Need Your Help: Please Share Your Chic-Fil-A $10 Refund Experience With Me

I was at the Pensacola airport this weekend on my way to drop by daughter off at college.  I was hungry so I stopped at a Chic-Fil-A near my gate.  I walked up to their relatively empty counter to order a Grilled Chicken sandwich and an iced tea.  I know I’m in the South so I specified “unsweetened” just in case.  I like to be clear.

The youngster takes my order and tells me $10.25.  It sounds a bit high, but I’m at the airport so I hand him my card.  When he brings me my order, I realize why it’s $10.25.  He charged me for the full meal which includes fries.  When I point it out to him, he looks at me a bit perplexed.  He’s new and doesn’t know what to do.  He does know to turn to his manager.

She takes over and and in her polite Southern drawl explains, “You made your purchase on card.  I cannot credit it back to that card and must give you a cash refund.  Is that OK?”

“Sure,” I tell her and bit hesitant because I'm not sure where she is headed.  She happily hands me a $10 bill and a quarter.  I’m now expecting her to ring me up correctly, but instead she tells me, “No, sir.  It’s our mistake.  Your meal’s on us.”

I was very impressed.  I would have gladly paid the correct price.  I didn’t explain to her how to fix it.  The very young lady working that store:

• knew what action to take,
• corrected the situation quickly, and
• far exceeded my expectations.

I’m now carrying around that $10 bill like a badge of honor.  I don’t want to spend it.  Since then I have shared the story with two other people.  I’m now writing this blog.  We don’t have Chic-Fil-A’s near my Miami home, but do you think I’ll stop and pay them a visit if I get a chance?  Do you think I’ll be telling my friends?

I make big efforts in my membership site building business to far exceed my customer’s expectations.  In light of this, I am revisiting this in my business.  The question is, do I exceed expectations like Chic-Fil-A's $10 refund test?  Do I impress my clients like they do?  In many cases, we do, but it really has me thinking.  What else can I do?

In my initial conversations with clients considering us as their membership site builder, I tell them our goal is to far exceeding their expectations.  My admin shares that same message with them when she sends them our proposal and takes their initial payment.  We extend that to them as our agreement and encourage them to hold us to that.  We run net promoter score (NPS) surveys to get client feedback and do well.

Doing this is just plain good business.  For my team and I, it’s about:

• going that extra mile to dazzle our customers,
• working to make raving fans out of them, and
• doing things they don’t expect us to include in the project.

Are we doing things likely to be seen by our customers like I saw that Chic-Fil-A $10 refund?

I certainly go to my customers and ask them for referrals.  Doing that leads the best kinds of new clients because they come already biased in our favor.   They are less likely to bicker about price.   (We aren’t least expensive providers out there so that’s important.)  Referral clients are more likely to go with our recommendations already predisposed to trusting us.  They are also the ones most likely to refer us to their circle of contacts.

In light of this Chic-Fil-A experience, I’m going to revisit what we do.  I’m going to identify five additional ways we can further impress our clients and take the service we provide to the next level.  The payback is simple because of the positive impression it leaves.

I’d like to ask you a favor.  Can you share with me things you do or have done which fall into this $10 Chic-Fil-A refund category?  Share with me your stories to get me answer the question, “What else can we do to up our game even further?”