5. Stage Three: Experience Choreography

Who is the most important person in the hotel?

If you guessed the doorman, you got it right. The doorman is the single-most important point of contact in the hotel, and the reason for that is this: She is almost always the first person the customer sees and the last person the customer sees. These days, one of the things I like to say is that everyone in the organization is the doorman. Everyone can impact the first and last impression.

If you think about how this relates to any business, it’s quite simple. First impressions are more important than ever before. But at this stage, we’re assuming the prospect has officially moved from prospect to customer. The customer has already had many moments and opportunities to engage with your company, but at this point, their stature has changed. There were other first impressions and moments of the experience that mattered. But at this stage, the customer has been influenced to complete the sale and now has an expectation that you’ll deliver on the promises made in the previous stages. More on that shortly, but first let’s talk about how customer service plays a role in each stage of the loop but becomes even more important in Stage Three.

Every company says they put the customer first. Every one of your competitors says they deliver “remarkable customer service.” Everyone. Find me a business that doesn’t say they provide extraordinary customer service. It’s a sham, and it’s a sham because it’s rarely true. What companies say versus what they do is rarely congruent. If it were true, we’d have no need for sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Google Reviews. The majority of review sites exist solely for someone to air their grievances for when what they were promised, or what was expected, wasn’t what was delivered. Are the reviews always valid? Of course not. There are valid complaints and there are invalid complaints. And there’s there are sites like Yelp and others that have developed and morphed into mini-communities of foodies and groups of people with shared interests who like to share the experiences—good, bad, or other. It just seems that the bad almost always outweighs the good, and rightfully so. But some of the horrific reviews and almost unbelievable customer service stories we hear about are incredibly valid.

Almost 80 percent of the work I do with my clients revolves around the concept of the expectations gap, which is the gap between what a customer is sold and what they actually receive. When you fix that, you dramatically increase profits and customer lifetime value. Sometimes the gap is created through overzealous sales and marketing efforts, and other times it’s because the actions of the company simply can’t live up to the vision and expectations of upper management. When I speak to audiences, I often share the story of a hypothetical bank to illustrate the expectations gap. Here’s an easy way to understand it:

The CEO believes the bank exists to provide solutions for their clients and to be a financial services partner. The rest of the executive team buys this, and the CMO ensures the marketing messaging matches this belief.

The customer, however, believes the bank is just the place to store his funds while he waits for the mortgage and electricity bills to be paid on time.

Finally, the teller believes her job is just to smile and ensure she does the best she can to keep the customer satisfied.

As you see, we have three very different sets of expectations creating one major problem—a huge gap. Almost every organization I start working with has a massive expectations gap. Here’s another way to think about it: Every organization says that they provide solutions to other’s problems. Everybody says that they’re near perfect. But companies, like people, often exhibit a huge gap between what they say and what they do. There’s often a breakdown between the things the company says in its mission statement on the walls and its About Us page on a website.

Consider the following study from the 1970s where two prominent social psychologists (Darley and Batson) set out to try and better understand what influences people to help others. They carried out their study by testing the classic Bible parable of the Good Samaritan.¹ In the Bible story, a man is found lying on the streets beaten and bloodied by a bunch of thugs. A priest and another man both approach the man but just step over, not offering any help. Imagine that! Finally, another man who would have been considered an enemy to the hurt man stops to help and offers care. He is labeled the Good Samaritan, and this is where the line about “love your enemies” comes from. We expect the priest to stop. After all, here is a man who has supposedly devoted his life to helping others, but the priest couldn’t be bothered even though it’s evident the man was in dire need of assistance.

The two social psychologists considered the parable for a long time and then asked a smart, but very simple question. Is it possible the priest and the other man were just busy? Is it possible they were in a rush and had somewhere to get to? Maybe the priest was late for a wedding ceremony! It seemed like a valid question, so they decided to recreate the study using a group of seminary students.

The groups of seminary students were invited to take part in a study that was happening at a particular place at a certain time. When they arrived at the study, the researchers told them that the study had been moved to another room across campus. One group of students were told they had to get there quickly because the study was starting so they better hurry. Another group was told the study would begin when they got there, so there was no need to rush over.

Along the way, the seminary students would encounter an actor, directly in their path on the ground with his eyes closed, violently coughing and clearly in need of assistance. What do you think happened? Would the students stop to help? Would they ask the man if he was okay?

Not exactly. In the study, only some seminary students stopped to help. But less than two-thirds did, and only 10 percent of those who were told they were in a hurry stopped to help.

It seems that no matter how they would describe themselves to their friends and family on their weekends away from school, as soon as a minor inconvenience cropped up, they threw out their espoused values of helping others and busily hurried on their way.

It seems that it’s rather easy to find excuses not to live our true values, whether personal or corporate. Many company mission statements say things like, “We put quality and customer service above all else,” but frontline experiences often seem directly antithetical to our lofty vision statements. And this study points out the reasons why: it’s easy to ignore our higher motivations when there are pressing personal concerns or there’s a gap in the expectations throughout the organization. It’s easy for companies to say that they’re committed to creating world-class customer experiences and to ensuring that everyone throughout the organization continues to improve their skills in these areas. But when budgets are tight, and deadlines loom, it’s also easy to put these goals aside and ignore learning opportunities for just getting through the current busyness, or dealing with the latest business emergency (as if another one won’t pop up next week!).

Every company says it’s a learning organization, and every company says that it puts customers first, but that’s usually not true. In this chapter, we’ll dive into the experience after the prospect has become a customer and what you need to do to ensure your team isn’t just stepping over customers. Just as incongruities can kill a business when Stage Two differs from Stage One, they can show up here again, and cause equal and perhaps far more damage. In the rest of this chapter, we’ll talk about what’s expected here and how to ensure you’re meeting those expectations. Here’s the best part: it’s often quite simple to excel in this stage because so many organizations are so bad.

Experience Your Competitors

When Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza would travel, he would always look in the hotel’s phone book and order pizza from a few of the local pizza businesses. When Sam Walton traveled, he would visit Kmart stores to see what he could steal for Walmart. Walton took a notepad and would make meticulous notes as he carefully walked through the stores. He would talk to customers, and he would talk to the employees. He would then take what he learned back to Walmart and see where they could instantly improve. Too many of us look at the competition as a threat instead of looking at the competition as a way to learn. Monaghan was interested in learning how the pizza was boxed, what the delivery cars looked like, how the ordering process was handled, what the pizza looked like when it arrived, and so on.

Others look at the competition and think they understand what they’re doing. They assume that because they’re selling a similar product or service, they must be using similar sales efforts, and delivering a similar customer experience. In my experience, this is one of the most valuable ways to improve your business. Talk to your competitors. Shop their businesses. Talk with your suppliers about your competitors. Learn as much as you can. More important, experience it for yourself.

For example, I’ve been conducting a little test lately. I call various companies and leave a voicemail. I send in contact forms on websites and wait to get a response. These are all businesses I’ve never done anything with. Then, I repeat the process with companies where I’ve actually made a purchase and I’m a client. If I see they’re active on social media, I’ll hit them up there and tell them that I’ve filled out a contact form or left a voice-mail, and I’m waiting for a response. And then what happens is I usually wait, and wait some more after that. What I’ve found is that the speed of follow-up from many companies is, for the most part, downright horrendous. I strongly believe that just being fast is more valuable than trying to be delightful and cute. I’m not talking about complaints, which we’ll talk about in another section; I’m talking about general inquiries made in every stage of the loop. Remember, the customer experience has less to do with being delightful, and surprising at times, but more to do with being good across the board. In fact, the less effort and more speed involved in getting help, providing an answer, or responding to an inquiry, the more business you will do. It’s that simple. This action is relatively simple, yet extremely powerful. It ties into the Evergreen Experience Audit but warrants its own action step. Measure your speed of response. If you don’t want to do this yourself, hire someone from outside your company to do it.

Visit your competitors’ websites and fill out their contact forms. Just like Sam Walton and Tom Monaghan would do, buy from them. See what the experience is like across the entire Customer Loyalty Loop. How do they follow up post-sale?

A client of mine wanted to complete this exercise by using their largest competitor as the case study. We essentially completed an Evergreen Experience Audit on their biggest competitor. When we were done, we reported our finding to the client’s sales team, but we didn’t tell them who we were talking about. We asked them to review and evaluate the experience and let us know what we thought.

Nearly everyone thought the experience sounded remarkable and almost all of them were convinced it was a narrative of doing business with them. When we explained it wasn’t about them, but instead it was their largest competitor, and then we compared their customer experience with them, there were a lot of unhappy faces in the room. They were only doing about a quarter of what the competitor was doing to please the client.

Remember, my goal as a consultant to my client is to improve their condition, even it means a few people will be discomfited by the findings. In this case, the entire sales team wasn’t loving me at this very moment.

But this wasn’t about saying the competitor was doing more; it was about seeing what my client could do even better. Both Walton and Monaghan knew there was always something they could be doing a little bit better. They just knew that it sometimes meant looking under a roof that belonged to someone else.

Shocking Dogs

One of the all-time bestselling books in the business world is the catchy Good to Great by Jim Collins. How hard is it to go from good to great? What if you could go from okay to exceptional without really having to change much at all, except having a better understanding of the Customer Loyalty Loop and your ability to meet the customer’s expectations across each stage of the loop? Geez, for many businesses just going from dismal to good could perhaps be the difference in creating a dump truck full of additional revenue. Look, I’m not saying you’re dismal. But the progression is Dismal to Good > Good to Great > Great to World-Class.

One of my clients runs a successful dog day care business in Detroit. When I suggested during a coaching call that we start shocking her clients’ dogs in the name of science and the customer experience, the phone went silent. I was joking, of course, but one of our favorite social psychologists, Dr. Martin Seligman, wasn’t when he engaged in such a study in 1965.² His findings have profound ramifications for the entire Customer Loyalty Loop and show us that getting customer service right across the entire loop doesn’t need to be difficult, but it’s remarkably important. In fact, it offers us the greatest opportunity to go from good to exceptional incredibly quickly.

Seligman’s experiments involved putting dogs into a small enclosed room where the animal would receive electrical shocks that they couldn’t do anything about. The researchers would ring a bell and then shock the dog. The idea was simple; the dog would become conditioned to associate the sound of the bell with the unpleasant shock. At first, the dog would attempt different behaviors to try to find a solution. It might try to get out, or hop over a small fence to avoid the shocks. But that’s not what happened. As each shock occurred, the dog became more helpless. Eventually, the dog would just give up and not try anymore. Even when the conditions were changed, and the dog could avoid the shocks by completing a simple action (like hopping over a fence), the dog would do nothing. They would lie down and take the shocks. Why? Because the dog had learned (and been convinced) that nothing would help, so there was no point in trying to escape its fate, meaning that even when escape was available, the dog would not try to avoid the shock. This became the concept known as “learned helplessness.” Learned helplessness can be defined as the situation in which the individual learns that they can’t escape some negative situations. So even if the circumstances change, they can’t be bothered to change.

The work on learned helplessness was extended to other contexts. For example, in one study subjects did a mental task in the presence of distracting noise. One group of subjects could switch the noise off and another group could not. Interestingly, the former group rarely turned off the noise, but their performance was far better than those in the helplessness group who had no such control and did the mental task in the presence of the noise, too. The explanation is that the former group had control over the noise, and it was this sense of control that differentiated the group’s performance. As we know, lack of control is the toxic element of stress.

The Helpless Customer

This concept of learned helplessness has been applied to different situations, such as mental illness or abusive situations, but it can also be useful in an organizational setting. One aspect in which this concept applies is customer service, which is important in Stage Three of the loop but also important throughout the entire loop.

Consider a customer who is calling a company’s help line. They dial the number, wait for an hour on the line, and are directed to someone who doesn’t know their problem, or barely even speaks their language. The rep tells them they need to be transferred, but the call is disconnected. I’m willing to bet that almost everyone reading this has experienced something similar.

They call again and repeat the cycle. They try once more, and get bounced around from representative to representative until they get tired and finally hang up. Next time the customer has a problem, it’s likely that they will not try calling again because they’ve already learned that’s it’s useless. They will have developed a learned helplessness concerning this company, and this experience is usually a frustrating one. It makes the individual feel helpless and hopeless—not the customer experience most customer-centric companies aim for.

Learned helplessness reflects physical processes in the brain that influence the entire body. The body has an underlying infrastructure that represents the fight/surrender dynamic. The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch The sympathetic branch is responsible for the activation of the fight/flight response that sends out adrenaline and hormones, and pumps blood away from the organs to the muscles; in short, it is energizing you and giving you the resources to fight. The parasympathetic branch does the opposite and underpins helplessness and depression. We fight for control but can, if the struggle gets too difficult, give it up.

At a neurological level, the brain decides it’s not worth exerting any more energy and goes into conservation mode. Most animals have a coping strategy where they “play dead” in response to danger, a tactic that requires very little energy. The accompanying thought in humans when they do the same thing outside of a life-threatening situation is some variation of “I can’t be bothered with this anymore.” In the case of real threat, we will justify playing dead as a tactic to trick the enemy into believing we are no longer a threat or are indeed dead. In some ways, the angry or frustrated customer who is in fight or flight mode is easier to deal with than the one who has just given up. The one who has given up is no longer engaging you and is probably lost forever. They aren’t just playing dead; they have left your world.

By now, it shouldn’t be a secret that customer service plays an important role throughout the entire loyalty loop. The major difference, of course, is that your customers aren’t dogs! (At least I don’t think so.) Customers, unlike dogs, do have the opportunity to find a way out of the box. It’s easier than ever before to find a new insurance agent, sell your car and get another, or find another provider. The same goes for complex B2B companies. There’s more competition than ever before, and it’s easier and faster than ever to shop the competition. Time and time again, this is where the breakdown occurs.

As you’ll see in a moment, when there’s very little competition, some companies can get away with having really bad service. It’s sad for consumers who lie down like helpless dogs, but it represents the greatest opportunity to go from good to exceptional rather quickly.

Customer service is an incredibly misunderstood area of focus for most businesses. I have a strong reason to believe most experts, gurus, authors, and consultants are incredibly misguided as well when it comes to speaking and writing about these topics.

For example, they tell us things like how important it is to say “thank you.” You already know that. Thankfully for you, I’m not one of them. But I’m incredibly dismayed whenever I hear a so-called customer service expert speak to an audience only to offer nothing more than basic platitudes about being nicer to the customers in general. In theory, it makes a lot of sense, but most people in business do a decent enough job at mustering up a simple thank-you. This has less to do with acknowledgments and more to do with maintaining a congruent experience all the way through.

As for the others, they seem to get by through sharing stories of companies who have done it right. For example, there were some 4,000+ books on Amazon that directly referenced Zappos as one of the more important customer service organizations on the planet. Most of them simply share collections of outrageous stories and examples of experiences and service-related moments where a company did something (somewhat) exceptional. For example, if I hear the story of the Ritz Carlton and the kid’s stuffed animal from a speaker one more time, I’m going to lose it!³ Thankfully, I’m going to try not to do either of those things here. Instead, let’s look at the science of customer service, which will allow your organization to thrive when it comes to providing a remarkable customer experience.

As I think about the concept of learned helplessness, I am reminded of some of the major players in the Canadian wireless industry. The service is just remarkably bad, and they get away with it. There’s an oligopoly in Canada, and a few companies are profiting handsomely, but the service is just terrible. They treat customers poorly; they charge incredibly high prices, but there’s not much we can do, so we lie down like helpless dogs. There’s no customer loyalty. A quick Google search for some of the names of Canadian wireless companies yield hundreds of thousands of results from unhappy customers. Customers are stressed and frustrated, but there’s not much they can do until someday maybe there is something they can do about it.

The best thing for you and your company is to realize “wow” and “remarkable” service aren’t that difficult to achieve. That’s your opportunity! The difference is that you can provide it and not just say it. Will you take it? Many companies have recognized that the times have changed, and if they keep shocking dogs, they’re going to find themselves with no dogs left to shock. Below is one example.

Delight or Die

Gary Friedman is the CEO of Restoration Hardware, the high-end furniture retailer with revenues north of $500 million per year. In early 2016, Friedman issued a scathing memo to employees and told them to either DELIGHT the customer or find a new job.⁴ The memo was fascinating in that Friedman explained the company was busy worrying about everything but the customer. Sound familiar? By this point in the book, it shouldn’t.

He used the analogy of a burning building to say everyone seemed so interested in figuring out both how and why the building was on fire, or how to put out the fire, but not a single person was asking about the customers inside the burning building. In an interview with Bloomberg, Friedman said, “No one was focused on the people in the building, who were on fire. Their clothes were burning, and many of them dying. We have let customers die.”

We have let customer die. Wow.

The company was in serious trouble. Aside from the fact that the company sells high-end furniture and has dozens of web pages dedicated to selling $17 light bulbs (yes, that’s one light bulb for $17), the company was losing customers, revenue, and stock value. The stock dropped by over 26 percent just days before Friedman issued the memo. Friedman finished up by saying the new goal was to delight. The memo read: “We need a MASSIVE CHANGE IN OUR CULTURE AND ATTITUDE RIGHT NOW...THE GOAL IS DELIGHT.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hearing this word “delight” tossed around customer service circles for a while now.

Why is this concept of delight so important? I believe one of the reasons why is that we’ve been bombarded with the message that “customer satisfaction” is number one. It’s one of the essential things companies must deliver to the customer. The trouble, however, is that allowing the customer to leave merely satisfied is never enough. The goal must be to go beyond satisfaction, and Restoration Hardware is recognizing this after years of continuous profit decline. Satisfaction is never enough, and I’m not sure sprinkled moments of delight are enough either, but done right, you have the opportunity to create memories that stick.

In the following pages, I’d like to introduce one of the most powerful things you can do in Stage Three to create distinct memories of doing business with your organization that stick.

I call them Remarkable Moments.

Remarkable Moments are the moments during the third stage of the loyalty loop that leave an indelible imprint in the customer’s mind, one which they’ll have no trouble recalling and explaining to friends and family— one that leaves them something specific and memorable to rant and rave about.

Let me share a few examples of Remarkable Moments in action so you can begin to understand how to apply these to your business and the moments and memories you may be able to create.

The Bentley and the Butler

Last year during a short trip to San Francisco, my wife and I dined at the fabulous Michelin-starred Ame restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel. My mentor and business colleague, Dr. Alan Weiss, was treating us to an incredible dinner.

Outside the hotel’s lobby sat a gorgeous Bentley limo. The Bentley is offered as complimentary transportation for the hotel’s guests. I’ve seen other high-end hotels offer cars like Rolls-Royces and Maseratis. I’m sure you have, too. A small boutique hotel in Cambridge, Ontario, called Langdon Hall recently offered guests the chance to drive a new Lexus SUV parked outside. The Trump Hotel recently took this a step further by providing guests access to the Trump helicopter to cruise the Scottish coastline.⁵

Imagine that! Stay at this hotel and you can fly in our private helicopter. Many organizations reserve these lavish perks for their top-spending customers. However, the companies that utilize this strategy most effectively are the ones who make these luxury perks available to most, if not all, of their clients. They use these perks to create memories within the customers’ experience. These are Remarkable Moments, and they’re available to all businesses of all types. I’ll give you a few examples and some exercises to define and test your own.

Let’s think through the economics of this here, because one of the main areas of concern is that you’re spending money on customers who have already made it to the third stage. Why should you spend more to create Remarkable Moments?

The genius of this strategy is when you realize that the total amount they’re paying to provide the Bentley equals about 3 percent per guest, for an experience that will make up 90 percent of their guests’ memories, as well as the conversations they will have about their experience with the hotel. This is just one small example of how organizations are crafting experiences with emotional impact. They’re carefully and strategically crafting memories that stick, and these are the things that people want to talk about. Seth Godin once said that the only definition of remarkable was to do something worth remarking about. This is the key to unlocking the power of Remarkable Moments.

And by the way, do you think that having these luxury experiences makes people less price sensitive? Of course, it does! This doesn’t mean these lavish perks should be freely given to every customer, but companies should show every customer that the perks are available, as well as how to access them. You don’t need to tie experiential rewards to a particular spend threshold or customer value. Instead, businesses must show customers a very easy path or way to access those perks.

A lot of companies try to use gimmicky promotions in exchange for their customer’s continued business, in the hopes that it will create loyalty and positive associations. They use discounts and various promotions, hoping those promotions might drive a client back through their doors. The harsh truth is that those don’t do much to influence customer loyalty. They’re often forgotten before the transaction is finished.

The St. Regis Hotel, though, understands the power of customer experiences and Remarkable Moments. They know that nobody remembers—or ever talks about— saving $100 on a room discount, but everyone remembers—and wants to talk about—the Bentley.

Do not forget to consider fluidity amongst the first three stages of the Customer Loyalty Loop. This is just a small example of something done in the middle of the customer experience and the third stage, not the start or end of the customer experience, and yet it still generates a lasting memory. When used in sales and marketing before the sale, it creates the imagination of the experience to come, and the stories to be told. For example, after making my booking at Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario, I received an e-mail in anticipation of my stay, inviting me to drive the Lexus during my stay. When I arrived at the hotel, there it was sitting out front.

These are just a few examples of Remarkable Moments in action. But where there’s a Bentley, there’s almost always a butler. Let’s talk about a few more examples.

The Butler

Alfred was always there when Bruce Wayne needed something. Even in the depths of the bat cave, Alfred always seemed just to step out from the shadows ready to serve his crime-avenging leader. What if you could have your own Alfred?

Cruise lines, in particular, have embraced the concept of the butler. Dozens of the main cruise lines offer guests their very own private butler service. Usually reserved for passengers in suites, it is often sold as an upgraded service and sometimes as a surprise.

While the other guests are battling through the buffet lines, minding the sneeze guards, imagine for a moment, kicking your feet up, and your personal butler arriving at your suite’s door with a bottle of champagne. He opens your patio doors, allowing the Florida breeze to rush in. As the ship sets sail, and all of your stresses would just float away.

The butler becomes the guest’s personal concierge who knows how to get things done, even for the most discerning clients. This is remarkable! This is the type of thing I want to tell others about!

He handles the booking of daily excursions, reserves the best seats for ship’s shows and makes dinner reservations for you, and fine-tunes the housekeeping services specific to the customer’s liking, all while answering the guests’ every question, concern, or request.

In essence, a modern ship’s butler does all the hard work, raises the level of luxury a notch, and plays the perfect host, freeing those lucky passengers to enjoy a cruise to its fullest. Surely it must be expensive for a ship to offer such a service? There’s no way most companies could offer such an extreme, lavish perk, right? Surely not your company.

Well, here’s how the math and economics might work in this example. For each massive ship, the cruise line would likely have a small team of butlers, each of which would handle a small block of rooms and a certain number of guests.

At first, the experience might seem a bit incongruent with the expectations of the cruise. For many of us, the thought of cruises is not always one of luxury. We think of busy ships and cramped rooms jammed together. We regularly turn on the evening news to see another ship stricken with ill passengers. We’ve all heard horror stories. The butler, however, becomes a memorable experience and a Remarkable Moment. But how can a cruise ship afford to provide such remarkable service? There’s no way your business could provide an experience of equivalent value, right? Well, let’s do the math.

Let’s imagine for a moment the butler is paid $80,000 a year from the company. He’s required to do approximately 25 cruises per year, and for each cruise he’s provides his services to 12 rooms. For a little more than $250 per room, the cruise line has provided a fantastic perk with a tiny price tag. Now ask yourself, is the real purpose here to increase profits and generate more revenues? Partially. We can assure the cost is being paid for by the consumer one way or another, but let’s suppose it’s not. What’s inadvertently happening is that for almost no cost at all the cruise is implanting an indelible memory into the customer’s mind. For next to nothing, the cruise ship is creating its word-of-mouth marketing.

On a popular cruise website, one author shares the following story:

The best I ever had was “Papa” on Crystal Serenity. Papa never felt intrusive to us. He suggested dinner to us in our stateroom on a night when he knew he could provide us with a table for the verandah. He wheeled in the table and served every dish piping hot. When we later asked for some caviar to entertain one of the guest speakers in our stateroom, Papa brought us caviar, champagne, brie, fresh fruit, and ended it with red wine and chocolate-covered strawberries. Never have I been more spoiled. I will never forget that experience on Crystal Serenity.

She will never forget Papa. Is this sinking in yet?

The key point is that the cost of the butler is irrelevant. The butler is the thing people remember. The butler is the thing people go home and talk about. The butler fuels word of mouth. If a customer was spending $10,000 with your company, would you be willing to spend $250 on that customer to create an experience that’s never forgotten, to create an experience that people can’t stop talking about—ever? You would be foolish not to. What if a company could spend considerably less, and create an experience with equal impact? It’s not a question of if your company can do it, it’s merely a question of what you will do to create the Remarkable Moments.

Remarkable Moments are the unique, fascinating experiences that allow a company to stand out from their competition. Sometimes these are high-value items, but the real key to Remarkable Moments is they create an emotional connection, and most importantly, a story that your customers want to tell others.

Many marketers espouse the idea of random moments of surprise and delight. I’m suggesting we take the concept of surprise and delight to another level, but it’s shocking how many companies do this poorly. The most beautiful thing about this strategy is that just being good and better puts you way ahead of the competition. One of the core learnings of Stage Three is that it’s up to you to define and create your company’s Remarkable Moments. You can define the type of word of mouth your best customers spread about you. You can let word of mouth happen passively, or you can create it yourself.

How can you create your Remarkable Moments?

Consider a few more examples.

When guests arrive at the Las Ventanas al Paraiso in San José del Cabo, Mexico, they are instantly whisked away to the spa’s tranquil solarium, where they enjoy a surprise 10-minute neck and foot massage that releases any stress and worry from their flights and prepares them for a relaxing and rejuvenating stay in paradise.⁶ Now that’s a prime example of starting the customer experience right! On top of that, you’re offering something guests are surely going to talk about. Remarkable Moments are exactly like they sound: moments worth making remarks about! If you want word of mouth, you often need to create the marketing to go with it.

Or how about the Viceroy Riviera Maya Hotel, also in Mexico, where a few minutes after checking in, the soap concierge arrives in your room to provide some informative information the different types of soaps available. The concierge explains the scents and the benefits of each soap. After that, the guest makes a selection, and personalized bars of soap are provided to each guest. Soap concierge. Remarkable Moments are just one part of the customer experience that you embrace in your business. Let’s switch gears and talk about another important aspect of the science of customer experience—and that’s the appeal to the customer’s senses.

Let the Incense Burn

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump’s hotels are second to none. While I’m not a fan of the way that Trump uses divisive language in the political arena, I am a huge fan of the attention to detail and experiences that are created at the hotels that brand his name (most of which are privately owned and operated without his direct involvement). I’ve stayed at a few of them, and when you enter from outside, you’re usually suddenly thrust into a dimly lit lobby where the smell of incense burns, leaving an incredible aroma of eucalyptus through the air. The doorman quickly grabs your bags and sends them off to your room. After greeting you, the front desk clerk takes your credit card and then hands you a silver platter with a scented hot towel for wiping your hands and feet. Next, you’re taken to your room where you’re given a tour of the room, shown how the controls for lighting and window shades work, are introduced to the pillow menu, and a few other neat perks.

Why go to all this trouble with the customer experience? I mean, I’ve already decided to stay there, so why do all these extras? I’m beyond Stage Two of the Customer Loyalty Loop and well into Stage Three. Well, it turns out there are quite a few reasons to do this, and in this section, we’ll look at the atmosphere and feeling your prospects and customers have when entering your business, or visiting your website. More important, we’ll discuss ways in which you can utilize this powerful concept to have your customers spend even more money with your business.

In 2011, a study found that the more relaxed you are when entering a business, the more money you’re likely to spend. As I think back to my stay at a number of Trump’s properties, it’s evident that while the service is incredibly warm and attentive, it’s obvious that the entire guest experience has been carefully considered, from the moment we arrive, to the moment we make it to our rooms, to the moment we leave the property. It’s as if the experience has been choreographed, where whimsical ballet dancers know when and where to hit their marks at which part of the experience.

This is the type of thing my clients are continuously thinking about. In this case, though, it was the way the experience started that left an impression on me.

Here are some key questions to consider:

1. How do your customers feel the moment they walk into your business or visit your online store?

2. Are customers always quickly greeted and welcomed?

3. Is the atmosphere of your business calming, or overwhelming, stressful, and busy?

4. Can my customer quickly find what she is looking for or do we present ourselves like a disheveled, messy closet?

Have you ever been to an Apple store? Most Apple stores I’ve been to are almost always completely jammed with people. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. They’re usually just full of people enjoying the opportunity to play with Apple’s latest product. The one thing I’ve noticed, however, is that almost every Apple store has one or two people who immediately try to speak to every customer that comes in. They can quickly reduce the levels of stress by simply greeting the customer and sending them in the right direction. Contrast this to a large home improvement warehouse where you’re looking for something as simple as light bulbs, and there’s no help in sight. The store is overwhelming, and you’re unable to find anyone to help you. Which experience is more pleasant? Almost all of us have been through both scenarios.

Traditional efforts suggest we need to provide more materials, more features, and more benefits, but by using the Customer Loyalty Loop, we can create experiences with impact by stimulating the mind and the senses.

Unbox This

There’s a phenomenon happening on YouTube. People are making millions of dollars each year unboxing products and showing them off. According to Martin Lindstrom in his fantastic book Buyology,⁷ the online unboxing craze began when a kid named Nick Baily filmed himself unboxing his brand-new Nintendo Wii. Lindstrom writes that the video had received over 70,000 views in just a few short hours. In his book, Lindstrom explains why unboxing has taken off as an Internet sensation. He attributes the desire to watch others unbox to mirror neurons. These are neurons inside our brains that, in laymen’s terms, cause us to mirror other people’s behaviors. My children likely find joy in watching the excitement in the other kids unwrap their treats, and as Lindstrom explains, mirror neurons are the reason why we smile when we see others smile, and we wince when we see others in pain. It’s the reason laughter is contagious. But beyond that, unboxing is a massively underestimated part of the customer’s experience.

I think many of us would agree that this phenomenon started with Apple, who seemed to care as much about the packaging for its latest gadget as the products themselves. My children are particularly fond of the people who unbox chocolate Kinder Eggs and then put together the toys inside. How does unboxing fit into the Customer Loyalty Loop, and how can you best understand the ramifications of this? It fits in just the same as everything else fits in. Unboxing a product is part of the customer experience. This section is relevant to those in retail or who deliver physical products, but it is equally valuable to those who wish to perk customers with unexpected gifts or bonuses.

When a prospect has made the decision to convert and become a customer, if you’ve done things right up until now, then the customer should not feel a lot of buyer’s remorse or anxiety about the decision. Instead, the buyer should be excited and eagerly anticipating the product’s delivery. I still get excited when I get a new iPhone or a MacBook Pro. Apple has paid such careful attention to this part of the experience, and you’re foolish not to treat it as such. Think about it this way: getting the product on your doorstep is part of the experience. Opening the package once it’s inside your house is also part of the experience. Almost everyone has ordered a product only to be immensely disappointed once it arrives. Perhaps the box is damaged, or it’s packaged poorly. Either way, we’re left with a feeling of, “I spent all that money, and this is all I got!?” Or it’s impossible to get it out of the packaging, which means that on the arrival of the package the customer is feeling total frustration rather than anticipated pleasure.

What products do you ship?

What items do you deliver to customers and clients?

Think about proposal or quote delivery, for example. Many companies e-mail these as quickly as they can. The more we can quote, the more we can close the typical mindset. But are you giving away undue and easily earned value in the mind of the potential customer by not couriering your proposal or a quote? When I work with clients, this is part of standard policy. I will typically ask the prospective client how they would like to receive the proposal. If they say they would prefer e-mail, I’ll do that, but then I’ll also send two signed copies via FedEx—one for them and one for me, but in reality, it’s just another opportunity for me to give some value and treat this as part of the process of the overall customer experience.

If you’re a retailer who physically ships products to customers, what can you do to add additional value to this part of the experience? Think about the entire experience as mentioned above. From getting the package, to opening the package, are your products carefully packaged? Is there joy in opening your package, or do you ship them as quickly and as cheaply as possible? If so, are you also giving away easily earned value? What little extras can you put into your packaging? Sometimes this is referred to as box candy.

Start thinking about every part of doing business with your company as an experience for the customer, and an experience to be had by the customer. Nearly all of this is about the emotional feelings your experiences create. Remember the old sales adage that “logic makes people think, but their emotions make them act.” The entire customer experience is about the feelings and emotions you invoke in your customer’s mind. Don’t waste such a precious opportunity.

I think about Casper.com,⁸ the company that disrupted the mattress industry selling over $75 million in mattresses in 2015. I can’t think of a worse customer experience than buying a mattress. For years, we were expected to visit a store and spend 30 seconds to 5 minutes laying on a mattress. We were then asked to choose one, and days later a large moving truck would show up to deliver your mattress. The truck’s drivers (no offense to them) were often gruff, burly guys just looking to unload the truck and punch out for the day. You had to ask them to take their shoes off, which was awkward, but they relented. The mattress was delivered into your bedroom, and three weeks later you woke to the realization that you bought a terrible mattress, your back was aching, and there was almost no easy way to return the product. Then, along comes Casper, who claims they’ve perfected the mattress. They’re so sure, that they offer you the ability to try the mattress risk-free, in your home, for 100 days. We’ll talk more about the psychology of guarantees and risk-reversal later, but Casper says, “Try it for 100 days, and if you’re not convinced, call us and we’ll pick up the mattress.” The mattress is ordered online and within 5–7 days a great-looking blue box arrives at your door. You look at the box and say to yourself, surely there can’t be a mattress in there. The box is a rectangle about the size of the small bar fridge you had in college. It’s exciting. And then you lift the top of the box open to find a small plastic razor and some clever instructions that tell you to slide the mattress out of the box and only slice open the plastic when the mattress is in the room you’ll use it in. The whole time, the customer is experiencing something that has never, in the history of buying, been exciting before—buying a mattress. Next, you slice open the plastic, and slowly the mattress expands to full size. It’s really like magic, or perhaps a bit like a teenage boy finally getting his chance to dance with the head cheerleader.

Casper encourages you to sleep on it, to jump on it, to play on it, and to make sure it’s perfect for you. If not, you’re welcome to call them anytime in the first 100 days and request a refund. They promise to make that part of the experience as stress-free as possible. And what they do is pretty remarkable. They call the local Goodwill or Salvation Army to pick up the mattress, and it’s donated to a local group in need. That’s pretty amazing if you ask me. Meanwhile, your entire amount paid is refunded back to your credit card. It’s an incredible customer experience and one that has earned the company over $75 million in revenue in just a few short years of business. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Here are a few questions to consider:

How much attention are you paying to the delivery of your products and services?

What could you do to make this part of the experience more fulfilling and engaging for the customer?

Where are you looking for shortcuts when you could be offering additional value?

When you think of unboxing, don’t just think of products, think of the entire unboxing of your experience. What’s the first moment like when the customer checks into the hotel? Are they whisked off to a massage? Is there a fruit basket and handwritten note waiting in the room?

I know a company that sells a massive piece of machinery; the equipment can cost upwards to $1 million a unit.

Paying careful attention to the unboxing and delivery of your products and services could add millions of additional revenue to your bottom line. Oh, and before I forget, the Casper mattress is glorious, and hand’s down the best mattress I’ve ever slept on.

Maximizing Customer Value During the Experience

When it comes to creating frenzied buying behavior in the retail sector, we have to look no further than the iconic blue building with the giant yellow block-lettered sign that reads IKEA. It turns out that Ikea isn’t just remarkably clever when it comes to fitting an entire bedroom into three small boxes that fit into a Mini Cooper, but they’ve also mastered the art of using psychology to get us to buy, buy more, and buy again.

In 2011, on the popular site called Reddit, an Ikea employee started a thread known as an iAMA (Reddit terminology for I Am A..., and Ask Me Anything). In response to one question, he made reference to sections of the store known as “Open the Wallet” sections.⁹ This represents the cacophony of small, relatively cheap items that are scattered all over the popular Swedish store with the intent on making us open our wallets. If you’ve been to an Ikea store before, then you’ve seen them all over. For example, on a recent trip to an Ikea store, I noted a large yellow bin filled with small aluminum pots for $4.95 each. Another stairwell contained candle holders and tea lights, and little green stools for children to stand on in the bathroom. All three of these items came home with us.

What is it about these items that cause customers to open their wallets, and how can you do the same if your business is lacking a 300,000-square-foot retail operation? It’s quite simple, and a few powerful psychological things are going on. First, many of these items are found as you first enter the store, whether they’re in a stairway or bins next to the front entrance. Ikea knows that once you commit to buying, you are more likely to buy again. They’re taking advantage of recency and frequency, which we’ll talk about in the next stage. They’re also taking advantage of the commitment principle, which suggests you’re more likely to follow through on something after you’ve committed to it. Second, the items are all priced low enough but seem practical enough that if you’ve already spent this much, you might as well throw this in the cart. Who doesn’t need a green plastic toilet brush for 99 cents? Third, the items are placed repetitively throughout the store. You might not need a green plastic toilet brush yet, but after the third or fourth time seeing it, you might be convinced. Here are a few questions to consider: What are you doing throughout the third stage that creates opportunities to increase customer value? Without having loads of obnoxious upsells peppered throughout your business, how can you create no-brainer opportunities for the customer to buy, and buy again? That’s a question worth asking in during the third stage.

Peak-End Rule and the Psychology of Lasting Impressions

It is worth revisiting the way the mind works at this point to highlight the importance of creating the right experience. The binary brain would have us believe that there is a clear distinction between emotions and thoughts. One is about feelings, the other rationality. In the same way that economics had a view of the rational man who would always make the best financial decisions based on logical analysis, far too much emphasis has been placed on rationality in purchasing decisions and consumer behavior. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics by debunking the rational economic man myth. As you think about this dynamic between emotions and thought, it is easy to believe that emotions override logic or vice-versa, in a sort of wrestling match between different parts of the brain. However, there is the view in some quarters that rather than being opposites, emotions and thoughts are interdependent and that you can’t have one without the other. This is the view of Antonio Damasio, an esteemed neurologist and author of the best-selling book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.¹⁰ Part of the evidence for this view comes from cases where people have suffered neurological damage that impacts the emotional areas of the brain. Rather than turning into logical superstars who are freed from the tyranny of emotions, such people can’t make a decision. The implication, therefore, is that thought requires some emotional input. We certainly know from Elizabeth Loftus’ work, mentioned earlier, that the level of emotion influences perception and memory. So emotion and the experience are king because they have a major impact on memory, perception, and thought. Moreover, the value of this experience does not exist on a continuum. Rather, the more extreme the experience, the more it is overvalued and the less it is influenced by rationality. So just as we have incongruences negatively impacting perceptions, congruency with very positive expectations will turn a customer into a loyal and ardent supporter.

If emotional valence is important in influencing, if not determining, thoughts then obviously a peak experience is the key to converting a customer into a fan. But what’s the opposite of a peak experience? One assumes that a negative emotional experience is the opposite of a peak experience. If you aggravate a customer so that she is angry and frustrated with you, you are obviously at serious risk of losing her as a customer. However, the experience and behavior of a psychologist friend of mine might have some bearing on this issue.

How do you get excellent service at a restaurant? My friend used what he called “post-conflict compensation”—I told you he was a psychologist—to get his great service. Here’s what he would do: When the server first came over to greet him, my friend expressed surly frustration at some aspect of the early dining experience. He might have complained about a spot on the tablecloth or dirty cutlery, just something that would create some conflict. Typically, the server would attend, often grudgingly, to the complaint. Then when the server came back again, my friend would apologize, often praising the server for behaving so professionally. Often he found the attention he got after that was sublime. The point is that even negative emotions can be turned into great experiences, sometimes precisely because they started out negative and then were reversed. Being moved from a negative emotional state to a positive one is a very motivating and rewarding experience, especially in an interaction or a relationship. It is how you can go from bad to exceptional pretty quickly. Think about the drive for “make-up sex.” It’s the same mechanism, where reversing negativity results in a disproportionate sense of closeness. I’ll talk more about this in Sage Four.

So we have considered experiences at both ends of the emotional spectrum. What can we say about experiences that have very little associated emotion? The customer who has little or no emotional experience when dealing with you is not engaged with you as a brand or business, or with your process. They don’t think especially highly of you or badly about you. That’s the problem: they don’t think about you at all—well, not in any meaningful way. They are the customers that can, and do, go elsewhere. They are not committed or loyal to you.

Take a look at how the traditional customer journey compares to the loyalty loop (see Figure 5.1). The traditional customer experience starts with attention, but then fades off quickly. Because resistance has not been removed, there’s a negative drip immediately after the sale. The experience is erratic and usually tapers off. Even a decent experience with a company is not often remembered that well because the company has gone back to chasing new customers. Contrast this to the loyalty loop, which maintains a strong start and continues to a point of happily ever after. In the loyalty loop, customer happiness and emotional engagement starts at a much higher level and is maintained throughout. The typical customer experience is a roller coaster of peaks and valleys, and that’s why so many companies fail to deliver a memorable and remarkable customer experience.

Figure 5.1: The Traditional Customer Experience vs. the Loyalty Loop Experience

Earlier in the book, we discussed the importance of how experiences end as having a dramatic impact on the likelihood that the customer is willing to reenter the relationship with your business and experience it again. You might guess from the above that it is your last experience that counts, because that is the one that is likely to be most prominent in your memory. If you like, it’s where you left off in your relationship. This raises one of the more widely used psychology findings known as the peak-end rule. It is important for us to remember and recognize how the main customer experience ends, and what we can do to set the foundation for the fourth stage.

Early on we talked about Daniel Kahneman’s findings with the way people experience—the experiencing self and the remembering self. Kahneman is one of the central figures in proposing the peak-end rule theory. In a nutshell, the peak-end rule is a psychological finding that suggests people judge experiences not based on the entire experience, but how it was at its peak and how it was when it ended. An example we gave earlier on suggests that even a fantastic seven-day stay at a hotel can be ruined by a bad experience on checkout. A great restaurant experience can be ruined by an argument over the bill with the waitstaff. Or, as in the case of my psychologist friend, a bad experience can be turned into a great one. Are your experiences ending as positively as they should be? In Stage Three, we need to consider how the experience ends and how we can prime our customer for additional buying experiences to come. The main lesson in this section is you can’t be foolish and unaware about how the experience ends.

• How are the customers acknowledged and thanked when they leave?

• If required, how is the final invoice presented?

• In a B2B scenario, is there a final walk-through or project ending?

• In a consulting arrangement, is there an official project disengagement meeting?

• How can you make the endings as positive as possible, or are you just leaving them to change?

Don’t miss this fabulous opportunity to create a memory that lingers.

At first, many people in business assume once they’ve got the customer, the hard work is done. Now, we’ve effectively looked at all the important parts of the customer journey during the delivery of our products and services. It’s at this point that another large segment of people in business assume the work is done. They assume that if they’ve done a good job, the customer will likely return. If they’ve pleased the customer, then the customer will likely tell others. If they’ve delighted the customer and created Remarkable Moments, the customer is likely to go home and shout from the rooftops. They assume all of this happens without any work, effort, or process. And that’s an entirely false assumption. When working with clients, I’m always asking about follow-up process, and almost everyone looks at me with blank stares—sad but true. When we start to implement even a small chunk of what I often have to argue tooth and nail to get implemented, the results are mind-boggling. Let’s look at the final stage now and see how your business matches up.

The Evergreen Experience Audit

Earlier in the book, I mentioned a process I engage in with a number of my clients called the Evergreen Experience Audit. The minimum fee to engage in this process with my company is $17,500—that’s the minimum—and it always generates a demonstrable ROI, but I’m going to give it to you here in this book that likely cost you less than $20. If you decide you want us to come help with the audit, we’d be more than happy to do that. The Evergreen Experience Audit is a five-step process designed to look at the whole customer experience regardless of the type of business or industry you’re in. One of the common buzz phrases used in the customer experience world is “touch points.” Touch points are all the times you engage with clients throughout each stage of the loop. In some cases, you might have only one or two touch points through each stage. The bigger and more sophisticated a company gets, the more touch points they have. There are touch points in Stage One in marketing, touch points in the sales process in Stage Two, perhaps multiple touch points with your front-facing staff in Stage Three, and additional touch points as you continue to follow up with the customer. As we’ve discussed throughout the book, even one poor touch point can paint a negative picture of all the positive ones. The goal of the experience audit is maintaining congruency throughout all touch points. That’s not always easy—experience expectations about what happens during each stage and through the various touch points can be vastly different amongst the executive suite, management, front-facing staff, and even your customers.

Using the process that I’m going to share with you now, we close the gap between what your customers expect and what’s actually delivered; we also close the gap between the differing expectations amongst your people. I can’t stress enough how important it is to do this on a regular basis. It’s not difficult; in fact, you won’t believe how easy it is. The reason it’s powerful to have an outside party do this is because you and your team are biased. The confirmation bias creeps in to make us feel we’re doing things right. The real results and power come from having someone with the right expertise to not pull any punches. When I do this, I’ve already been paid. I’m not working with clients to make friends. I’m there to discomfit and create change. Sometimes this doesn’t always work out. I had a client that hired me to do a meeting with their salespeople. There were 80 of them from around the globe who gathered for a one-day sales meeting. Almost every time I speak, there’s extensive predatory work on my end. I talked to some of the salespeople. I talked to their customers. I talked to management and executives. And what I found were wildly different expectations about the whole customer experience. I warned my buyer that I wasn’t going to come down easy, but perhaps say things that might make people uncomfortable. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. While some of the attendees said the workshop was “enlightening” and “fascinating” and “some of the most valuable work we’ve ever engaged in,” others didn’t feel this way. As I explained to my buyer, “There are always people discomfited by change and/or who seek to critique, but that’s not my concern.” If you don’t hire someone like me to help you engage in a process like this, consider engaging your own customers to help, or having other outsiders do it for you.