I wrote recently about Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II ‘Delighting’ one of her subjects and highlighted the lessons that we could all learn from her when it comes to customer delight!
It was all about the ‘wow’ reaction, planned spontaneity, personalising the experience and making the customer feel ‘valued’!
That great example of Customer Delight by Queen Elizabeth has now been ‘matched’ by President Barak Obama although this time it really was ‘spontaneous’!
11 year old Tyler Sullivan skipped school to see his dad meet the President at his work in Minnesota last week and as Barack Obama approached him he said “Hi Mr. President!”
Apparently, the President replied “Hi Tyler, you must be out of school then!” On hearing Tyler say yes, Barack Obama then said “Do you want me to write an excuse note? What’s your teacher’s name?”
Tyler told him it was Mr. Ackerman and the President then asked one of his aides to get some White House Presidential Seal note paper on which he wrote “Please excuse Tyler. He was with me. Barack Obama, the president.” and then he signed it!
It’s a great example of ‘customer delight’ and it highlights the key ingredient of spotting a “customer’s” problem, and then dealing with, rectifying and resolving that problem. It’s not about ‘following scripts’, and might even mean ‘breaking the rules’ and ‘taking action’. the result is a ‘delighted’ customer who tells lots of others (Apparently Tyler’s story is all over the US and world media!)
The best businesses ‘empower’ their people to do this (see Ritz-Carlton’s approach to Jollie the Giraffe!), and although you could argue that as one of the most powerful men in the world, the President doesn’t need ‘empowering’, he certainly ‘took action’!
The only downside of ‘exceeding customer’s expectations’ is that those expectations now rise – the vast majority of 11 year olds may well be looking for that pardon when they miss school!
To celebrate this ‘Diamond’ time we’re having here in the UK, here’s a copy of the 60 Ideas To Help Deliver Delightful Diamond Customer Experiences ebook - you can download it onto your iPad or Kindle if you’re all ‘modern’!
Feel free to share it with others – it’s good to ‘spread the message’!
