Customers like extras.  They enjoy service with a cherry on top.   In fact the features of a service have become more titillating than its function; extras more valued than the core offering.   But, two things have happened to extras that have robbed them of their power as a retention strategy.  First, they have gotten a lot more expensive.  That free snack on a flight is now eight dollars and service charges are standard fare on most bills.   Pursuing extras can also send a mixed message.  What do employees think when told to “wow” customers in the morning and informed of staff cutbacks and expense reductions in the afternoon?  

Value-added has been the service solution for many service exemplars.  Take what the customer expects and add a little more.  Nordstrom sales clerk escort you to another department far from their own, Southwest Airlines gives you free peanuts with slapstick humor. Walt Disney World gives you Mickey, Best Buy the Geek Squad, and Rosie’s Diner refills your ice tea glass without you being charged.  Adding more value has been the path to getting more smiles…and, receiving more revenue.  And, there has nothing inherently wrong with a Baker’s dozen approach. 

Customers like extras.  They enjoy service with a cherry on top.   In fact the features of a service have become more titillating than its function; extras more valued than the core offering.   But, two things have happened to extras that have robbed them of their power as a retention strategy.  First, they have gotten a lot more expensive.  That free snack on a flight is now eight dollars and service charges are standard fare on most bills.   Pursuing extras can also send a mixed message.  What do employees think when told to “wow” customers in the morning and informed of staff cutbacks and expense reductions in the afternoon?  

Extras are also no longer really extra.  Business travelers traveling economy get upset when they don’t get upgraded to first class or to the fancy floor of the hotel.  Regulars expect the waiter to give them the best table and the service mechanic to replace the unexpected leaky valve without charge.  We believe we should be able to get a cup of ice at the movies without having paying for the cup or to make a $10.01 purchase without having to dig up a penny.  While service providers have been adding delights to our exchanges, value-added service has been raising the ante on our assumptions. 

The Power of Value-Unique

Imaginative service is different than exceeding customer expectations.  Ask customers what actions would be value added and they will focus on taking the expected experience to a higher-level…meaning “they gave me more than I anticipated.”  But, imaginative service is not about addition, it’s about creation.  When service people are asked to give more, they think to themselves, “I am already doing the best I can.”  But, if asked to pleasantly surprise more customers, they feel less like worker bees and more like fireflies.  If employees are requested to create a big customer smile instead of just working harder they feel a part of an adventure.   And, when employees get to create, not just perform, they feel prized.  Just ask a Southwest, Disney, Zappos.com, or Lexus dealership employee what they think about their job and you will get a smiling “it’s awesome,” not a shrugging “it’s alright.”   

Imaginative service is sourced in joy and fun.  It comes from the same part of the soul that plans a prank, organizes a party, or does a favor for a friend.  When that part is used regularly, it raises self-esteem, increases resilience, and improves morale.  Take a look at Fortune Magazine’s annual “Best Companies in America to Work For”—Nordstrom, Container Store, Marriott, eBay, and FedEx—and you see the great service-high morale link.  They boast the lowest turnover (a cost saver), the best recruits (an investment), the highest productivity (another positive hit to the balance sheet) and the greatest profits.  Companies in the top 20% of the highly revered American Customer Satisfaction Index outperformed the Dow Jones industrial average by 90+%, the S&P 500 by 200+% and the NASDAQ by 350+%. These companies yielded an average return of over 40%. 

Great service may make customers smile but imaginative service makes them swoon.  When service takes customers breath away they feel valued not just served.  The insurance agent who sends an important client a birthday card may generate a smile, but the one who has his little girl sing “happy birthday” to the client gets a completely different response.  The manicurist who opens a customer’s car door for them after a manicure gets a repeater.  But, the one who starts the customer’s ignition propels the customer onto the cheerleader squad.

There are many paths to Take Their Breath Awayä service.  Customers always enjoy random acts of inventive service.  But, the winners are the organizations that implement a deliberate and consistent approach.  Four approaches outlined below can elevate service from “pretty good” to stunning.

Decoration

Atlanta-based Savor Specialty Foods and Tabletop is to food what Starbucks is to coffee.  Walk into the store and you immediately smell a blend of sweet balsamic drizzle with argula and mango chutney.  Strains of Italian baroque music play softly in the background.  Hundreds of rare cooking utensils and scads of gourmet paraphernalia adorn their walls, beckoning patrons to “window shop” while waiting for their gourmet sandwich––perhaps an apple-wood smoked turkey with creamy Gouda, apple nut chutney, and sun-dried tomatoes on pumpernickel.   Your sensory antennae are in state of sheer ecstasy.

“We are passionate about fine foods, a unique and interesting product mix, and customer education,” says co-owner January Hodgson.  “At Savor, we don't sell anything unless we taste it first. This allows us to explain product application as well as flavor profiles to our customers. We encourage our guests to ask questions and sample before they purchase.” 

The rich combination of sensory pleasures at Savor is the epitome of Sense.  Sight-sound-smell-taste-touch come together to communicate a distinctive and unmistakable focus on the world and worth of a food connoisseur.  There are cookbooks venturing onto the unbeaten paths of palates—A Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine or The Southern Belly.  There are cooking tools you would not likely find in Williams-Sonoma—a salt cellar or whisk crafted from olive wood or rarer-than-rare accessories like a chinois (just Google it!).   Yet there is no clutter, no conflict, no confusion.  The store knows its role and does not allow anything inside that fails to harmonize with the sights and sounds of a cookery menagerie.

The lessons to be gleaned from the Savor store are simple and exacting. Consider the emotion and sensations (real or imagined) your customers will value.  But also pay close attention to the sense triggers that clash with your desired response.  Does that picture on the wall really add value?  Are the restrooms compatible with the rest of your strategy?  When was the last time you examined your parking lot, waiting area or front entrance with a focus on sensory signals being conveyed? What should customers see first, second…last?  How are key service transitions managed?  What should your business smell like? What does your customer hear in the background when calling you that might clash with the desired response? 

Make your decoration fit.  An antique and memorabilia shop in Atlanta plays oldies; a shop specializing in silk flowers put a small water fall in the center of the shop.  An upscale jewelry shop has all employees wear formal evening attire.  Take a poll.  What would your customers like to hear, see, smell, feel, taste when in your organization?  Decorate and elevate.

Animation

You can tell you are about to meet “Animation” when a colleague’s face lights up just announcing, “Let me get David for you.”  The coworker’s enthusiastic look lodges your eager anticipation somewhere between “you are in for a treat” and “you ain’t gonna believe this!”  Then it happens.  You come to face to face with a person who has fallen hopelessly in love with his role!

We were staying at the Marriott Oak Brook near Chicago and had finished a late afternoon hotel meeting with one client and were en route to a nearby restaurant to meet another client for dinner.  The restaurant was beyond walking distance but an insultingly short haul for a taxi driver.  But the hotel van was available and bell stand attendant David Harris was to be our driver.  

Now imagine this.  You can “feel” David emotionally long before he shakes your hand.  His enthusiasm is so apparent that his style and spirit meet you before he does.  The first thing you notice is David’s glowing Steinway smile--like he just unexpectedly encountered two long-lost boyhood friends.   The second thing you notice is his gait--a man extremely eager to connect and raring to serve.  Finally, you witness how his gusto infects every single soul within earshot with a robust case of the grins.

“Is it true I get the grand pleasure of being the chauffer for you gentlemen tonight?” he asks incredulously, like he was still pinching himself after winning a big prize!   We felt like members of an exclusive club as we boarded his chariot of joy.

We all know customers are attracted to people with spirit.  And, today’s customers are frustrated with indifferent service––we’re not talking bad service, just plain old boring, comatose service.  Too often customers witness service people sleepwalking through the workday. They long to interact with––even relate to––employees who act like there is still a light on inside.

The Animation strategy involves raising the emotional temperature of the organization.  And, it does not come through a pep rally, “Attitude” posters or making everyone watch a “tug at the heart” video.  Animation comes through a deliberately chosen attitude.  Consider the characters at Disney theme parks.  How can Mickey stay Mickey no matter what the circumstances? There is no “Mickey shot” to inoculate this animated character against crying babies, surly guests, or a costume without air conditioning.  Mickey selects the Mickey attitude to exhibit without regard to whether it is Monday morning or the day after late-night TV.  It is the cast member in the Mickey costume who selects the Mickey attitude.

Animation can sometimes come from leaders who make work as fun as possible.  More often it comes from leaders who model the attitude the customer enjoys.  It can happen by turning the service experience story (like Disney) and helping everyone find his or her part in the story.  An unbridled spirit has a magnetic power on customers.   It draws out their higher self.   Being in the presence of a David causes customers to feel good about themselves.   It’s difficult stay cranky in their company.  Few among us want to drag storm clouds into the perpetually sunny skies of such vivacious life forms.

Reinvention

What do Bill Marriott and Al Hopkins have in common? No, they are not rich and famous!  In fact, Al is a small town accountant and part-time preacher in South Georgia!  They all are (or were) innovators in ways to better serve customers.  They saw the way a given service was being delivered and found a way to turn it completely on its ear.   And in their heyday, they took their customers’ breath away!

J. Willard (Bill, Sr.) Marriott in 1937 started the first catering service to airlines for meals on board after he noticed people at Hoover Field (now the site of the Pentagon) were going by his small Hot Shoppes restaurant and buying take out food before boarding  their flights. It was an intuitive leap that linked a customer need with an available resource via a novel path.  He graduated from Hot Shoppes and in-flight catering to do hotels and the rest is history.

And Al Hopkins?  When he was a young boy he watched the other ten-year-olds wait for customers to stop by their sidewalk lemonade stands in the hot summer sun.  Al abandoned the “stand” concept and took his lemonade business door-to-door.  He made enough money in one summer to buy a new SchwinnÒ Flyer bicycle with a headlight and a siren!

Service reinventions seldom occur with examining best practices employed by others in the same industry.  Insights come through looking at a service offering or service process through the lens of great service exemplars outside your industry.  A major hospital completely revamped patient admission after studying how a five-star hotel handled guest check-in.  Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops did not get the idea of their sensory overload stores by studying Bubba’s Bait and Tackle shop; they probably looked at Disney theme parks.   When was the last time you videotaped frontline service in your organization or audio taped the phone conversation of an accounts payable clerk talking with a customer or vendor?

Make a list of great service providers.  Now pick a service offering or service process and brainstorm ways that a service great might reinvent it.  What if a great Lexus dealership service department could be in charge of your service department for a week?  What improvements might come from Jiffy Lube being in charge of your maintenance department for a few days?  If the Geek Squad at Best Buy ran your IT department, what would customers likely notice changed?  What would human resources be like if it embraced the “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” philosophy of a Ritz-Carlton hotel?  How about putting Disney in charge of the cafeteria, or UPS in charge of the mail room?

 The late George Carlin was credited with coining the phrase “vujà dé.”  It was his comedic flip of the familiar “déjà vu”—the feeling of “I’ve been here before.” Carlin’s made-up phrase meant “see things through completely new eyes.”  That capacity enabled him to render such hilarious lines as “I put a dollar in a change machine.  Nothing changed,” or “What was the best thing before sliced bread?” New eyes helps you boldly break the “we’ve always done this way” road block.  It can also teach you a lot about the less-than-great signals your current service experience sends to your customers.

Air Squared

Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Lexus, and Walt Disney World have infatuated the marketplace as great exemplars of customer service.   Clearly there are principles such organizations have mastered that are relevant for all enterprises.  But, not every industry is as glamorous as a gourmet coffeehouse, luxury hotel, expensive car, or theme park. If you were in charge of the Department of Motor Vehicles, how would you make the DMV more like a Starbucks and still stay within the state mandated cost controls?  What would you do to make your local bank more like a Ritz-Carlton and still stay within the razor thin profit margins?  Impossible?  Maybe there is an alternative.

A value proposition is the complete package of offerings a seller proposes to a customer in exchange for the buyer’s funds.  Buyers assume the products they buy will be as the seller promised--the price fair, and the process relatively comfortable.  These “givens” are a lot like the air we breathe.  We tend to take air for granted unless it is removed from our surroundings.  If the commercial plane we board lands in the right city, we do not cheer; but, if it lands in the wrong city, we are very upset.  We assume banks will be safe and hospitals clean.   What if you took service air to new heights?

Capitalizing on service air can provide a competitive strategy for organizations that seek customer devotion but are severely challenged by the stretch. The Columbia Tower Club in downtown Seattle is an illustration of service air squared.  All five of the stalls in the ladies restroom were designed so the commode faced toward the outside of the building, and the exterior wall it looked out on was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window.  Since the Club is the top floor of a high-rise building, a visitor sitting on the toilet could enjoy a panoramic view of downtown Seattle!  Patrons of the club would naturally assume the ladies restroom would be spotless, comfortable, and well-appointed. They would never the club to sport a “john with a view”!

Taking a core service component and “showing it off” can be a powerful strategy that can make competitors seem out of touch by comparison.  When Domino’s Pizza hit the marketplace with their promise of pizza delivery in thirty minutes or the pizza was free, they quickly “owned” the pizza delivery business.  The truth was that before there was Domino’s, the average time to deliver a pizza was about thirty minutes.  The guarantee was a fairly safe bet.  Federal Express (now FedEx) promised overnight package delivery to be “absolutely, positively there by 10:30 am.”  Again, they took a service air attribute and put such a spotlight on it that competitors soon had to match it.  

The power of the air squared strategy is its capacity to enable an organization to leap frog competitors and gain market share very quickly.  What makes it work?  It must be bold enough to create a marketplace buzz.  It must be complex enough to preclude competitors from being able to quickly copy it.  It must be a feature that either meets a pent-up customer need (“Well, it’s about time”) or one that customers never knew they needed but once offered could not do without.  Customers were not pining for fax machines.  However, once introduced, customers quickly embraced the new technology. 

All organizations are challenged by the economics of extras.  Take Their Breath Away is the perfect substitute for value-added when “adds” cannot be funded.  Avis Bell and Liz Patterson are children of the Great Depression.  They also happen to be our mothers.  Their stories of living through the worst economic times of the last century are peppered with joyful memories of special Christmases when there was no money to buy gifts.  Hand-made original surprises had to replace store-bought.  The restriction forced the giver to think about the uniqueness of the recipient; it enabled the receiver to appreciate the “labor of love” over the “expediency of purchase.”

Imaginative service is a hand-made original surprise tailored to the receiver.  Its power to attract and retain customers lies in its capacity to make the customer feel they have been bestowed a value-unique expression that honors the very nobility of service.  Its originality and imagination telegraph an innate commitment to excellence. Its “hand-made” distinction signals an unmistakable spotlight on the customer.  And, like a perfect rainbow, it leaves us astonished, affirmed . . . and, served.

This article is adapted from the hit new book Take Their Breath Away:  How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers, John Wiley, 2009