By Lisa Hochgraf
This week at CUES Nexus Conference, CUES staff members kept telling me how excited they were about the Fairmont Dallas' turn-down service.
Now this got my attention because most of the time turn-down service, where the housekeeper comes in and folds back your sheet and puts a chocolate on your pillow, isn't really the kind of thing that seasoned traveling staff jump up and down about. They've seen it a thousand times before.
But this turn-down service also included a short note from the service provider, "Beverly." Beverly's handwritten notes said "Have a productive day tomorrow" or "Have a great night" and often the highly personal, "God bless you."
The large amount of buzz this created got me thinking about how services can be differentiated by small things that make an emotional connection.
Consider this idea, presented by Mark Weber, president of Weber Marketing, Seattle, during a panel discussion about youth marketing here at the conference.
Mark described a financial institution CEO who had a bell mounted outside his office. When a customer had a baby, he would handwrite a note to the new little one within 30 days and enclose $10. The letter might read, "Dear MacKenzie: Welcome to the world. Here is $10 to help you start saving for your future."
Mark said parents would bring their babies in and the CEO and everyone else would welcome the baby, ring the bell, and open the new account. "Can you imagine the emotive power?" Mark said.
And that's what it was with Beverly's turn-down service. She made a seemingly simple thing like turn-down service into an emotional connection that sparked a lot of buzz.
Lisa Hochgraf edits the marketing and operations sections of CUES' Credit Union Management magazine.
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