Give a Little Extra and Make Your Customers Feel Special

Give a little extra to your customers and make them feel special, and you’ll gain loyalty and increase the value of your product offering.

Most of us have experienced at the end of a concert, when the audience is shouting – “Encore, Encore, Encore…” and the band comes back out to play one or two more songs. This is actually done so much, it’s expected. But do you remember the first time you experienced that moment? I remember thinking that – “Wow, this band really likes playing for our crowd. They must really like us.” In the end, it made me feel lucky and special.

While traveling recently, my wife and I decided to try something different and adventurous by taking a tour with Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours in Niagara On The Lake. We had a great time going through class-5 white water in one of their open top jet boats. The tour guide was a very charismatic and pleasant young man who taught us about the sites, the history and about the Niagara River.

We traveled up river until we hit the white water and the whirlpool near Niagara Falls. The highlight was one particular stretch of class-5 rapids where the captain traveled up and down a few times before moving onto the whirlpool. After we reached our destination, we proceeded to head back down the river towards the docks. To do so, we went through the same stretch of white water. After navigating through it, the captain turned the boat around and went through it for a second time to everyone’s delight.

It was at this moment that the tour guide came on the speaker system and said that we were running a few minutes ahead of schedule and was wondering if our group would like a “Bonus Round”. Of course, everyone cheered for another round. The guide then proceeded to ask the captain if he thought we’d have enough time (all heard over the speaker system), the captain said yes and away we went. I guess it made us feel pretty special.

Upon arrival at the docks, I couldn’t help but ask if that was part of the show. As I suspected the tour guide admitted that they do that with every tour. It was a customer experience strategy done by the company to make every customer feel special, and it worked. Walking away I heard one of the younger passengers on the tour talking about how lucky they were to have that bonus round and how glad he was that they were on the tour on that particular ride.

Making your customers feel special and providing a shopping experience that goes just one step beyond what they were expecting will create loyalty among your customers and great word of mouth advertising through them.

So what can you do to make your customers feel special? I challenge you to really think about that little something extra that will cost you next to nothing, but will have huge value to your customers and clients.

Andy