Brainstorm: How can you provide Unreasonable Hospitality to your customers?

[Pesso]

Hey Square Readers, 

We hope you’ve started to dive into reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara! Last week we kicked things off with a baseline discussion on your own experiences with exceptional hospitality. Today we’re covering what Unreasonable Hospitality is, and exploring how to provide it to your customers.

What is Unreasonable Hospitality?

The author explains that providing small acts of hospitality can absolutely thrill your customers, make it feel like you’re performing magic, and make their experience with your business a story that they’ll remember forever. Delivering incredible service for someone in a time of need can transform their day, relieve sorrow even for a minute, and create a deep emotional connection for them with your business. 

It’s thoughtfully putting your customers needs first in a way that is deep and meaningful to them to create a catered experience. It can be something as small as giving a genuine welcome and having a meaningful conversation, a personal touch of remembering a birthday or a family detail, an act of service like feeding their parking meter, or a Surprise & Delight gesture of providing a welcome gift or thank you goodbye gift. It should be something thoughtful and meaningful to your customers that fills a need that they have, and references a conversation you’ve had together. 

How can you provide Unreasonable Hospitality?

Now let’s brainstorm ideas for our own businesses, and give each other some suggestions too!

Again, this is a pure brainstorm here, no idea is too big or extravagant. This is Unreasonable Hospitality, after all. Only after you’ve found some big ideas that you like, then next time we'll figure out how to do it in an affordable, scalable, and realistic way. 

Share your answers in the comments:

1. Tell us about your business: What is your industry? How do you currently serve your customers? What common needs do your customers have? What are the deeper reasons they come to you? 
2. What are some new ideas of ways you could provide incredible tailored experiences for your customers? No idea is too big!
3. Reply to other members’ comments and share some ideas that could help them. Having an outside perspective is extremely valuable! 

Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Don’t forget to:

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Happy reading,

Pesso

[ChickenRacer]

So I own a small town Outback Pub in Australia, so the core of the business is providing Food and Beverage. For 5 months of the year, we are a fairly traditional small town pub, serving steaks and schnitzels, beer both here and takeaway. The other 7 months in our tourist season, we also have our nightly entertainment show. For locals, they come to us to have a chin wag, tell us their problems, and get rid of their problems for awhile.

The tourists are coming to us as our show has gained some traction, and they want to hear. what all the fuss is about, and to satisfy their curiosity as to whether Chicken Racing is a real thing haha.  We try and give them a night they won't forget!  I think a big reason they come to us is so many other venues sit on their laurels to a degree, expecting that cold beer and good food is enough to draw a crowd. I believe that they can get that anywhere, so we need to give them a show they won't forget, and to try and have the experience reflect the show, with great food, reasonable priced drinks and awesome hospitality.

I think in terms of new ideas, it's about increasing "the experience" for them. Getting better at social media shoutouts (so they feel part of the show), adding more crowd participation (have awards for best dressed, give tokens to those that "buy" a chicken in the race etc), getting better with photos so people can download/share photos of them here.  

To a degree I have done this 7 years now, and I am struggling to keep moving forward and keep it fresh, so going to enjoy this discussion!

[schaefferjosh]

I absolutely agree with getting more into social media callouts, the token and awards are great ideas. If I ever come to Australia I am absolutely going to make this part of my trip because this has me fascinated lol. Also checked out your Facebook and the socials look great! Love the Hawaiian shirt haha

[ChickenRacer]

Haha, I would be appreciative, as I am remote! My issue is with going the next step this year, is I am taking on a second venue, so I need to try and do more whilst being spread out haha

[CareyJo]

I checked out your FB page too.  It's awesome!  My sister-in-law is NUTS over her chickens so we send her a lot of chicken memes.  I shared your page with her.

The first thing that came to my mind in having two venues, is doing different events at each and offering different rewards at each and then promoting each from the other.  This way you'll get people going to both places.  If you have a different menu at each I know that can be a bit much, but it would also be intriguing for people to check out.  I can imagine customers would be like "you have to have the ______ at the other one!"

I don't know that they would sell a lot, but you could add chicken clothing to your merch line.  My sister and I had chickens when we were growing up and we dressed them in doll clothes, pushed them around in strollers and carried them around all the time.  They were our pets.  We still joke about them today!

[ChickenRacer]

Haha thank, hope you got a laugh out of it!  

Playing the venues off on each other is somehting we are thinking, both for travellers and locals (exclusive merch at each, each pub's locals versus each other in Footy Tipping etc

Hmm I am off to find Chicken Merch dropshipper haha

[CareyJo]

Awesome!!!

[GoalGetter]

What a fun way to draw a crowd!
 
Chicken-themed merchandise, as someone already suggested, could be a unique and appealing option. Keychains, t-shirts, coasters, koozies-these are items that both tourists and locals would love to purchase.
 
Maybe you could partner with a local radio station for a fundraiser. The first XX participants could receive a bag of goodies, including your branded merchandise. When locals proudly wear your t-shirts or use your merch, they become your brand ambassadors, spreading the word and drawing in more customers. 

[ChickenRacer]

The whole show is a fundraiser in itself, with just under $60,000 raised the last three years. Done a bit with radio, but sadly it's exorbitantly expensive 

Haha yeah we have a heap of Chicken Racing Merchandise, and sell a fair bit!  Currently we have

- Chicken Racing Shirts
- Pub Shirts
- Stickers
- Hat Pins
- Tote Bags
- Stubby Coolers
- Pens
- Trucker Caps
- Key Rings
- Magnets

We give them out to locals a heap, thru non-profits etc, as you can't miss our shirts, and then people ask about what the are, so we like to get them out there.

[Pesso]

I freaking love your business more and more, every time you talk about it @ChickenRacer !

I'm thinking of other ways you can plus up the experience--

I don't know what the rules are, but can you let folks take pictures holding the chickens, or otherwise interacting with/near them? That could be really fun and might feel like an exclusive backdoor experience on top of the already incredible time. "Psst, hey you. Yea, you. Wanna pet a chicken?" "Wanna go inside the coop/thunderdome?"

What types of occasions to people typically come to you for? Birthdays, stag parties, vacations? Maybe little free button/pins that you can write on or have printed that say "I spent my _____ racing chickens" that you can give out. Like how Disney parks have the free "I'm Celebrating" or "First Visit" or "It's My Birthday" buttons. Maybe a risque one or two for bachelor/bachelorette parties -- I'm sure there are plenty of semi-inappropriate jokes to make there about chicken racing...

Again, I don't know what the rules are -- but giving away a feather (that has fallen out naturally) to the winners/everyone? Weird free souvenirs for a weird fun time!

[Pesso]

Looking forward to hearing from all of you:
 @CareyJo , @bonny , @thecedar , @HC_Charlie , @RuckusDonuts , @Smellthis1919 , @BrianaJo , @Doran , @TheArtChildLLC , @TheArtChild , @schaefferjosh , @EMstudioWA , @JUYBoutique20, @JTPets , @ryanwanner , @DinaLRosenberg 

[schaefferjosh]

So we run and seasoning and salt company and operate mostly at different markets since we do not have a permanent home at this time. We serve our customers by giving them an experience and then selling a product. Most of our customers come to farmers markets to buy local, better, produce. They want clean products and transparency, which we offer!

Most of my industry is not as transparent as I believe it should be and while we operate in a certain way that may seem like unreasonable, should be standard. Having a conversation and understanding the needs of each and every person is such a simple thing to do and it really shows in our relationships. We have some people that can’t have a certain ingredient and we offer to make a custom seasoning blend for them so they can enjoy their food with a smile on their face! 

That is one avenue we want to pursue a bit further for our hospitality is offering to make custom blends for customers. People tend to have different family recipes that may include something they don’t have. Grandpa used to add tomato powder to his homemade popcorn mix? Absolutely, I got a guy that can make that locally for us! Grows the tomato’s and proceeds from there with drying.  It makes them feel special and cared about when you include them in the process and bring a piece of something special back to their life. Not to mention the ease of stress trying to track something down when it takes me no time at all to do it. 

@Pesso this book has been a rollercoaster of emotion so far! But oh so good! 

[ChickenRacer]

That kind of customisation is awesome!  Is that a real request? The tomato on popcorn? Colour me intrigued

[schaefferjosh]

It is! Freeze dry some good tomatoes, blend them into a powder, and mix them with different herbs and garlic. starts to taste like pizza 😍

[ChickenRacer]

I have definetely used the powder before and love it. Used to make my own with yellow tomatoes to make different coloured sauces for dishes.

Now I miss my old tomato growing haha

Never thought to put on popcorn!

[CareyJo]

Love this!!  How awesome!!

[Pesso]

I love your perspective & attitude here, @schaefferjosh -- Unreasonable totally could and should be the standard!

Custom blends are such a great idea -- I really love it attached to family stories and recipes. I wonder how you could make that a regular thing, and not just a paid for experience. Can you surprise them with something like that? Throw in an extra bottle (or sample size) of a flavor that's reminiscent of that story?

Do/would you custom blend them right then and there, or do you have do those in advance? On the spot blends could be so cool!

Or another opportunity is to give something that goes well with your products. If they're talking about using it on popcorn, playing into the farmers market gourmet experience and giving them a little 1-2 ounce bottle/bag of gourmet kernels (could even be from another local vendor!) for them to try it out on. 

I'm glad you're loving the book! It definitely hits the heartstrings a lot more than I expected -- and it's so good!

[CareyJo]

We're an HVAC service company, so we're mobile.  People come to us for heating and cooling needs.  The deeper reason we got a lot of our customers is because my husband has spent the last 26 years of his career in our area, in his field and he's become well known.  As we all know, these kinds of services are expensive, especially when equipment has failed.  People don't want to pay two or three different companies to work on their system, it's a waste of money.  They want it fixed right, the first time, for a fair price.  That's what we do and we're known for it.

I have yet to come up with a new idea that would go beyond what we're already doing.  We tailor our service to the need of the customer, whether it's residential or commercial.  We offer specialized services for commercial clients so that we can care for their equipment.  Each building is different.  The contract for each of them is different based on what they need.  The filters, the frequency, the cleanings, etc.  Once we have that contract, we are the ones with our foot in the door when something goes wrong.  Equipment will eventually wear out and need replacing.  Then we get to replace it.

Sometimes when you impress your residential clients, they refer you to their work, their church or other people.  We had one client last year that has two systems in his home that needed replacing.  Their church had been looking at replacing all of their equipment and actually had the money to do it.  He insisted we get the job.  So much so, that he told us what the other two bids were that they received, so we could be lower.  However, we were able to point out to them that their bids were higher for several reasons - they weren't quoting the correct equipment, they bid for multiple workers to be on the job and they didn't account for special accommodations that needed to be made that would cause problems and more money later.  We got the bid not just because we were already the lowest anyway but because we provided them with the correct service.

I've been at this a very long time, so I've reviewed a lot of ideas over the years, but I'd love to hear some ideas from a customer perspective.  In your home, for your equipment or your business, what would make you feel set apart by your HVAC company?  

[GoalGetter]

@CareyJoto be completely honest, I don't know much about HVAC, but I do know when people come to my home offering a service I do appreciate it when they take the time to explain the process of their service. Maybe not everyone needs the explanation, but I want to feel that the individual is competent and knows what they are doing. 

Also, I appreciate it when they respect my home by wearing covers on their feet and cleaning up after their work. I've had several service people track mud in and not clean up their mess; it's so disappointing and unprofessional. 

Some other ideas that I would appreciate as a customer would be priority scheduling as a return customer and maybe offering free estimates for repairs. Also, is there any chance you could do a loyalty program with exclusive discounts for loyalty members?  

Just a few ideas, you may already do these things, but that's what came to my mind.

[CareyJo]

Thanks for the ideas!

We always strive not to track mud and snow into any home or business.  We live in MT so our weather here is brutal.  We always educate our clients on their equipment and how to use it because our goal is to serve our clients to the best of our ability.  We always do free estimates unless we have to charge for travel.

Unfortunately, priority scheduling is not an option in our line of work and 90% of our business is repeat customers.  We can't do any sort of loyalty program as it's not a frequent service.  That being said though, we know our repeats well and remember them every time they call.  We do have a lot of commercial contracts and manage quite a few properties for clients.  We take care of them very well and go out of our way to make sure they stay up and running.  When a commercial client goes down, we make that a priority and push back the scheduled appointments until the emergency has been handled.  We have the highest education for our industry and we've been in the field for 26 years, so any client who has patiently waited 6 weeks to 3 months for an appointment with us shouldn't be bumped for another client, unless it's a true emergency, and we get plenty of those....  We choose to treat all our clients the same and give them all the same service.

[Pesso]

Shoe covers are huge, @GoalGetter ! I always notice and appreciate when providers (rarely) put them on -- it really shows a level of attention to detail and care about coming into my house! 

What else could show care like that? 

Maybe bringing a vacuum to clean up the room that work was done in, even if no mess was made -- leaving customers' homes even cleaner than you found them.