I recently bought a coffee from Quarter Horse Coffee, my new favorite Oxford coffee house.
Not having exactly the right change, I asked the friendly bearded hipster behind the counter whether they accept card payments.
He told me that they accept payment by card, but they charge a 20P surcharge for amounts under five pounds.
I hesitated for a moment, to which he smiled and suggested, “oh, don’t worry, if you want to save the 20P, just pay me when you walk by here tomorrow.”
This was surprising to hear but at the same time wonderful. To meet someone genuinely helpful gave me a utopian glimpse of how life should be, but typically isn’t.
Large corporates typically don’t operate this way because the value of trust can’t be measured, and is therefore either undervalued or overlooked. Corporate executives and senior managers who studied discounted cash flow models and the CAPM model as part of expensive MBA programs from prestigious institutions of higher learning never stopped to learn the value of human connection, or the value of generating customer delight.
How are you connecting with your customers?
What are you doing to delight them?