Surprise me, give me a magic moment

There are many reasons, of course, why that particular gift might have hit the spot. Perhaps it was the latest book by an author you particularly like or the latest CD from your favorite band. It may of course have had some more specific contextual relevance for you pertaining to where you were ‘at’ in your life at that time.

You may have been planning a trip and someone gave you a travel guide for your destination. Or you may have simply renovated your kitchen and a kind and thoughtful person saw some lovely crockery thinking it would look resplendent in your new beautiful cupboards. It’s these sorts of gifts that can feel a lot more special than those that, whilst no less generous, just don’t seem to have much thought behind them.

Whilst it seems like rather cold and odd language to use, these cases of great gift giving are examples where one person had demonstrated an understanding of the recipient. It’s a cold way of speaking about a lovely moment, I know, but I did warn you.

The reason I am breaking it down to this level is that I feel that companies and brands also have a real opportunity to create these special moments – Magic Moments – as I’ve seen them called, by simply doing exactly the same thing – by simply demonstrating to their customer that they understand them – that they have made the extra bit of effort to get to know them.

And whilst there are many ways of being very clever about this (I’m thinking about rigorous data mining algorithms employed to churn through millions of point of sales transactions as popularized by people like Tesco in the UK with their Club Card) it’s often some very basic thinking along with the simplest of customer insights that can, if acted upon, bring a smile to the face of the customer.

I’ve recently started using the products of two companies with whom I have had little or no interaction before. And, in some ways, there is a gaping chasm between the experience I’ve had with one compared to that which I’ve had with the other.

I recently signed up with a cable TV provider here in Singapore – Singtel and their MioTV package. I should say at this point that they have generally been very good in coming to my house when they said they would and the guys have been helpful and pleasant in setting up the kit and helping me out.

But using the set top box is like suddenly being asked to man one of those workstations you think of when you visualize NASA’s Mission Control replete with Ed Harris pacing impatiently right behind you. Ok, I exaggerate a bit, but I’m a very tech-adaptive person but I find navigating my way around this particular cable TV menu system a complete nightmare.

I’m almost always the one helping others find their way around computers and other devices so I really wonder how some people I know would even begin to understand what I find a real struggle. As I side note, I should say that, despite the intense frustration over the menu system, I am eternally grateful to Singtel for giving me the opportunity to now watch F1 in glorious high definition.

Contrast that experience with the one I have with an iPhone application I recently downloaded called Walkmeter from Abvio. Walkmeter measures the time of your walk and fully exploits the GPS functionality on my iPhone to give me distance, average speeds, comparisons with the last time I did the same route and overlays the route on Google Maps. It’s a joy to use.

And what’s key here is that it took me no time to get used to using it and that was without using any instruction manual. What was particularly engaging for me – what really put a smile on my face – was that the application almost seemed to anticipate what I’d like to see it do. As I explored it for the first time there were a couple of moments when I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if it…’ and almost before I could finish the thought the application was doing exactly what I wanted.

Brilliant. What a feeling – these guys were thinking of me when they designed this. The application seemed to know what I wanted and, it also seemed to know I’d like things that I didn’t know that I’d like. Without sounding too Rumsfeld – like, it delivered twice – firstly by anticipating what I already wanted from it and then by delivering great functionality I hadn’t even realized I wanted.

Now whilst my experience of these two products is hugely different, I can’t help thinking that it would only have taken some basic customer centric research or observation techniques to enable Singtel (or whoever does their remote control user interface design) to make a better UI and ultimately a better experience. It wouldn’t have taken much to ensure that I had some Magic Moments as I enjoyed with the Walkmeter application.

We just need to ask some basic questions when thinking about these points of engagements with our customers to create our own Magic Moments for them. What is it they actually want to do at this moment? What else might they doing at this moment? Where are they at this moment (physically and also with reference to the rest of their day of their product / service journey with the brand)?

Make me smile and surprise me – give me magic Moments – and I’ll be back. Oh, and I’ll also tell loads of people about you.

Featured image credit (Gift Box Pops – Confetti): Ockra/iStock