‘Planned Spontaneity’ is a great way of creating customer delight – it’s one of the six ingredients I talk about at conferences and seminars when it comes to creating remarkable customer service experiences. By planning something that wows your customer somewhere along the customer journey, you make them feel valued and ‘special’.
Planned Spontaneity can (and should) occur anywhere in the customer journey and it can range from simple things like remembering how a visitor to your office takes his or her coffee, to sending a ‘thanks for paying on time’ letter to someone that does! The key bit is that it has to appear ‘spontaneous’ regardless of how much planning has gone into it.
Here’s a wonderful example which is a little more ‘sophisticated’ than the ideas I suggested. It comes from LOT Polish Airlines thanking their half millionth Dreamliner passenger at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport. As he attempted to check in, Maciej Kołodziej was suddenly serenaded by the check-in agent and to his astonishment – and that of other travellers – he was then in the middle of a flash mob performance of Mama Mia by artists from ROMA Music Theatre. They dressed as LOT pilots, aircrew and passengers, and danced, sang and even drew Kołodziej into their performance of “I have a Dream”!
It’s a great example and demonstrates all 6 of the ingredients of Customer Delight:
- It produces a wow reaction!
- It appears spontaneous or unexpected!
- It’s the personal touch!
- It makes the customer feel valued!
- It’s genuine… and…
- It creates a ‘talking point’!
So, what does this mean for you and your business? No, I’m not suggesting that you start serenading your customers and organising free flights for your customers, but think about those ingredients and work out how you could make ‘Planned Spontaneity’ work in the way you interact with your customers.
Here are a couple of things you can use to do it…
Customer Delight As Competitive Advantage is a FREE ebook that gives you ideas, tips and tools to help you make this stuff work in your business – Download it straight to your Kindle or iPad HERE.
Creating Delighted And Devoted Customers is our latest on-line training programme – it’s a series of stimulating videos that gives you practical ideas, tools and techniques to make it all work in your business. ACCESS THAT HERE
