I thought what I’d do in this video is have a chat to you about CNEs or Critical Non-Essentials as I have a cruise around the Bathurst track. Hopefully there’s no police around, but I won’t speed. I promise I’ll stick to the speed limit.
But I saw something after Australia Day that Quantas did, and you might have seen this. I thought it was a really good example of what a business can do to make an impression on its customers and go beyond, create that wow factor. And what they were doing was every bag that came out on the carousel– you know how the bags come out after your flight. They come out on the baggage carousels. Every bag had some Tim-Tams wrapped up with some ribbon and bow. Looked like there was 3, 4 packets of Tim-Tams, so it wasn’t just a small amount, it was a fair amount. So as your bag came out on the carousel, on the top was a package of Tim-Tams. I could only imagine that as an experience or how people would have felt when that happened.
So I want to encourage you to think about that in your business and think about what are the few things that you could do to add a little bit of wow factor. I’ll give you a few examples of some clients I’ve worked with in the past and what I’ve done that’s worked really, really well.
One of them was a locksmith. What we did was we put in your alarm system, and we’d give you a key. And we’d say that you needed to keep that key safe because you were going to need it soon. And what we would do is after you’d get your alarm fitted, we would send you a package from a courier– wait a minute, got to go around a car here. Is he a police man? No, he’s not. That’s good. But what we would do, we’d send you via courier a box. And that box would have a padlock on it that only this key would open. And when you opened it, it would have a gift in there. And it could be something like movie tickets. It could have been a holiday for two or a dinner for two or something more substantial. And that would depend on the money you spent getting your alarm put in as to what we would give you. So that was a really good CNE, Critical Non-Essential. And a lot of people would comment on that and thought it was a really good idea.
Another thing that we did was, one of the hairdressing salons that I actually owned, was that when you were waiting, we had Champagne Tuesday. Whilst you were waiting to get your hair cut, we had a foot spa, spa baths and champagne. And I think you need to check with your local state regulations as to what you can do with serving alcohol, but it was really appreciated but the people who came in on a Tuesday for their hair cut, because they didn’t expect that. It’s not what you’d expect. It’s one of those things that’s a Critical Non-Essential.
So I want you to think about what you can do in your business that will add that wow factor. Now it has a couple of really good side effects when you do these kinds of things. First of all, it will get you referrals, right? Because when you please a customer that much, they want to tell other people about it, especially if it’s an experience. And I’m a great believer that the experience is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
So the second side effect is that you can actually charge a little bit more for what you do and people won’t be upset. It sort of takes their eye off the price, which is a critical thing to do in business if you want to be successful. Just went past the Pirtek signs, which is kind of exciting. One of the clients that we worked with in the past. So that’s obviously one of the side effects– people will be willing now to pay a little bit more for your product or service.
One other thing is that it can make people not look at the competition ever because they have such a good experience when they come and buy from you, that they won’t even think about the competition when they have to buy the same product or service again. So if you’re looking for ways to keep your customers for a long time, and of course extending the lifetime of your customers is really important.
I’m just negotiating this downhill S-bend right now. I think this is where Richards put himself into the wall. I don’t want to do that with my BMW, so I’ll just take it easy and try to concentrate a bit.
But definitely if you want to keep your customers coming back longer and you want to take your eye off the price, then I highly recommend thinking about what you can do. So as an exercise– rather than just me giving you a video of examples, as an exercise, how about you sit down with a notepad and paper with your team and discuss ‘what can you do that will create a wow factor.’ What can you do that will go over and above and beyond what your customer expects, because it’s not good enough to just satisfy a customer, you want to delight them. And what that means is giving them more than they expect.
So there you go. So there’s this week’s video from the car on Mount Panorama. Kinda cool. In Bathurst tonight doing another workshop, Dubbo tomorrow night, so looking forward to that. Not even in the office this week, so I thought I’d do the video in the car this week using the GoPro. So hopefully you’ve enjoyed that tip. Hopefully you can go away and create some wow factor in your business– keep your customers longer and take their eyes off the price.
About the Author
Ben Fewtrell is a sought-after Business Coach, Keynote Speaker and trainer who has featured in Virgin’s Inflight Magazine and Entertainment Portal, SKY Business and “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”. He is also the host of the popular Business Brain Food Podcast where he interviews leading experts on anything and everything business.
