- Are you great at what you do (I’m sure you are!),
- Do you have a great product (you bet ya),
- Do you offer great service (I’m sure you do),
- Have you got a grand master plan (I bet you dream about it everyday!).
Sounds like you’ve got the BIG things covered however……
….sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference.
I was in Folkstone over the weekend enjoying its beachside promenades, cobbled art district and general seaside loveliness.
After a winding walk through the “zig zag” path (a beautiful meandering coastal path through trees and flower gardens), we stopped in the harbour for some well deserved Sunday fare of fish and chips.
With our beer battered bundles of fishy joy ordered we settled outside to our table overlooking the harbour.
After a wait of probably 20 minutes (it was a popular fisherey) our hearty portions arrived.
Hands and tails down it was the best fish and chips I’d ever had;
The beer battered fish was soft and flaky and batter crisp and crunchy, the chips remained crispy even after 10 minutes soaked in lashings of vinegar, but the unexpected star of this mariner’s mealtime was the cutlery!
It’s always baffled me as to why we’re forced to clumsily scrape and struggle to get anything more than half a chip and a morsel of fish onto the crazily small and daftly designed plastic forks that fish and chip shops use for cutlery.
These frustrating forks result in unsatisfactory small mouthfuls and it taking an age to finish your food!
But not this canny cafe….
…they had proper sized and aesthetically pleasing knives and forks made from wood.
A small thing that probably cost them just a few pence more per serving but it made a massive difference in the overall experience and I will always remember that fine fishy funshop forever more because of it.
It got me thinking about other experiences I’d had where the smallest things had a big difference…..
…..I still remember a meal I had with my parents some years ago where the enthusiastic waiter served our brandies in brandy glasses placed over tumblers filled with hot water to warm the brandy to the correct temperature.
He periodically turned the brandy glasses to ensure the brandy was equally warmed.. a small thing but absolute class (he was tipped well!).
We all have our favourite restaurants, fish and chip shops or pubs and I bet it’s the little things that add to your reasons for loving them.
So what small things could you be doing to give your customers a better experience?
- A personal thank you note after purchasing?
- Some chocolates on their birthday?
- An unexpected phone call to just say “hi”?
If you get all the little things right then big things should take care of themselves.
Have a happy and productive week, I’m off for a long run now to counteract all the beer batter!