One drawback to living in a relatively new neighborhood is that the landscaping is not yet fully established. This means small trees with few leaves. I suppose if you can’t stand raking leaves, small trees would be a plus. For me, however, with four young children who love to play in a big pile of leaves, it’s a drawback.
One year, a friend of mine from a well-established neighborhood with plenty of mature trees allowed me to pick up his lawn and leaf bags, bursting with leaves, and transport them back to my own yard. Another year, I helped myself to leaves at a well-landscaped industrial park over the weekend when no one was around to question my activity. I even received a large box of leaves in the mail one year from my brother-in-law in Sioux Falls.
Why go to this extent? Because I love my children and want to do whatever I can to create memorable childhood experiences for them. Most of us have had a running start at a huge pile of leaves earlier in life. I want my children to be able to experience it too.
It’s the same with serving customers. If your goal is to create memorable experiences for your customers, then it may require similar creativity and improvising.
Here are a few examples:
- I have a favorite pasta dish that doesn’t appear on the menus of most Italian restaurants. While these menus tend to offer broccoli and sautéed mushrooms as side dishes and Fettuccini Alfredo and Chicken Marsala as entrees, my favorite pasta dish is Fettuccini Alfredo topped with pieces of chicken, broccoli, and mushrooms. The best restaurants, having ready access to the ingredients, will improvise and create for me a customized entrée and a memorable dining experience.
- For my 40th birthday, I spent the weekend at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with family and friends. My father-in-law ordered Coca-Cola from our poolside server, Betty. Though only Pepsi products were readily available, Betty improvised and located a “secret stash” in order to fulfill the request. Did she make an impression? That was more than three years ago and I still remember her name!
- Once, at my local Safeway, I was looking for a package of prepared seasoning for meatballs. An employee named Kristi encountered me looking puzzled in the spice aisle and asked if she could assist me. I explained what I was looking for and together we searched the shelves for the product—to no avail. Instead of saying, “Sorry, it doesn’t look like we carry that,” Kristi took the time to share the ingredients and quantities used in her own family recipe. Her willingness to improvise not only created a memorable shopping experience for me, it caused me to spend money on ingredients as opposed to leaving the store empty-handed.
Is your goal to create memorable experiences for your customers? If so, then even though you may not have a specific menu item, a readily available can of Coke, or a package of prepared meatball seasoning, you have your imagination and the ability to improvise.
And that may be all you need to create memorable experiences for your customers. Well, that and a pile of leaves.
