District 9 inspired me to exceed customer expectations

eastes — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:32:05 +0000

You already know that a way to create passionate customers is to under promise and over deliver. Think of a movie that you thought would be good that turned out to be fantastic. You remember it for a reason. It was better than expected and this experience is always more memorable then watching a fantastic movie that you already expected to be fantastic. As the title says, District 9 helped remind me the importance of exceeding customers expectations. So, should you intentionally simulate this experience for your customers? Yes, you should.

Here is a private message that I wrote for the VroomVroomVroom staff magazine today.

Every time you exceed a customers expectations, you make VroomVroomVroom more money. This means we can give out more staff bonuses and buy more cool stuff for the office! So how do you exceed customer expectations? Well, you’re a smart person. We wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t. You’ll need to be able to think of ways to exceed customer expectations on the spot. Some examples might be:

randomly sending a car rental customer a gift in the mail without warning
meeting them at the airport and lending them your babyseat that you don’t use anymore
compensating them when the car rental companies don’t represent themselves as well as they should
program some code to tweet the customer with the cheapest price of the car rental search they just did
ask if they have anything interesting planned for the weekend. When they answer, don’t change the subject. Continue the conversation.
ask them what their favourite thing to do in their city is. Then ask them if you can quote them and their answer to add to our website.

You need to answer a question. How can you exceed your customers expectations?

Story of the Swordsmiths sales war

eastes — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:42:36 +0000

CARTOON FRAME OF DINK AND SWISH SWORDSMITHS AND THEIR WORKSHOPS
A long long time ago there lived 2 swordsmiths. One named Dink and the other named Swish. Dink and Swish were the greatest swordsmiths in town.

CARTOON FRAME OF COMPETITION COMING TO TOWN
One day, competition arrived from a large neighboring town and Dink and Swish were worried about losing business. They needed to act quickly.

CARTOON FRAME OF HAPPY SWISH WITH CASH
Swish decided to advertise at the local pub where his warrior customers hang out. He paid 10 gold coins to advertise on the pubs notice board. His advertising paid off! For 10 gold coins of advertising, he made 15 gold coins in return! 5 goats profit!

CARTOON FRAME OF DINK HELPING WARRIORS
Meanwhile, Dink took a different approach. He decided to help the warriors at the pub with their swords and sword fighting techniques.

CARTOON FRAME OF NEW ADVERTISERS AND HAPPY PUB
Before long, the new competition in town noticed the advertisements and decided to advertise their swords at the pub too. The pub was loving it! They soon ran out of advertising space so the costs went up and up and up and Swish was now only breaking even on his advertising.

CARTOON FRAME OF WARRIORS TELLING WAR STORIES USING DINKS SWORDS
Meanwhile, Dink still wasn’t spending anything on advertising, yet everyone knew him or at least knew someone who knew of him. Even warriors visiting from out of town heard about the war stories that were fought using Dinks swords. As Swish watch Dink complain to the bar management about advertising costs, he smiled, knowing that people talking about his swords and being passionate about using his swords was the greatest source of long term sales he could ever have.

Monkey Business » passionate customers

District 9 inspired me to exceed customer expectations

Story of the Swordsmiths sales war