How can you provide Unreasonable Hospitality to your customers?

[Pesso]

Hey Square Readers, 

We hope you’ve started to dive into reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara! Last week we kicked things off with a baseline discussion on your own experiences with exceptional hospitality. Today we’re covering what Unreasonable Hospitality is, and exploring how to provide it to your customers.

What is Unreasonable Hospitality?

The author explains that providing small acts of hospitality can absolutely thrill your customers, make it feel like you’re performing magic, and make their experience with your business a story that they’ll remember forever. Delivering incredible service for someone in a time of need can transform their day, relieve sorrow even for a minute, and create a deep emotional connection for them with your business. 

It’s thoughtfully putting your customers needs first in a way that is deep and meaningful to them to create a catered experience. It can be something as small as giving a genuine welcome and having a meaningful conversation, a personal touch of remembering a birthday or a family detail, an act of service like feeding their parking meter, or a Surprise & Delight gesture of providing a welcome gift or thank you goodbye gift. It should be something thoughtful and meaningful to your customers that fills a need that they have, and references a conversation you’ve had together. 

How can you provide Unreasonable Hospitality?

Now let’s brainstorm ideas for our own businesses, and give each other some suggestions too!

Again, this is a pure brainstorm here, no idea is too big or extravagant. This is Unreasonable Hospitality, after all. Only after you’ve found some big ideas that you like, then next time we'll figure out how to do it in an affordable, scalable, and realistic way. 

Share your answers in the comments:

1. Tell us about your business: What is your industry? How do you currently serve your customers? What common needs do your customers have? What are the deeper reasons they come to you? 
2. What are some new ideas of ways you could provide incredible tailored experiences for your customers? No idea is too big!
3. Reply to other members’ comments and share some ideas that could help them. Having an outside perspective is extremely valuable! 

Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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Happy reading,

Pesso

[ChickenRacer]

So I own a small town Outback Pub in Australia, so the core of the business is providing Food and Beverage. For 5 months of the year, we are a fairly traditional small town pub, serving steaks and schnitzels, beer both here and takeaway. The other 7 months in our tourist season, we also have our nightly entertainment show. For locals, they come to us to have a chin wag, tell us their problems, and get rid of their problems for awhile.

The tourists are coming to us as our show has gained some traction, and they want to hear. what all the fuss is about, and to satisfy their curiosity as to whether Chicken Racing is a real thing haha.  We try and give them a night they won't forget!  I think a big reason they come to us is so many other venues sit on their laurels to a degree, expecting that cold beer and good food is enough to draw a crowd. I believe that they can get that anywhere, so we need to give them a show they won't forget, and to try and have the experience reflect the show, with great food, reasonable priced drinks and awesome hospitality.

I think in terms of new ideas, it's about increasing "the experience" for them. Getting better at social media shoutouts (so they feel part of the show), adding more crowd participation (have awards for best dressed, give tokens to those that "buy" a chicken in the race etc), getting better with photos so people can download/share photos of them here.  

To a degree I have done this 7 years now, and I am struggling to keep moving forward and keep it fresh, so going to enjoy this discussion!