With the many creative ways your competitors attract consumers both in person and online, it can be challenging to come up with original ideas to entice and retain customers. One effective technique entrepreneurs use to draw prospects in and turn them into loyal customers, earn word-of-mouth marketing and encourage consumer spending is focusing on the concept of “surprise and delight” in their efforts to craft a compelling customer experience.
Below, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council share their favorite ways to surprise and delight both prospects and clients alike, offering specific examples of methods that have brought them success.
Forbes Agency Council members share ways to “surprise and delight” clients.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Commit To Getting It Right Over Being Right
I think our way of doing business is, in itself, fairly surprising and delightful. We are a predominantly female team with a commitment to getting it right over being right. We believe a brand is built from the inside out, and if you don’t treat your people so that they feel as important as your target audience, you’re doing it wrong. – Kristen Brown, Hoot Design Company
2. Focus On Service And Attitude
My favorite way to impress clients and prospects is focused on service and attitude. A recent prospect noted that he called five agencies, and we were the first to respond. A client keeps talking about our responsiveness and how we bring them opportunities and insights. It may be a sad commentary on our industry, but going the extra mile, thinking beyond what’s in the statement of work, is sure to bring a smile. – Carol Levine, energi PR Inc
3. ‘Be The Banana’
“Be the banana” is a strange statement to make to leaders and CEOs, but I do it all the time when talking about a company’s authentic story. What does it mean? Currently, you and your competitors are all apples—red, green and yellow—and you struggle to show how you’re the best choice. Listen to your audience and figure out what they need. I challenge you to be the banana among the apples. – Arleigh Vasconcellos, The Agency
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4. Overpromise And Overdeliver
It always amazes me how surprised people are when they see, from day one, huge energy and outputs coming their way from both myself and my incredible team. We are known for our boundless energy, and going overboard is what we do every day. It blows them away, and their delight makes me incredibly proud. – Julia Linehan, The Digital Voice PR Agency Ltd
5. Bring Treats Or Toys To A Meeting
Emotional peaks and valleys have a disproportionate impact on our memories and our recollection of experiences. My favorite surprise is to bring unexpected treats or toys to a meeting. Cookies or cupcakes make every meeting sweeter, but a giant watermelon is both sweet and memorable. In a brainstorm, toys—such as a magnetic gyro wheel, fidget toys or expandable spheres—can bring out the best thinking. – Eric Gilbertsen, REQ
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6. Make Valuable Connections For Clients
Making valuable and worthwhile connections for clients is always met with appreciation. It’s something that brings a great deal of value and subsequently builds client loyalty. In a digital world, it’s still people who run businesses, and there’s no more connection more powerful than a human one. Post-Covid, when relationships have shrunk for many people, I’m focusing on sharing my connections more than ever. – Lis Anderson, AMBITIOUS
7. Aim For The Unexpected
It’s amazing how well “surprise and delight” works, when done right. It’s not enough to delight, as that’s often expected. The key is to aim for the unexpected. We often do this when we complete a project with a client, after we’ve delivered the expected result. We top it off with something like throwing in a little bit of free extra work, or even following up just to check on them. – Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design
8. Treat Leads More Like Friends
Treat them more like a friend than a lead. We pride ourselves in giving prospects honest advice and perspectives—even when it’s not in the best interest of the deal—to be sure they can make the right decisions for their business. This builds a genuine and trusting relationship that can benefit one or both parties, sometimes unexpectedly, even when we don’t proceed with a client relationship. – Natalie Nathanson, Magnetude Consulting
9. Overcommunicate
The best way to surprise and delight customers is by following three cardinal rules: Overcommunicate, tell them everything, then follow up via email with what you told them and keep a log via Google Drive or Slack for historical reference. Make data-driven decisions. Everything your team does for a client must be backed by data, and the logic must be clear. Be nice, be a human, and empathize. – Krishan Arora, The Arora Project
10. Impress Your Website Visitors
Here’s the formula for attracting and retaining customers: design plus security plus high load speed plus good content. The design has to impress your visitors. It’s known that shoppers avoid accessing sites that aren’t secure. Load speed is one of the bullet points of customer experience. People tend to use things that satisfy them; nobody wants to wait for your site to load. And we all know that content is key. – Dmitrii Kustov, Regex SEO
11. Go An Extra 5% Beyond Scope
As an agency that works in hospitality, we’ve learned that the “surprise and delight” model is applicable to the agency-client model as well. We aim to do this by providing an extra 5% of things, beyond our delineated scope, that are helpful to the clients’ business. This can be key learnings, trend reports or even a mention in an article or post. It all serves to make the client feel appreciated. – David Harrison, EVINS
12. Send ‘Wow Boxes’
For prospective clients, we love to put together what we call “WOW boxes.” They’re high-end presentation boxes decorated in the prospect’s brand colors that include gifts from our brand, which help businesses see just how well we understand them before they sign on the dotted line. We ship the boxes to their offices and include information about who we are and what we’d love to do for them. – Matthew Lopes, The DVI Group
13. Send Personalized Gifts
When clients are working through a stressful time, we like to send personalized gifts. Sending “surprise and delight” gifts to potential and current clients is a great way to continue great relationships and let them know you are thinking about them. – Kelly Ehlers, Ideas That Evoke
14. Create A Comprehensive Client Profile At Onboarding
When we onboard a client, we create a detailed client profile. In addition to business-related questions, we include a section asking for the client’s birthday and shirt size. We also like to send gifts outside of the holiday season. We find that referring leads to our leads and clients has been very successful too. – Alex Valencia, We Do Web
15. Use The ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ Approach
In the world of digital marketing, many times, a customer has no idea why they aren’t getting any traffic or how to improve their SEO. We like to get on a Zoom call and show them exactly where they are struggling, exactly what aspects of their website might be failing, and then where they can improve and how we can do it for them. The “show, don’t tell” approach works wonders for us. – Jason Hall, FiveChannels Marketing
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
