!
So, to get the debate and discussion in your business...
- Who are your 'best' customers?
- What 'criteria' do you base that on?
- Do your people know who they are?
- What could you do to let those customers know that they are 'special' - How could you 'Delight' them?
And finally, just in case anyone is listening, I just love Apple iPads (hint hint!)