7 Minutes to Transform a Humdrum Customer Experience into a Meaningful One

One year ago, my wife and I met up at a restaurant with friends who had just completed a backpacking trip along a stretch of the Camino de Santiago—a historically significant, 500-mile medieval pilgrimage route through the mountains of France and Spain. As soon as we were seated at the table, our friends jumped into telling us about a particularly poignant moment of their trip.

My buddy is a storyteller. He had us mesmerized. We leaned in closer to hear every detail as he built up to the big reveal.

Just as he reached the climax of the story, a booming voice jarred us from the moment. “Welcome, everybody! Let me tell you about our specials tonight, then I’ll take your drink orders.”

Sigh. The moment had been killed. And there was no stopping our waitress’s determination to push forward her agenda.

 So, let’s analyze this a bit.

We were not just in the restaurant that day to eat a meal. We were in the restaurant to catch up, learn, connect, and be inspired. And we just happened to choose a meal as the vehicle to bring friends together.

I’d like to give the waitress the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she didn’t realize that we, as friends, were sharing a meaningful moment in her restaurant, at her table.

But sadly, I have experienced this exact scene by wait staff at restaurants all across the country… for years. It suggests that wait staff are trained by the restaurant management to do what it takes to turn over tables quickly—at the expense of the customer’s experience.

It seems that customers are expected to accommodate the wait staff rather than the wait staff accommodating the customers.

In this kind of environment, the experience is about the restaurant, not about the customer.

Who is the focus of your customer experience?

Years ago, while a freshman in college, I worked as a waiter. I still remember the training I received at Los Amigos Restaurant back in the day. Gil, our manager, instructed us to never interrupt the diners’ conversation. He taught us to approach the table from a direction in which we could make eye contact with the head of the table and then wait for the cue to speak.

It was a little thing, but it worked like a charm.

The dining party could finish their story, or their joke, or their business matter, and then I was invited to do my part at a natural break in the conversation. I don’t remember waiting longer than 10 or 15 seconds before I was invited to interrupt. More importantly, that little gesture showed that I understood and respected what they were really trying to accomplish during that meal.

Their appreciation showed in my tips.

Little things go a long way to make or break a customer experience.

Over the last couple of years, Stone Mantel has conducted extensive research in the Meaningful Experiences Collaborative to identify what makes a customer experience meaningful. Our research indicates that “little things” are a component that can make customers take notice.

“Little things” added to a customer experience can even be a way to relieve stress, increase joy, reduce work, create balance, motivate, and inspire.

Here are some real-brand examples:

• When customers call in for technical support, GoDaddy gives them the ability to turn off the hold music. Giving a little control goes a long way to calm the customer before the technician can address the issue.

• Whole Foods offers a variety of fresh items at its in-store food bar, such as imported olives, soups, and exotic dishes. At checkout, cashiers automatically place a rubber band around the plastic or cardboard containers so they don’t accidentally pop open before you can get them home. This little action shows concern about the customer’s experience even after the customer leaves the store.

• Small businesses do this really well. The Grand Ole Creamery in St. Paul, MN, serves two heaping scoops of their homemade ice cream in freshly made waffle cones—that’s right, hot waffles wrapped into the shape of cones. To keep the ice cream from dripping through the gap at the bottom of the cone, they drop a malted milk ball in to serve as a plug—a delightful surprise to curb a sticky problem.

“Little things” are a tool to turn a humdrum customer experience into a meaningful customer experience.

Knowing this, you can design “little things” into your customer experience—whether it’s a customer interaction with your product or service, your website or app, or your customer journey touch points.

Below are a few key insights that we’ve learned during our research on this topic at Stone Mantel that will guide you:

• “Little things” should not get in the way of the key job the customer is trying to get done. The little things should enhance the key job. (Think of my experience at the restaurant.)

• “Little things” can be used as a way to help people be more present in the customer experience you provide. They also help people perceive that brands are more present in the experience.

• “Little things” can provide a token to spur reflection on the customer experience after the fact. And reflection has the ability to help customers assign more meaning to an experience.

In the work that we do for clients, we have helped them design “little things” into their experiences.

Here’s one example:

A few years back, Royal Caribbean hired us to improve the onboard activities experience for their guests. Onboard staff need to keep guests occupied and entertained on those long stretches of travel between ports.

While working on that bigger project, we came across an interesting insight that relates to “little things.”

In our research, we noticed that guests loved to share stories about little surprises they had encountered on their trips. We realized that unannounced surprises could be one way to incorporate little things into the guest’s overall experience.

We generated a healthy list of ideas with the Royal Caribbean team to incorporate. One was the flash mob dance. At an unannounced time, the onboard activities staff changed their attire and dressed as tourists—complete with aloha shirts and zinc oxide noses. Without warning, a pop song started, and a few of the “tourists” began a little dance, using their cabana chairs as props. More and more joined in.

The real tourists whipped out their phones, and the flash mob became the talk of dinner that night.

It was one “little thing” that created a huge impact on the guests who experienced it. And it served to build anticipation among the other guests who hadn’t experienced it but who had heard about it. They were excited to see what little surprises they would encounter.

Stand back and take a look at every touchpoint of the customer experience you provide.

At what points does the overall experience feel humdrum?

At what points does it feel undifferentiated?

At what points does it feel painful?

Give some thought to what “little things” could transform the customer experience you deliver into a meaningful experience. No need to go overboard. But a few strategically placed “little things” could really boost your brand.

Fair warning, if you find your customer experience is really painful, it may need much more triage than “little things” can cure for. You might need to call in the experts for a complete customer experience makeover.

I think of our waitress who interrupted a fantastic story about the Camino de Santiago. A 15-second delay on her part could have changed our whole interaction with her.

Do you think she ever realized why she received such a measly tip?