Details tell a story

Picture 3 Long before you leave the front desk of Hotel Burnham in Chicago, you know you're going to have a different experience.   It's not anything big, in fact….it's something small. 

The key.

Today, every hotel from a Motel 6 to a Four Seasons, uses a magnetic key card.  Some are prettier than others but they all use the same technology.  It's what we expect.

At Hotel Burnham, they hand you a brass key. 

Is it some crazy stunt?  Is there incredible value in the key?  No.

The value comes in the surprise.  In being different.  The subtle message is "if they pay attention to that level of detail — they really care.  They've put a lot of effort into this."   It's something their guests talk about.  Organic word of mouth.

This week, pay attention to all of the things you do because that's how your industry does them.  Or it's how you've always done it.   What would happen if you changed that up?

What's one little change you could make that would signal to your customers that you've gone to a different level of caring about their experience? 

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2 comments on “Details tell a story

  1. Piotr J. says:

    For the past few years my family has stayed at the same hotel in Bali during our family vacations. Same hotel, and even the same room. The staff remembered all of our names, and it was a fantastic experience every single time. The hotel had beautiful wooden engraved keychains, with room numbers in brass on them. One time we came to the hotel and my dad’s keychain had no room number on it, just his name.

    That personal touch, literally out of the blue, confirmed that the management of the hotel truly cared about us as customers. And it was pretty freakin cool!

  2. Piotr,

    And I’ll bet your family took that keychain home…and told everyone they knew about it. And showed photos, etc.

    Talk about a great ROI for them.

    Drew

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