The checkout people at our local Publix supermarket always ask, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” Ninety-nine percent of the time, our answer is, “Yes.” One day, Priscilla said, “No, you don’t have the graham cracker mix I normally use. I’m making a key lime pie.” She settled for her second choice and went home. Less than an hour later, our doorbell rang. To my utter surprise, it was a Publix employee holding a box of Priscilla’s preferred brand. I don’t know if he found it in a storeroom, or at another supermarket, or someplace else, but what matters is, he went the extra mile to make us happy—and then some.
A former colleague of mine told me a similar story. She had picked up a takeout sandwich from Chick-fil-A. When she got home, she found that the french fries were not in the bag. Disappointed, she called the store. The manager apologized for the oversight and asked for her address. “I assumed it was so he could send me a coupon for free fries,” she told me. “But a half hour later a Chick-fil-A employee came to my door with a huge bag of fries! I was stunned!” She added, “That one encounter has made me a loyal customer ever since.” She now tells that story to new employees at her own company as an example of how to surprise and delight a customer. No matter what you think of Chick-fil-A’s politics, that’s good service.
We all love the surprise of getting something extra when it’s not expected. I’m sure you remember being excited about finding an extra prize in a box of Cracker Jack or the thrill of getting a brightly wrapped present when it wasn’t a special day. What about the nice woman at the farmers’ market who throws in an extra plum? The gas station attendant who cleans your windshield when you’re at the self-service pump? The bakery that lets you sample a cookie? They’re not just being generous; they know that the cost of those little surprises is nothing compared with the revenue they get from repeat customers. The practice is probably as old as commerce itself. You know the term baker’s dozen? It was coined hundreds of years ago, when bakers in England added a thirteenth loaf of bread to a purchase of twelve.
This isn’t rocket science. Actually, it’s brain science. In 2011, neuroscientists confirmed the wisdom of the ages when they found evidence that our brains crave the excitement of surprise. It seems that the region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, aka the pleasure center, experiences more activation when a pleasurable stimulus comes unexpectedly than it does when the same pleasure is predictable. As the lead researcher on the brain-imaging study, Dr. Gregory Berns of Emory University, explained it, “So if you get a present for your birthday, that’s nice. But you’ll like it a lot more if you get a present and it’s not your birthday.” That’s why the same beer tastes better when a bartender gives you a free one out of the blue than it does when the bar advertises “two for one.”
There are countless ways to give a little extra service, and many of them will cost you little or nothing. You can take more time with a customer. You can offer her a cup of coffee. You can make a contribution to his favorite charity. Once, the general manager of a hotel I often stayed at surprised me with a bottle of my favorite wine. How did he know it was my favorite? He called my home and consulted with Priscilla.
During the months of writing this book, I asked virtually everyone I came into contact with to e-mail me stories about a time they received stupendous service. Almost every story I received involved a company surprising the customer with something extra. Some were simple gestures, like the RadioShack employee who, after fetching the battery a customer needed for a certain gadget, offered to put the battery in the device. Others were more elaborate, such as the owner of an independent bookstore who, upon realizing she didn’t have a particular book that a customer wanted to give his child for Christmas, phoned her chief competitor and had them set aside a copy for the man. Then there was the service rep who stayed on the phone longer than she needed to because the customer who’d called was housebound owing to a severe medical condition and was obviously lonely. The next day, the customer was stunned to receive “an enormous bouquet of lilies and roses” from the company, along with a personal note wishing her a speedy recovery and an upgrade that entitled her to free delivery on subsequent orders.
That company was Zappos. I’ve heard a lot of great above-and-beyond stories about that online retailer, which has what Businessweek magazine called “a near-fanatical devotion to customer service.” For example, there was the time a guy ordered a specific pair of shoes he had to wear as best man at a wedding. UPS messed up the shipment, and the shoes didn’t arrive before he left for the airport to fly to the wedding site. What did Zappos do? They sent a replacement pair overnight to the customer’s destination. Not only did they cover the charge for shipping, they gave him a complete refund.
With a bit of imagination, you too can delight customers by giving them a little extra when they least expect it. They’ll surprise you in return by coming back early and often and by singing your praises to others.