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Students of marketing would certainly have come across this story at some point. For those of us who haven't, this real life story has some invaluable marketing lessons. This is the story of how Morton's Steakhouse delighted a single customer, and won national goodwill for its brand.
Before we get on with the story, a caveat - its not the food that we are focusing on (that's quite a controversial subject these days in our country), but the manner in which this single customer was served, which is where there are rich learnings for us.
The story starts with a simple tweet
Peter Shankman is a successful marketing consultant, founder of "Help a reporter out" social website, is very active on Twitter and has over 100,000 people following his tweets. Morton's Steakhouse happens to be one of his favourite eating joints.
One particularly busy day saw him travelling between Florida and New Jersey, with hardly any time between flights to even grab airport food. He rushed, made it to the flight, but was very hungry. As the flight began taxying to the runway, in jest, he tweeted:
"Hey @Mortons - can you meet me at newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks. :),"
He shut off his cell phone, settled down in flight, and resigned himself to going without dinner that day.
What happened next went way beyond his wildest dreams. Morton's Steakhouse has an active social media cell at its central office. This unit got the tweet and recognized instantly that there was a big marketing opportunity that had just presented itself to them. Rather than passing this off as a joke like most would do, they swung into action.
By the time Peter's flight landed at Newark in two hours, the central unit had got in touch with the nearest Morton's restaurant (which was 23 miles away from Newark airport), passed on his order, added dollops of generous side orders, got hold of a liveried staff member to carry the parcel to the airport and located the car and driver that was booked for Peter. By the time Peter came out of Newark airport, a Morton employee was waiting, next to his driver, with a bag full of his favourite food!
An astounded Peter Shankman tweeted about this, and spread the word around on what a delightful experience he had with Morton's Steakhouse. Peter is a bit of an internet celebrity, and it was no surprise therefore that his story got passed around the country as a truly WOW experience, thus generating enormous goodwill for the brand. That it went on to become one of the most popular stories told on customer delight, just kept adding to the brand's goodwill, long after they delivered his tweeted order to him.
Its not about service - its pure marketing genius
Would Morton's have gone that extra mile for a tweet from an ordinary person? Most likely not. This story is not about normal service standards at Morton's - its about smart marketing. Morton's social media team knew who Peter Shankman was, and instantly understood the power of delighting him, beyond his wildest imagination. In a socially connected world, if you get on the right side of an internet celebrity, you got some great publicity coming your way! Morton's understood this in a flash, and executed to perfection. The fact is that most consumers understand that they won't get this kind of service, if they were to tweet a request, but it does create a "feel-good" factor for the brand nevertheless.
Takeaways for financial advisors
Look at your client base and prospect base. Identify who are the biggest influencers with the widest social network - online and offline. Look for opportunities to delight them with service, even if it is way above your normal service standards. When an influential person pats you on the back these days, he doesn't just stop with a literal pat on your back. He shares his experience with others - on Twitter, on Facebook - and you suddenly become a whole lot more famous than you were!
All content in Marketing Wiz is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Kotak MF.
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