The notion of unique knowledge was first brought to my attention by a colleague from Boston. John was quite interesting and I learned a lot from him by listening to his insights related to topics ranging from history to customer service.

I would characterize John’s knowledge as substantial as opposed to superficial. Conversations with John were deeper and more memorable than superficial discussions that are soon forgotten.

One evening John and I were discussing customer service and he asked me, “Steve, what are some of the names of meeting rooms at your hotel?”

I responded, “Odets, Wilder, Cantor, Jolson…”

John interrupted, “If I were a customer and asked you why the room was named ‘Odets,’ what would you say?”

I thought about it a moment and realized that I didn’t know the significance of the name. I admitted this to John saying, “You know, I just got so used to the name representing a meeting room that I didn’t really give it much thought.”

John was not one to lecture but he did make the point that it’s our responsibility to know the significance of proper names and to learn the histories and stories that reflect the cultures, neighborhoods, and buildings in which we work. This unique knowledge has character, is memorable, and may be the difference between a bland and ordinary transaction and a unique and memorable experience.

Here are a few examples:

Unique knowledge about the chef: “Our chef trained at the prestigious Restaurant School in Philadelphia and apprenticed at Le Bec Fin. She also traveled to France to refine her knowledge of French delicacies such as truffles, escargot, and foie gras. In fact, our Pâté de Foie Gras is our signature appetizer. May I tempt you with an order?”

Unique knowledge about the building: “There’s quite a bit a history in this hotel. In fact, in 1926 the famed magician Harry Houdini escaped from a sealed underwater coffin beneath this very roof when it was the Shelton Towers Hotel.”

Unique knowledge about the neighborhood: “Our restaurant is located in the Gaslamp Quarter which is named after the gas lamps that lined the streets in the early 1900s when the area was a red light district known as ‘Stingaree.’ The name was probably derived from the fierce stingray fish in the San Diego Bay. It was said that you could be stung as badly in the Stingaree as in the bay!”

Unique knowledge about proper names: “Your meeting is being held in the Odets meeting room on the fourth floor. The room is named after the playwright Clifford Odets who wrote the plays Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing. Several of our meeting rooms are named after other well-known playwrights. After all, you are in the Theatre District!”

While customers appreciate nice employees, they value knowledgeable employees. And the more unique knowledge they possess, the more value they can bring to the customer experience.

Have you shared or experienced unique knowledge recently?

When it comes to serving customers, most companies are concerned more with posture than performance.

Posture is based on what companies say they do, their public image. Performance is based on what companies actually do, their results. Would you rather do business with a company that projects exceptional customer service or one that delivers it?

Consider the example of United Airlines. As a former United 1K (100,000 mile flyer), I’ve had lots of experience with the airline as a customer. Over the years, I endured indifferent customer service on the phone, in the terminal, at the gate, and on airplanes. It wasn’t always indifferent. At times it was friendly—even exceptional. But, from my perspective, there was inconsistency between United’s stated slogan, Fly the Friendly Skies (posture) and its actual customer service quality (performance).

At least United had the good sense to change its slogan in 2004 to It’s Time to Fly. Perhaps the airline had more confidence in its ability to consistently depart on time than to consistently provide friendly customer service…

Even McDonald’s, the model of efficiency and consistency, postures with its Double-Checked For Accuracy program. Having four children, our standing order doesn’t change much and usually involves plain cheeseburgers (i.e., cheeseburgers with nothing on them—no pickles, no onions, no ketchup, no mustard). Routinely, we receive “plain” cheeseburgers that include one or more of the above garnishes. To add insult to injury, the bag is usually secured with a bold sticker ensuring the order has been Double-Checked For Accuracy.

If I were advising McDonald’s, I’d recommend that its employees spend less time attaching stickers to bags suggesting that uninspected orders have been “double-checked for accuracy” (posturing) and direct more of their energy and attention to guests and getting their orders right (performing).

According to this recent article in The New Yorker, a survey of more than 300 big companies revealed that while 80% described themselves as delivering “superior” service (based on their stated priorities), consumers put that figure at just 8% (based on their actual experiences).

This demonstrates the chasm that exists between what most companies say they do and what these companies actually do.

Of course, there are exceptions that recognize the importance of aligning stated priorities and slogans with actual performance. FedEx comes to mind. For many years, its slogan was When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. And FedEx’s performance consistently supported that claim. Even in today’s global marketplace, FedEx’s updated slogan, The World on Time matches its performance and reaffirms that it is the go-to company for international shipping.

Zappos is another company whose slogan, Powered by Service matches its performance. What Zappos says it does and what it actually does are one in the same. Zappos has a great deal of integrity. There is a consistency to Zappos. Loyal Zappos customers are confident that their expectations will be met or exceeded—every time.

I’ll close with a metaphor attributed to Gandhi that illustrates the difference between posture and performance.

Imagine the scene in some remote village in India. Gandhi is in a small hut with a single table and the village people are lining up in the square to have a moment with him to tap into his wisdom and to make some sense of the challenges they face.

Eventually, a mother and son made their way to his table and the mother pleaded with Gandhi, “Can you please stop my son from eating sugar. It is affecting his health and I am worried.”

Gandhi got up from his chair and thought for a moment. He then said to the mother, “Come back with your boy to see me in two weeks.” The woman agreed and then she and her son left the room.

Two weeks later the woman returned with her son. Gandhi then spoke with the boy and the boy agreed. The mother, confused, asked Gandhi, “Why did you make me and my son wait to hear something you could have said two weeks ago?”

Gandhi then said, “You don’t understand. Two weeks ago, I too was eating sugar.”

My two oldest boys recently attended a cousin’s LEGO® Star Wars™ themed birthday party at the LEGO® Store. When they returned home, each was carrying a bright yellow LEGO party goodie bag and proudly wearing a LEGO name tag that had been personalized with his name. I asked them how they liked the party. “We had a blast!” they exclaimed as they dumped the contents of their goodie bags onto the kitchen table, revealing:

• A LEGO Club magazine
• LEGO Club membership card
• LEGO Store coupon good for $5 off $35 purchase
• LEGO Builder’s License
• LEGO Tips & Tricks card

Soon, they were extending their LEGO experience by immersing themselves in more LEGO activities (i.e., building models, reading their LEGO Club magazines, and going online to the website). While at the website, they identified models they would like to buy with the $5.00 store coupons they received in their goodie bags.

I said to my wife, “The party sounds like it cost a fortune.” To my surprise, she said it only cost our cousin around $125. And that included:

• A themed, hour-long birthday party at the LEGO Store for up to 10 children
• A $100 LEGO Gift Card for purchasing the sets each party guest will build and take home
• 10 invitations, 10 thank you cards and 10 name tags
• Dedicated LEGO host for the party
• Exclusive LEGO birthday brick for birthday child

Wow! The LEGO Store is doing it right on so many levels with its design of this birthday experience:

• By offering themes like LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® City, and others, parents can tailor the party’s theme towards their child’s preferences.
• By including the $100 LEGO Gift Card, they are adding tremendous value to the $125 cost of the party while, at the same time, providing the centerpiece party activity as well as parting gifts for the party guests!
• By including the invitations, thank you cards, name tags, and dedicated LEGO host for the party, they are saving work for the parents—which is always welcomed!
• Lastly, by providing an exclusive LEGO birthday brick for birthday boy or girl, they are reinforcing the child’s uniqueness by allowing him or her to receive something special that can only be received by a child whose birthday party is held at the LEGO Store!

While the children are busy building LEGO models, LEGO is building loyalty through value and the customer experience. Brilliant marketing by a brilliant brand!

Last week, my family and I traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to attend a family reunion. While in Lincoln, we stayed at a full service hotel downtown. When we arrived at the hotel, we unloaded several bags from our vehicle onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Minutes later, a bellman passed by without saying a word and entered the main lobby from the sidewalk.

My wife and I fully expected that he was getting a luggage cart to assist us with our bags. When he did not return, I went inside the hotel and encountered him standing just inside the lobby. He looked at me and asked, “Can I help you with your bags?” Already, I was annoyed because he clearly saw my bags on the sidewalk yet I still had to track him down for assistance.

Now that we were being helped, we no longer felt ignored but did feel as if this bellman was treating us indifferently—as if we were just another “check-in” or transaction. It’s not that he did anything wrong during the remainder of the check-in process, it’s just that he missed several opportunities to anticipate our needs and make a lasting positive impression.

For instance, one of my boys complained about the weight of his backpack. The bellman just stood there as I relieved my son of his backpack and hung it on the luggage cart. A minute later, while I went back to the car to retrieve a cooler, my wife corralled our four children in front of the elevators to take a group picture of them. She commented to me afterwards that she wished she had asked him to take a picture that would have included her—another missed opportunity for him to make a positive impression.

Later, when we were in the guest room, the bellman simply offloaded the luggage near the door, accepted his tip, and bid us adieux with the transactional industry farewell, “Enjoy your stay.”

He failed to observe other cues that would have made the difference between an ordinary check-in and a memorable service experience. Although a cooler, Pack ‘n Play® travel crib, and wine tote were all visible cues, he appeared aloof from any customer service opportunities these items may have presented. In the first ten minutes after his departure I had already retrieved ice for the cooler (which required accessing the 4th floor as there was no ice machine on the 3rd floor where our rooms were located), phoned housekeeping for a sheet to line our toddler’s travel crib, and gone in search of wine glasses.

With so many missed opportunities, the potential for a unique and memorable customer-focused experience faded and we were left with an ordinary and forgettable process-focused transaction. As happens far too often, many service providers are lulled into the monotony of processing “each customer like the last customer” and, in so doing, treating the customer like just another transaction (in my case, just another “check-in”).

Service providers must recognize that each customer presents a unique opportunity to make a favorable impression. By committing to energize their customer service delivery by looking for visual cues, anticipating customers’ needs, and offering the unexpected, service providers will capitalize on opportunities to provide unique and memorable service experiences.

There is a restaurant in my neighborhood named Wine Experience Café & World Cellar. This restaurant is unique in that two-thirds of the space is used as a bar area and dining room and the other third is used as a liquor and wine store.

The owner, Eldon Larson, had a career in wine sales prior to opening Wine Experience Café two years ago. His knowledge of wines, grapes, regions, etc. is extensive and he’s always willing to share and educate in order to elevate a guest’s meal or wine purchase from a transaction to—as the restaurant’s name implies—an experience!

Earlier this year, I took a friend of mine out to dinner for his birthday at Eldon’s restaurant and Eldon stopped by our table to check-in with us regarding the quality of the food and service. Sensing by our questions that we were especially interested in wine, Eldon pulled up a chair and asked our server to bring over a flight of three unique wines. If you’re not familiar with wine flights, they are simply a variety of wines served as smaller, perhaps three-ounce, pours.

Eldon expertly paired the wines with the food we’d ordered. When they arrived at the table, Eldon led us in tasting the wines. He asked questions of us pertaining to what we noticed in the colors of the wines, the scents we were picking up when nosing the wines, and what tastes we were detecting when sipping the wines. He explained the acidity, the texture, and the finish of the wines and, again, moved the meal from transactional to experiential.

After Eldon had left our table, another diner commented, “You two must be pretty important for the owner to spend so much time at your table.” Shawn and I laughed. Then she said knowingly, “Wait until you get the bill.”

And you know what? She was right. Eldon doesn’t give wine away. He sells wine. But more than that, he fulfills experiences. If our number one priority had been price, we wouldn’t have been at Wine Experience Café to begin with. Yes, people are looking for value (in any economy) but not at the expense of fulfilling an experience.

Let’s fast-forward four weeks or so to last week when I stopped by the retail side of the establishment to inquire about a bottle of wine, Earthquake Cabernet. Although Eldon did not stock the wine, he took the time to look the bottle up and told me that he would place a call to his distributor to find out whether or not he could get it in the store.

A couple of days later I received a voice mail from Eldon saying that the wine had arrived. My first thought was, “Oh, I didn’t intend for him to order a bottle. I only intended for him to see if it was available and, if so, at what price?”

Later that day I arrived at the store to pick up the bottle of Earthquake Cabernet, hoping that it was closer to $20 than $40. When I arrived, Eldon greeted me with, “I’ve got your case of Earthquake right here.”

I said, “Case?”

He said, “Yes. You did want a case didn’t you?”

Here is where the relationship that Eldon had been building over time by expressing genuine interest in me as a customer, sharing unique knowledge about wines, and conveying authentic enthusiasm for food and wine, really began to pay off for him.

I said, “I’m not even sure of the per bottle price. How much is it?”

Eldon said, “I was able to get you a really good price from the distributor: $24 per bottle. I actually hired him into the business many years ago.”

My response: “Sold!”

The moral of the story is that, in the absence of the relationship that Eldon had forged, I almost certainly would have said, “Hey, I never authorized ordering the case. I was only inquiring as to whether or not the wine was available and, if so, at what price. My budget is $20 for wine, so that wine’s too pricey anyway.”

In that situation, the vendor is stuck carrying another $288 worth of obscure inventory and depending on how the misunderstanding is handled, could jeopardize future business with the customer. Think about it, we’ve all been in similar situations before. How you chose to proceed as a customer likely hinged on the relationship you had with the vendor.

Memorable service that is customer-focused fulfills experiences, builds relationships, and creates loyal customers who are less price-sensitive, recommend your business to others, and tend to repurchase products and services.

Transactional service that is process-focused and does not add value or build customer relationships, however, does none of these things.