Not Your Average Survey

Seth Godin told us in his book Purple Cow that marketing is that outstanding product or service which gets people talking about you. I was reminded of that the other day when my wife and I ate at Not Your Average Joe’s restaurant for the first time. The owner, Steve Silverstein, has created a business casual experience at blue jeans pricing with from scratch foods and value priced wines. It’s home base is in greater Boston (15 locations) and it’s Glen Mills, PA location, where we ate, is it’s first in Pennsylvania.

We eat at all the usual chain restaurants,- Olive Garden, Carrabba’s, Red Lobster, Outback, T.G.I. Friday’s, etc. They are all good. Good food. Reasonable prices. So why pick one over the other? Locations is certainly one reason, but beyond that – something has got to stand out. This is particularly true during a first visit.

What grabbed my attention this time was the after dining experience. Our waitress, Leah, was very helpful and professional. When she brought our check she presented us with an oval shaped wooden platter with the check clipped onto it and an Apple iTouch fixed next to it. She explained that I could answer a few quick questions to earn some sort of discount on my next visit if I would answer the survey. I hate these surveys. Some are extraordinarily long. Almost all are computerized now and require you to use your smart device or your home computer to fill them out. The problem is that you may not have internet access at that moment or it may be painfully slow. And if you leave the restaurant, the odds are almost zero that you will fill the survey out when you get home. The iTouch made this survey different. First, it was already set up. I didn’t have to answer any of the location specific questions and the responses were all done with a slider bar on the screen (1-10). Easy peasy. They got my email, which is the main goal, along with feedback on this location and this server.

But more importantly they got me to talk about them. Does everything you do attempt to make your customer’s interaction with you remarkable, as in worth remarking about to someone else? Whether you are an EOS Implementer like me or a restaurant owner like Steve Silverstein, you need to be more than just average. Have you seen some product or service worth remarking about recently? Please consider sharing your experience in a comment below.