We all (well OK, maybe it's just me) love to complain about rotten customer service. And examples are everywhere, from conference Web sites that don't connect registration with housing, to 800 numbers that send you on an endless loop through voice mail limbo, to TSA staff who, well, we're not going to go there this morning.
So when I got this note moments after I bought a knitting pattern this weekend from Cat Bordhi of Passing Paws Press, I can't tell you how absolutely delighted I was:
Dear Sue,
Thank you for wanting my Anemone Hat and buying it! I am grinning right now because I know that when you begin to wear it, you will attract happiness to yourself as strangers smile at you and take genuine pleasure in looking at you. The hat is disarming, innocent, and happy to wear. So I am glad you have chosen it!
Kind regards,
Cat Bordhi
I know it's a form letter, but it sure doesn't feel like it. It feels like she really is delighted that I bought that pattern, and that she's anticipating the fun I'll have with it. The specificity of it, the exclamation marks, the thought that she's grinning thinking about my action, it all just adds up to one big dollop of warm fuzzy. Now I want to go buy more of her patterns (it doesn't hurt that she's an amazing, unique designer. And the Anenome Hat is wicked funky cute).
When you send e-mails thanking people for registering for your event (you do thank them immediately, right?), what feeling are you conveying? That it's something you check off a list, or that you really care that that particular person signed up, that anticipating their participation gets your staff humming, that the thought of all they'll get out of it makes you grin?
Yes, it's a little thing, but it matters. A lot.