276. Surprise! It’s Delightful (And Drives Loyalty) (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 276 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about surprise and delight. Ready? Let's get started. You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about surprise and delight. Hopefully the title concept of this episode already has you in a happy and delightful mood that's priming for you and you're ready for some fun. I love thinking about experiences and incorporating fun, delightful moments. It can be with customers or employees and in totally unexpected places. That's the best strategy, like an error page of a website or the legalese people agree to I'm linking to the episode with Dan Gingis where we talked about our own error pages and what we've done there to make them fun. Priscilla McKinney and Little Bird Marketing have a fun one too, so I'm also linking to her episode in the show notes. Little moments of thoughtfulness are my favorite and they help us to have fun at work. We should, as well as helping our customers and employees to enjoy interacting with us, which will make them want to do it more. And while I don't need much of an excuse to talk about surprise and delight, there is a specific reason I chose to refresh this episode from 2019 today and that is as a lead in to this coming Friday's conversation with John Sills on his new book the Human Experience. It's all about creating better experiences, inspiring you with brands that are already doing an amazing job and and sharing some stories of others who are not, and how companies can make big leaps by remembering their humanness. Great experiences shouldn't be surprising, but sadly they are. As too often the experiences with brands are more of a pain than a pleasure. But it doesn't have to be this way. This episode will share why delight is so critical to companies, why surprise matters, and what it all has to do with loyalty and profitability and and so much more. It's a fun one and I can't wait to share it with you. Before we jump into the episode, I want to be sure you know that your free Surprise and Delight worksheet as well as links to past episodes and books and articles are all waiting for you in the show notes for this episode and those are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 276 all right, let's talk about surprise and delight. First, I want to talk about the difference between satisfaction and delight. Many people assume there's a linear relationship between dissatisfaction, satisfaction, and delight, but it doesn't really work that way. And while we're at it, it's important to also note that satisfaction is not the opposite of dissatisfaction, and vice versa. You also can't simply do more of what's satisfactory to get someone to the area of delight, because super satisfactory doesn't make you delighted. It's still simply a level of satisfaction. The scale of customer experience actually goes from outrage to dissatisfaction to satisfaction to delight. And if you were to think about the two negatives, dissatisfaction and outrage, and the two positives, satisfaction, satisfaction and delight. The real difference between them is surprise. When you have a surprising positive experience, it results in delight, an unexpected, surprising negative experience. That is, when outrage comes to play, anything that is expected. So when you don't have surprise lies in the field of satisfaction. If a customer has an expectation, they'll either be satisfied or dissatisfied by the level at which that expectation is met or not. You can think of this in a quadrant, and if you don't want to have to guess what it looks like, make sure to grab your free download@thebrainybusiness.com 60 so along one plane is the experience being either negative or positive, and on the other plane is expectation either expected or unexpected. When you land in the negative unexpected, you get outrage, positive expected is satisfaction, and so on. In business, you have to be aware of these all the time and where you're falling for each customer and your overall experience. Ideally, you're living in satisfied territory most of the time, with a few delights popping up here and there. Delighting customers takes extra work, and it can be expensive, though it doesn't have to be. So the question might be, is it worth investing in? The short answer is yes. So here's the long answer. Delight is much more likely to drive loyalty than mere satisfaction. And there's a lot of research that shows loyalty is positively linked to profits and and stock market price. There are several studies that have found that the loyalty curve is pretty much flat after you hit the level of satisfied or satisfaction. So once a customer becomes satisfied, they've achieved pretty much whatever level of loyalty they're going to have, even as they move from, say, moderately satisfied to satisfied to extremely satisfied. But once delight is introduced, hold onto your hats, because we're shooting upward on the loyalty score. According to the paper how to delight your customers, which I've linked to in the show notes and is the foundation of a lot of the research in this episode, Mercedes Benz found that the likelihood a dissatisfied client will be a repeat customer is only 10%. Moving from dissatisfied to satisfied only moved the needle to a 29% likelihood of buying or leasing with that dealer. Again, not great. A really impressive improvement over dissatisfied, but really not where you want to be. So what about those who were delighted? Well, their likelihood of coming back again shot up from 29% at being satisfied to 80, 86% when they were delighted. Now that you know the difference between satisfaction and delight and how they differ in loyalty, you won't get stuck in the satisfaction trap, which is when people incorrectly assume that satisfied customers are very loyal. And it's important to not get stuck in the traps of false loyalty. These can be a result of doing special promotions all the time. So if you're always on a discount, it makes it seem like people are loyal. But when you raise your prices to normal ones or get back into a competitive pricing structure, they're all going to leave. They're only choosing you because of that discounted price. Another route of false loyalty would be having really high switching costs. So often at a large organization, you might sign up for a product or service that you have a long term contract with. I know at the financial institution we had negotiations and contracts with the card services providers and online banking providers and all of that. And they might be for two, three or five year terms and they have very expensive costs to break those contracts, sometimes as much as, you know, 500,000 or a million dollars to break a contract. And so that's not loyalty, the reason that the organization is sticking with you. Or it might even be that if you were to undertake a project to switch, that it would cost a lot of money to switch to a new vendor and do all of this other work. And that might feel like loyalty for the business, but on the side of the organization that's buying from them, it's just because you feel like you're stuck and you don't actually like using them. And that's not real loyalty. That's not what you want to build in your business. In contrast to those, real loyalty is rooted in customer delight. In addition, delightful experiences are much more likely to hit the emotional center of the brain, which, as you know from episode 48 on, memory biases that they're much more likely to be remembered when they're emotional. But remember that this holds true for the mirror of delight as well, which is outrage. This is why negative surprises can be held in a customer's memory bank from for what feels like eternity. So be careful when using surprise and make sure it's associated with positive experiences. You may be wondering now, what is all that loyalty worth anyway? Does it really make that big of a difference? Well, one heavily cited study estimates that a 5% increase in loyalty from customers can increase profit anywhere from Are you ready for this? 25 to 85%. So a 5% increase in loyalty can increase your profit by as much as 85%. Whew. That's worth it, right? This could be because loyal customers buy more stuff more frequently, or it could be because they talk about you a lot and word of mouth is great for business. A J.D. power study found that while only 45% of satisfied customers would tell others about a company, 61% of delighted customers say they will. Some of them may share on social media or buy gifts for friends. This has been quantified to show that delighted and loyal customers can have a lifetime value equal to 11 regular customers, which is not too shabby. Whatever the reason behind it, loyalty is huge for businesses and delight is a big key to earning it. But don't worry, loyalty isn't the only awesome thing to come out of delighting customers. It can also result in lower costs in advertising, branding and acquisition, as well as higher revenues per transaction per customer, lower defection rates, plus an increase in brand equity, and an ability to withstand innovations by competitors that could drive a company with merely satisfied customers out of business. So I'm guessing I've sold you on the benefits of surprising and delighting customers. But before we get into the examples, I want to make sure you know about some of the pitfalls and common mistakes that businesses can make in the area of trying to surprise and delight. The biggest issue is that there's no standard scale for measuring delight, and there are some common words people might use in research studies, interviews, or when posting on social media, like exhilarated or thrilled. You could also ask for a time when someone was delighted or if they had ever been delighted by their experience. The nice thing is this word has the right level of emotion to it, so most people can evaluate it and understand it differently, but than being merely satisfied. And this happens on a baseline within the brain so they don't have to be given a lot of extra context to think about delight versus satisfaction. So to show you how this works, I want you to think about the way these two questions would hit your brain if you were taking a survey. All right. First, were you satisfied with your experience at the bank last week? And next, did the team at the bank delight you during your visit last week? It's easy to brush off the first question and say, yeah, sure, or I guess so, and give a rating like, you were satisfied 8 out of 10. But did they delight you is a very different thing. It doesn't fit into the standard rule of your subconscious brain, and it makes you think a little harder. Hmm. Delighted, you say? I don't know if I would say I was delighted. Which, as a side note, essentially means, no, they were not. If someone was delighted in the way we're talking about here, that generates loyalty and referrals. They will know it instantly, and you can see it on their face or hear it in their voice. That's because satisfaction is more of a cognitive process. You have an expectation and it was met or not. Delight or its mirror of outrage are more emotional. They are the experiences you can't help but share with people, either in a rant or a gush of joy. Much of this is driven by the surprise factor. And that leads to another problem. Customers can't tell you what would cause them to be delighted because they have to be surprised. They can't be expecting it, or it isn't going to hit the delight scale. You can get some idea from interviews and things, but it might take some trial and error to find out what would delight your customers. For example, Heinz ketchup could have asked customers all day about something they could do that would be surprising and bring delight. And I doubt many of them would have come up with Ed Chip. Have you heard of Ed Chip? Well, it turns out that Ed Sheeran is a huge fan of Heinz ketchup. He even has a tattoo of the brand on his arm. Heinz has claimed that a third of all its activity on Instagram includes Sheeran, either in tags or mentions. So Ed's fans know how much he loves ketchup and particularly Heinz ketchup. But it was Ed reaching out to them on Instagram with a post that said, yo, Hines, I have an idea for a TV ad if you want to do one. If not, I won't be offended. I could never be mad at you. Slide into my DMs or have your people call my people. Lots of love. Your biggest fan X which you know. Kiss kisses from. From Ed Sheeran to his favorite ketchup brand. That post resulted in 1.1 million likes and over 10,000 comments and eventually a TV commercial showcasing Ed and his idea, which you can watch on his Instagram and which of course I have linked for you here in the show notes. Beyond that, it also likely led to Ed Chip limited edition bottles of ketchup that showcase a tomato that looks surprisingly like Ed with leafy hair and glasses in honor of their 150 year anniversary. Would any customer have suggested this asked for it? Probably not, but it sure is getting fans excited and wanting to get their own bottle of Ed Chip. And Ed's affinity for the brand means he was incredibly delighted with being showcased in this way. It seems silly to think of it like this, but Ed truly loves Heinz ketchup. It is as much of a dream come true for him as it is beneficial for Heinz. When he posted about his commercial on Instagram, he said it's happening. Hashtag advert, hashtag dreamscometru believe hashtag achieve. And when first posting a picture of the bottle of Ed Chip, he used a hashtag the dream that keeps on giving. One of the reasons this works is because fans know it's authentic once they know the story, and for anyone that doesn't, it creates enough curiosity to make you want to learn more, no matter how you squeeze it. This was a great use of surprise and delight by Heinz and interestingly, something that they probably wouldn't have thought up or even thought to ask Ed. They might have thought that it would be really expensive or that he wouldn't want to. But again, maybe they should have thought outside of the box or bottle, I suppose to find new ways to delight a very influential customer. That's where influencers can come in on social media all the time now and working with brands and so finding someone who's influential, who loves your brand and finding a way to work with them can both delight that person and their following. As I said, consumers can't be expected to let you know what will delight them because at its core, they can't be expecting them. Several researchers have recommended asking these questions to get at the core of delight that would otherwise be hidden. You could ask which associations does the customer make when using the product? Which problem defects, complaints does the customer associate with the product's use? Which criteria does the customer take into consideration when buying the product? Which new features or services would better meet the expectations of the customer? What would the customer change in the product? These can be questions you can ask yourself and your team that you ask customers, or that you do observational research to find out, see what they complain or rave about on social media, for example. Clearly, finding ways to delight can get expensive even if you aren't hiring Ed Sheeran to be the star of your commercial and bottle. But you don't want to spend too much so that it becomes a bad investment. This is another time where it's very important to make sure you know your numbers so you can say for sure in advance it's worth the money you spend. The point of delighting is to increase loyalty and profits. You don't want to send out lavish surprise and delight gifts on a purchase that costs 1/10 of the value of the item being sent out regularly. It's not sustainable, so it's just a waste of money. The next pitfall is the peril of ever changing expectations. You see, if your delights come standard, then they become expected and essentially you just ran raise the level of what your customers expect. Remember, surprise is key to delight. Once the element of surprise is gone, you're left with customers that are much more expensive to maintain at the satisfied level. Continually increasing expectations are a great way to price yourself out of being competitive. I know the thought or question of fairness is probably coming up for you right now. The worry that people will complain if someone else got something and they didn't. As with so many other areas of business, this is a framing issue. Let people know this response. The gift they're getting is a special circumstance to thank them for doing something out of the ordinary. This can build anticipation for others who want to get something special too, which is a good thing as it releases dopamine. If you remember, the dopamine release doubled when there was a 5050 chance of the rat getting a treat versus 100% chance of getting a treat. Increased dopamine in connection with your brand is a positive thing. So know that anticipation and surprise go hand in hand and fair does not mean everyone gets the same thing every single time. The last pitfall to be aware of is assuming everyone has the same expectation. Different markets and types of customers will have different expectations and what would be delightful to one person is merely satisfactory for someone else. This is building upon that last point that you can't be equal for everyone because that wouldn't be delightful. Someone who has been a customer of yours for a decade will have a different level of expectation than someone who's trying your business for the first time. Zappos is known for upgrading people to free overnight shipping on first time orders. So you expect to get your shoes in say three days and they show up on your doorstep the next morning. I've actually had an experience where we ordered a pair of shoes at around 8pm and they arrived before noon the next day. It was crazy and surprising and it came at no extra cost. We were surprised and delighted and told people about it and remember it to this day. I've since ordered other things from Zappos and often they arrive sooner than the expected delivery date, but not always. As a returning customer, I know this is a possibility, but I wouldn't be mad if the shoes didn't arrive before the expected date. Zappos is doing a good job of having a policy of making it a point to do a surprise upgrade on nearly all first time orders and to upgrade other orders when they can. Having a great first encounter helps set the relationship off on a good start and having a dose of delight every now and then keeps customers happy. Note this would not have the same effect if they upgraded the shipping during the ordering process. It's nice, sure, but it isn't the big surprise of having the shoes show up on your doorstep unexpectedly. So now is the point where I give you a bunch of examples of how other businesses surprise and delight so you can think of how that ties into your business. One good thing is that it doesn't have to be crazy, expensive or gigantic efforts to delight customers. Often simply being courteous, showing empathy, and making an effort to understand the needs of the customer are enough to create a delightful experience. One study found that how employees responded to customer requests simple courtesy was the number one cited item that led to unforgettable and memorable experiences. Next was willingness to genuinely help and how the employees responded to the requests of the customer. People also mentioned when items were customized or personalized, or when the employee went out of their way to help. This is easily replicable in basically any business, but that means it's also easily copied by competitors and something that can easily become an expectation, whether it's table stakes or delighting customers. Empowering employees to help customers and go the extra mile can make a big difference in loyalty scores and profitability. Take Ritz Carlton, a company well known for customer service and going above and beyond their COO has been quoted as saying, unless you have 100% customer satisfaction and I don't mean that they're just satisfied, I mean that they're excited about what you are doing. You have to improve and if you have 100% customer satisfaction, you have to make sure that you listen just in case they change so you can change with them. Ritz Carlton has the goal of fulfilling even the unexpected wishes and needs of its guests, according to their human resources director. If you go to a good hotel and ask for something, you get it. If you go to a great hotel, you don't even have to ask. Ritz Carlton tracks guest preferences, including their preferred floor and newspaper. They also have employees like housekeepers, track when guests make changes in a room, say moving a desk to get a better view so they can do that in advance of the guest returning. Rooms are also preset to the guest's preferred temperature, all without them asking. And employees are empowered to do anything necessary to make it right for the customer, with a $2,000 budget per customer per day for each employee, according to their website. As it says there, employee empowerment means being able to use my natural ability to create a lasting memory for guests or resolve a guest issue and have the confidence that my company supports me 100% in my effort, explains a senior account executive at the Ritz Carlton. Sometimes the most delightful wow moments happen in the blink of an eye. If employees are not empowered and need to cross layers of approval, these moments could be lost forever. And while you don't need such a gigantic budget for this, know that employee empowerment is still crucial in any business if you want to surprise and delight. Each employee should be trained to look for these opportunities and act on them, knowing what the company will and will not support. And it's important to note that while each employee technically has a $2,000 budget per customer per day, they're not all using that, but they're aware that they can do the big action if it needs to be done. There are legendary stories like the bellman who realized a customer had left their briefcase on a way to an important sales meeting and he didn't have to ask for approval, but he left, got in a cab, went to the airport, got on a plane, flew to where the customer was headed to deliver that briefcase for him in time for the meeting, knowing that it wouldn't have made it in time if it had been shipped. And he was celebrated when he returned because that was a very delightful experience. He made it right even though that was a customer's error for getting their briefcase and important information. There is also an example where a child left a favorite stuffed animal in a room and the housekeeper, maid or whomever went in and found it. But instead of just sending the animal home in a box, what they did is they took a bunch of pictures of I believe his name was Jeffrey, so it was the stuffed animal and they put him up in little scenes like he was out at the pool and he was getting a bath and he was doing all these other enjoyable things at the hotel so that the child who was missing his toy was told that Jeffrey just was having a little bit of extra relaxation and was coming home soon and so excited to see him and tell him about his adventures. And they sent these series of photos of Jeffrey back to his owner who was very delighted and the family was delighted to get him back. And again, this was just going above and beyond in a simple action that they knew would be appreciated and supported. It didn't have to cost a lot of extra money, but it made a huge difference to the family. In other businesses this could be as simple as changing the radio settings on a loaner car to match the customer's vehicle when it's brought in for repairs. Or knowing that a client coming into your office for a meeting drinks chai tea lattes and having one waiting for them when they arrive. One of my clients is a dental office and they provide free lunches for anybody who has to come in and have their teeth cleaned or has an appointment between 11am and 1pm and that's something they're able to take out with them so you're not missing your lunch when you're trying to schedule in during busy days. I also know of financial institutions that load up on Fridays or Tuesdays, that they have a bunch of free pizzas for anybody who comes in to do a transaction between 4 and 6pm all these things that you would be delighted to find that you don't have to go get dinner or that you don't have to be extra late and miss lunch. These little things that can make a really big difference and help to delight your customers. A little thought and effort goes a long way in creating delight. You can also provide unanticipated value. The paper gives an example of JetBlue, which at the time of publication at least had walk up fares that were 60 to 70% lower than other airlines. Full coach fares, but they still had new planes, leather seats and DirecTV programming at every seat. Before that was a more standard offering. And again, this goes to show how businesses always need to be watching the market to see what the status quo is and how expectations have changed to keep up with delight. You can also provide novelty and entertainment. Think of Disneyland or Disney World. And when you stay at one of their hotels, kids can be tucked in at night by a Disney character and have their own special check in at some hotels. And while you know the characters are around the park, they change locations and times of day and aren't always in predictable places. So when you see one it's exciting, it becomes surprising and a hunt for kids and adults to look for their favorite characters. It's also important to look at your omnichannel experience. So when someone does something on social media, is it tracked in a database so the person helping them in the store location will know? Or the person answering the phones in the call center? Or the person in marketing sending out their next promotional item? While I love Starbucks, I've always felt they have a bit of a misstep in this area now that they've switched to the phone apps for paying which have my name on there and they do print out on the cup in most places. Why do the baristas still ask for and butcher names? Why aren't they trained to look at the name and say thanks Melina, they'll call your name when your drink is ready and when I as the customer know they have a smart system that doesn't recommend the same star rewards for everyone why can't I make a note that I have allergies and will never buy or order a breakfast sandwich or a treat with gluten in it? There is no amount of promoting this to me that will make me try it and every time I see that come up in my app it's a reminder that they didn't care to ask. Yes, I know they have a gigantic database of customers and they can't customize everything, but wouldn't this be important to know and wouldn't I feel thankful that they took the time to ask to care about my well being? It's a really serious thing to have allergies so the answer is yes. This next example is one of my favorites so I'm just going to read it verbatim from the paper which again is linked for you in the show notes. This is a really fantastic paper that is surprisingly easy to read with great charts and things. It's definitely worth checking out. And also you can get your freebie which has different categories and areas for you to be looking at for surprise and delight. Anyway, this area of focus is to reposition the business to focus on delivering solutions instead of products and services. And their example is from King Arthur Flower. It says King Arthur Flower sells bread machines with additional instructions, has a troubleshooter baker on call that can be reached via a toll free phone number and fully tests all items before placing them in its catalog for sale. According to its catalog trust is earned, not given. We earn your trust the hard way by testing products and then testing them again and again. We drop timers, use metal utensils and nonstick pans, run gadgets through the dishwasher for days on end. We actually bake the recipes from the cook pan books we sell. We conduct yeast rise offs and chocolate tastings, all so that we can stand behind the products in this catalog. 100% customer delight at King Arthur comes from knowing that products purchased there actually work, as well as the assurance of being able to contact a baker for help. This is so smart and it's kind of like the Butterball Turkey Hotline, which is live from November 1st through December 24th for those holiday cooking emergencies in the US and Canada. While the tradition started in 1981, they've been growing to meet the needs of home cooks in both English and Spanish. And these days people can connect with the talk line through social media, live chat, texting, even Amazon, Alexa. Great brand recognition for them. And while I haven't called myself, I'm guessing they don't conform that you bought a Butterball turkey before they answer your questions. They genuinely want to help anyone who has a turkey cooking emergency to have a great holiday meal. And I bet those people who call and get assistance when they didn't defrost their turkey in time will remember the next time they purchase for a holiday that they want to buy Butterball. There are countless other ways that your company can implement surprise and delight for your customers. Again, they can be extravagant and having advertisements featuring celebrities who love your product even when it's a pretty mundane one like ketchup, down to just being courteous and kind or sending gifts. I have had people send me small, really nice gifts that I didn't expect or ask for after being a guest on their podcast. I had someone buy me a money plant, which I have in my office. Interestingly, I had bought a friend a money plant a few years ago. She's a money coach and there are things that you can just get and send to be kind that can make a really big difference and to show that you remember people, that you care about them. But before you run off and just start surprising and delighting at every turn, it's really important to make sure that this is built into the strategy of your business. Again, I talked about those pitfalls and you don't want to fall victim to those and having either surprises and delights that are costing you more money than they're bringing in or that aren't in alignment with your overall brand. So here are seven organizational changes to consider so you can better deliver delight. First, be aware of the need for organizational change to establish delight objectives. This isn't something to just approach willy nilly. Also, you want to link your customer delight to bottom line benefits. Like I said, look at world class customer satisfaction criteria. See what your competitors are doing, sure, but also look into diverse areas. Look at Ritz Carlton, look and see what Apple's doing, what anyone else is may be doing, whether they're in your area or not. Listen to customers to understand what's important to them, even if they're not saying it in a way that they're asking for you to do anything about it. Seeing what people either complain about or rave about, or what they comment on on social media or when they call you, when they're talking with friends, just observing how people engage, engage in conversation. What do they celebrate in other brands, not just yours. That can really help you to see what you could be doing to surprise and delight without them having to explicitly tell you something which would negate the whole deal. Empower your employees so that they can go the extra mile, which we talked about in that Ritz Carlton example. Make measurement of customer delight and loyalty a priority. So again, if you're thinking about its bottom line benefits and you want to be increasing that, it's important to increase delight, to increase loyalty, to increase profitability. You need to make sure everyone knows it's important and to make measuring it important. Some companies go as far as linking raises and bonuses to customer satisfaction scores. Or again, you might want to look at this as delight scores or ways that people are interacting with you or where you went above and beyond. For example, Enterprise Rent a Car does not allow field managers to get pay raises unless their satisfaction scores are at or above the company average. Again, I would challenge you to look at going beyond satisfaction and moving into delight. And remember, delight is not something you do one off and hope for the best. It requires time and strategy. But as I've explained in this episode, it is absolutely worth it. It just feels good. People want to do business with you and if you remember from the episode on reciprocity, when you give a little bit to people, they want to give back. And often that's in referrals, that's in doing more business with you, that's buying from you for your business. Think about what makes sense and aligns with your brand. If you sell candy, for example, maybe you could do a Willy Wonka inspired golden ticket inside a few certain pieces that gives a special prize to purchasers. But resist the temptation to be able to track using codes and things like that, where people have to go redeem the prize that makes it about you and not about them. Also, if you have customers coming into your location, you could give a bonus to a random purchaser each day. Or if you have a podcast, you can monitor your social media accounts and give people shout outs and link back to them even when they don't ask or expect it. Or you could send a little thank you gift at an unexpected time. And this is advice I give all the time and it's really important, so I'm going to go ahead and stress it for you here. Again, if you want to send gifts to all your customers or clients to let them know you appreciate them. So you're going to build it into your strategy that once a year you send a big thank you gift. You may feel inclined to to do this in November or December because it's the holidays and everyone does this and everyone expects to get stuff then, so you should not do this. Even big gifts that are sent at this time fall into the just fine category because people are expecting things. If you were to instead send your gifts in March or July, they're much more likely to stand out and be remembered and appreciated. Similarly, people get all sorts of emails and junk mail, to be fair, on their birthdays now or in their birthday month, so that also starts to get ignored. What if you sent something on their half birthday or on their anniversary with you? It would show that you took a little bit of extra time and effort to notice something. Maybe you brought it to their attention. Maybe they didn't realize it it was their half birthday today. If they don't monitor that sort of thing and it helps you to break through the clutter, don't let hurting make you feel like you have to send stuff at the same time as everyone else. That's precisely why you should send something at another time, because no one else is. And wouldn't that be surprising and a delight? I hope you enjoyed this episode on Surprise and Delight and how you can use it in your business to increase loyalty, engagement and profits and to just have more fun. If you work in a space where you get to be thinking of ways to delight others to help them to have better days, don't you think you and your employees would have more fun if you're thinking about ways to delight people and go the extra mile and just be a step above everybody else? It's just a win win all the way around. I love this concept, so hopefully you do too. So what Got your brain buzzing as you learned about surprise and delight today? For me, I love the importance of expectation and what that does for surprise and delight. It's one of those things that's easy to forget because we believe that we have to be fair in everything that we do, and if we give one person something, we need to give everyone that thing all the time. And sure, sometimes that's true, but so often if we want a really great experience that people are delighted by that they can't help but share, that unexpected delight is critical. There are so many recent examples that have been shared on the show that relate to this, but one that I really love is the restaurant looking to encourage people to come in on a traditionally slow night. We've all seen this type of gimmick the way it's typically done free breadsticks on Tuesdays or 20% off your order on Wednesdays. First drink free on Thursdays. It's fine and might drive some traffic, but it isn't that exciting. It isn't delightful because it's expected. So what did this restaurant do that was different? They set it up so that at the end of the meal on this slow day of the week, a dice is brought out with your check and you get to roll it. If it lands on a special number, your entire meal is free. It feels like an amazing opportunity and it's so exciting for the table. You probably order more because there's a chance it could be free. It's fun and there's a dopamine release from the anticipation of rolling the die. The different tables might cheer for someone else who wins and be excited about their own chances. The discount averages out to about the same as giving everyone 16% off their bills that day, but it feels incredibly different. It's delightful and exciting and I love it. Where can your company be looking for something that's a little different to drive delight? Don't get stuck in the hurting mentality of what everyone else is doing or even what you have always done. It's important to take a step back and look around and disassociate from the current experience. This is a place where working with a consultant can be really helpful because they can bring fresh eyes to the situation. If you're interested in working with someone on a project like this, let me know, as I would love to see if we're a fit for each other. Send an email to melinathebrainybusiness.com to start the conversation. And if you want to dig a little deeper on surprise and delight right now. It has a full chapter in my book what your customer wants and can't tell you. Go ahead and flip to chapter 17 in your copy to solidify your learning on this topic and start to apply it. And of course, don't forget about your free Surprise and Delight worksheet as well as related past episodes, books and articles all waiting for you in the show notes@the brainybusiness.com 276 and just like that, episode 276 on surprise and Delight is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with John Sills to talk about the human experience. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources visit thebrainybusiness. Com.