The safety announcement at the beginning of your flight can be a rich source of ‘differentiation’ for airlines! (Equally, it can be a great demonstration of the staff’s attitude to the whole thing – have you heard the Ryanair monotone scripted drones?)
I often talk in my seminars about the Southwest Airlines ‘rapping guy’ , and four years ago, the Thomson Airline kids got everyone talking. Well Virgin America has just launched one that takes things to the next level! It’s got singers and dancers and certainly enhances the customer experience, and crucially, gets people to watch the video! (You can see it below!)
It’s a great example of taking one element of what you do and making it ‘Dramatically Different’. A good way of doing this is applying this technique to the mundane, day to day, even boring things that we have to do, or more importantly, our customers have to do.
It could be very simple things. For example, to get things started, what could you do to ‘Demonstrate’ you’re different in things like your…
- ‘Out Of Office’ response
- Answerphone message
- Website enquiry response – online and offline
- Correspondence from your accounts department
….or anywhere else where customers aren’t expecting!
Anyway, to get your Monday morning off to a nice start, please fasten your seat belts….
Great video! Better than half of the videos you see on MTV.
Just goes to show you can make anything exciting with creativity (and a video production budget).
Hi Bob!
The budget certainly helps in this case – but, I agree with you, it’s also about the ‘creativity’!
the challenge for most businesses I think is to apply this to their ‘day to day’ stuff – do lots of little things, rather than one big one!
…of domestic and international air travel more enjoyable and endurable is welcome, especially when it’s also creative and entertaining. Over the years, I’ve seen lots of inspired conference presentations by Virgin on their customer-centric culture; and this video is ‘living proof’ of how they walk the talk with customers. And, I’m sure Virgin in-flight employees appreciate it, too!