I was pretty exhausted when I checked into the Embassy Suites hotel in Maryland last night.
I was greeted politely, they found my reservation quickly (always a good thing) and then it happened . . .
I was told that I had been selected as their guest of the day!
Well son of a freakin gun, not even 30 seconds before I was simply Paul Castain and now I morphed into the Embassy Suites Guest of The Day.
I’m not going to lie . . . It instantly made me feel good and really appreciated!
Here’s what they gave me . . .
A bag of all kinds of snacks . . . here’s the bag, minus the snacks 🙂
Free internet . . . I really appreciate this one and in the spirit of a quick rant wish hotels would either stop charging for this or just build it in so I don’t see that you’re charging me.
A certificate which I was thinking about waving around the lounge in the same way Wayne and Garth waved their backstage passes in Wayne’s world.
A letter informing me of my “Guest of The Day” status!
Here’s the bottom line folks . . . This was all done for well under 10 bucks!
Appreciating a customer with a “random act of wow” doesn’t have to break the bank!
I wonder if this is something you could utilize in your business somehow?
A client of the day or week or what have you.
Perhaps it could mean bagels or a pizza?
A bag of goodies?
A stripper? Actually I put that there to make sure you were paying attention.
No matter how you choose to express it . . .
Just make sure you package it all with an attitude of APPRECIATION!
Oh, and for those of you who won’t drop the 10 bucks . . . 10 bucks is nothing compared to the cost of going out and “courting” a new client. No?
Your turn . . .
What are your thoughts about this business of “random acts of wow”? Do you have any examples you can share with us?
Meanwhile, over on Rock Star University we have a webinar today “How To Bring In More Business” Find out more by clicking here!
I didn’t read the whole post – did you get a stripper? smiley winking face
Not this time Jim . . . I think you need at least 20 visits inside of a six month window for that one 🙂
________________________________
From: Disqus
To: ctstrainer@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:12 AM
Subject: [yoursalesplaybook] Re: A Random Act Of “Wow”
Disqus generic email template
NOTE: This comment is waiting for your approval. It is not yet published on your site. ======
Paul – great point. This also works for employees. My wife baked a cake and gave it to two girls that work for us the other day – you would have thought we took them to Mortons Steakhouse for dinner!
Great post!
This is such an awesome point that we simply can’t forget Dennis.
You also raise an excellent point that it need not be some million dollar “thank you”.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment Dennis!
I really appreciate it!
What a fabulous idea. I am in the business that this would really be fun for our clients..>THANK YOU!!!
And thank YOU Paula!
Wishing you continued success!
Amen, Paul!! It’s amazing how far a little appreciation goes!! Why I love what I do..teaching “Appreciation Marketing”. Hey! We should do a webinar together sometime!! I’m off to appreciate some of my own clients right now!!
My company does a good job of this over the long term, but maybe not so much in the shorter term. We always bring in goodies for Account Reviews, or meetings we are very appreciative of them giving the time to participate in, and then we do an annual customer appreciation event each year where we invite them to our local minor league baseball team for food, fun, and catching up on life outside of our business.
So my question is… what happens when it is no longer random and becomes expected? We are struggling with this now that the annual customer appreciation event has become an expected event and is no longer special for people. It has become stale.
So what’s the next option?
Great post!! So simple, but yet so powerful. Well done.
Thank you so much Jillian . . . I really appreciate the kind words!
I sneak up on clients with Cup Cakes or Doughnuts when they least expect it and ask them if they can help me eat them because I can’t possibly eat it all by myself. Amazingly I have never been turned down, but I have been accused of sweet talking them into eating the treats.
Can I be your customer Len 🙂
Now that’s a really cool way to show some appreciation!
Well done!
Appreciation is a wonderful business to be in Julie!
Thanks!
Hey that’s awesome, Paul – how fun is that? What a great thing for them to do – someone in their customer relations office definitely knows what they’re doing…
In addition to having an immediate payoff for the hotel (in that chances are you’ll stay there again as a result of their random act of WOW!), it also gave a nice boost to their brand by you sharing your experience socially… with the millions of loyal Sales Playbook readers you just told! 🙂
Kudos to them for the insight to do it – and to you for your new status!
Oh – and for the record – I’m TOTALLY with you on the internet thing – either give it to me free or don’t point out you’re charging me…
Have a great day my friend!
Virtually Yours,Anne-Marie