Have you ever been treated to a fine dining experience where the host hands you the wine list saying, “Why don’t you select the wine. Remember, it’s my treat.”

As you scan the wine list, a bottle of Far Niente Cabernet Sauvignon catches your eye but at $200 a bottle, you continue to scan down the list until you find a wine that’s priced more modestly. After all, you don’t want to appear to be taking advantage of your host’s generosity.

When the wine arrives, your host and other dinner guests will no doubt compliment your selection but you’ll be thinking of that Far Niente as you prepare to taste your second (or seventh…) choice.

Last week, I received a holiday catalogue from Tiffany & Co. The catalogue, as you might expect, contained many images of fashionable models wearing attractive Tiffany & Co. jewelry and accessories.

But what you might not expect is that the catalogue contained no prices. Instead, Tiffany & Co. included a separate, detached price list enabling ladies to peruse the catalogue and select their preferred merchandise—without censoring their favorite pieces due to price.

This also allows buyers to conceal the prices paid for gifts—providing discretion while ensuring their sweetheart doesn’t have to settle for her second (or seventh…) choice. Brilliant.

A blog post last week by Peter Shankman titled, The World’s Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told, Starring Morton’s Steakhouse has generated some debate as to whether Morton’s Steakhouse demonstrated amazing customer service or capitalized on an opportunity to grab some great press when it delivered a porterhouse steak and sides to Mr. Shankman upon arrival at Newark airport.

While I don’t refute Shankman’s claim that Morton’s delivers exceptional customer service (a quick scan of his post’s comments reveals dozens of testimonials to the superior customer service experienced at Morton’s), I do believe this story is more about public relations than it is about customer service.

Compare the Morton’s story above with an experience I had at Tiffany & Co.:

I was in New York City for a business trip a week or so before my 10-year wedding anniversary. One afternoon, I stopped by the Tiffany & Co. flagship store on 6^th Avenue to look at anniversary rings.

A thoughtful representative named Duncan showed me several rings as he explained some of the nuances of color, cut, clarity, and carat weight.

The rings looked magnificent beneath the showroom lights. I recall that of the half dozen or so rings that I looked at, there was one that I kept going back to. Duncan noticed it too. And, of course, it cost 25 percent more than the others.

After about 30 minutes together, I thanked him for his time and told him that I wouldn’t be buying the ring today. I mentioned that I had an appointment in two days with a representative at the Denver location of Tiffany & Co. He congratulated me on my 10-year anniversary and wished me luck in finding the perfect ring.

Two days later I arrived at the Denver location of Tiffany & Co. and met with a representative named Cynthia. Cynthia brought me into a private room to show me a set of anniversary rings that she had selected based on my criteria. As she revealed each successive ring, she would say something like, “Now, this ring combines the color you are hoping for with the mounting we discussed.”

After introducing several rings in this way, Cynthia produced the final ring saying, “Now, this is the ring that you were especially taken by when Duncan was showing you rings at the 6^th Avenue store on Tuesday.”

I was absolutely floored! I said something like, “Huh? What? How did you…?”

Cynthia sensed my astonishment, smiled, and then explained that she had received a call from Duncan shortly after I’d left the 6^th Avenue store and that together they had made arrangements for the ring to be shipped overnight from New York City to the Denver location of Tiffany & Co. in time for my appointment.

Duncan and Cynthia worked together to deliver customer service that was completely beyond the realm of customer expectation. I had no reason to expect that the ring I’d looked at in New York would be among the options made available to me in Denver.

Does this level of customer service influence sales? Guess which ring I bought?

Although this story, as a blog post, has brought unexpected positive social media attention to the Tiffany & Co. brand (albeit, a fraction of the attention enjoyed by Morton’s), it is ultimately about exceptional customer service.

Recently I wrote in a blog post that due to the effect of social media, customer service and public relations are now inextricably linked. As customers increasingly broadcast their experiences over the web, this will benefit companies like Morton’s and Tiffany & Co., that consistently deliver superior customer service, and will punish those with lackluster customer service.

So whether these companies are serving Peter Shankman or a less influential customer, if they do it right every time, they’ll be doing it right at the right time.

What’s your view?

Some employees have a penchant for delivering service heroics that become the subjects of many positive customer testimonials and even company lore. This is an effective way for these employees to express their uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

For our tenth year wedding anniversary, I bought my wife an anniversary ring from Tiffany & Co. We had planned to stay at The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, about an hour and a half from our home in southeast Denver, and I had made arrangements for the ring to be shipped to the hotel from the Denver location of Tiffany.

Well, as it happened, Denver was hit by a major snowstorm the morning of our anniversary and we chose to cancel our plans to drive down to Colorado Springs. Meanwhile, the ring had already been shipped and was in the process of being delivered to the hotel by United Parcel Service.

I contacted the Tiffany store in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center with my dilemma and my salesperson assured me that she would take care of it. What happened next was legendary. The store arranged for one of its security guards to drive two hours south of the store to Colorado Springs where he located the UPS truck transporting the ring, provided the paperwork necessary to claim the package, and then drove the ring another hour and a half to my house.

He arrived around 9:00 pm and would not even accept a gratuity for his extra effort. Of course, I wrote Tiffany’s president in New York City about the service heroics and committed to “never purchase a significant piece of jewelry from a jeweler other than Tiffany and Co.” He wrote back in acknowledgment of my letter—and in appreciation of my loyalty.

I’ve heard similar testimonials from others when presenting customer service training around the country. Without exception, the one element that each of these stories has in common is the customers’ unconditional loyalty to the company involved.

There’s no coupon or incentive program out there that’s strong enough to lure these customers—and their future spending—away.