Raving Fans!
Try to recall your last customer service encounter . . . Maybe it was a trip to Starbucks to get your favorite drink; or maybe you were looking for a specialty light bulb and had to go through 30,000 sf of a Home Depot warehouse before finding out they don’t carry the particular one you need; or it was a quick happy meal drive through experience for the little ones! Well mine was a business meeting at the Bellevue Club. Sometimes it’s a real challenge to find a good meeting place! An environment that’s both professional as well as comfortable. Wi-fi is a must and a menu that serves more than cookies and coffee!
To all you business professionals who have been meeting at cramped coffee shops with tiny tables and loud music, I have a HUGE tip for you . . . find a great nearby hotel! Nice public golf courses with restaurants (Newcastle, Redmond Ridge, Harbour Pointe for example) are also excellent. (Unless you show up on event days!)
In any case, after spending close to two hours meeting and multiple refills of water and iced tea, we adjourned our meeting and looked to the server to pay the bill. The most amazing words came out of her mouth . . . “oh, don’t worry about it!”
I don’t know if this was the hotel’s strategic best practice policy or it was just a friendly server who was in a good mood, but my business colleagues and I were all impressed. But after further thought, I realized that I’ve spent thousands at that hotel on food/beverage and meeting rooms over the past few years. In fact, I’ll spend thousands more moving forward . . .
So here’s my point: provide simple yet impressive customer service experiences and create Raving Fans!
