I had ordered catered lunch from a national fast casual chain for a business meeting. At exactly 11:30 AM Tamesha walked and immediately started setting up the catering chafing dishes for the hot food. She lit the burners and picked up a container full of water. In my effort to be helpful I said “Next time, you can fill the water from here; that way you do not have to carry the water with you.” Tamesha said “No sir, this is not just any water. This is hot water. With hot water, the hot food stays hot. Otherwise the cold water will get hot as the hot food gets cold.”

It took me a second to realize that what she said was brilliant. I was in total admiration for her and the restaurant chain. Once I realized how far this restaurant would go to keep the food hot, I asked myself, “What else will they do to that is impressive?”

What Is Your Equivalent Of Hot Water?

When a business creates a WOW moment for the smallest area of guest experience, it creates a positive halo for the brand. If that WOW happens early, the rest of the experience automatically gets uplifted.

Imagine on a hot summer day, when the temperature is 110 degrees, you are picking up a rental car. As you leave the rental counter, they offer you a chilled bottle of water. Next you check into your hotel, and you find a personal welcome card with some refreshments. Finally, you get to a department store looking for an item and realize they do not have it in stock. But their service desk offers to get it delivered to your hotel room in an hour. In each of these three cases, the businesses going above and beyond will create WOW moments for you and create a positive halo for the brand.

The opposite of this can drop the brand’s perception in your mind. If you get into your rental car and see that it was not clean; or you drag your suitcases to your room in the hotel to realize the keys do not work; or the department store asks you to call the other locations to check if they have the item in stock; each of them are a negative way to start the experience. It is very tough for a business to recover from that.

Hence, WOW moments early in the experience is essential to create positive brand experience.

Steps To Find Your WOW Moment:

1. SEE every experience element from your customer’s P.O.V.
2. UNDERSTAND the role of each element in the total experience
3. DEVELOP a plan for each element to optimized
4. FOCUS on consistently delivering every element of the experience