When was the last time you bought a product or purchased a service and received more than you expected?
That’s the subtitle of Will Guidara’s book, Unreasonable Hospitality: “The remarkable power of giving people more than they expect.” I recently finished the book (it’s on Spotify), and I found it incredibly inspiring. The focus is on restaurants, but stories and lessons in the book could apply to most businesses.
Today I’ll highlight a few of my favorite parts of the book:
“Their perception is our reality.”
The concept here is that a customer’s perception of a product or service is the creator’s reality (to respond to as they wish, ideally to bring joy to the customer). This is a twist on “the customer is always right,” because the truth is that the customer isn’t always right. Their perception, however, is true to them, and that matters.
The book provides a specific example about a customer sending back a steak because it wasn’t cooked medium rare. The server’s instinct was to correct them (objectively, the steak was medium rare), but Guidara points out that in the eyes of the customer, the steak wasn’t prepared the way they wanted. Correcting the customer is effectively shaming them, which gets in the way of connection.
This advice hit home with me perhaps more than anything else in the book, and it’s left me struggling how to proceed. I have a strong distaste for misinformation, particularly when it involves a false assumption about a publisher’s intentions (e.g., “The publisher clearly was trying to save a few cents on X component” or “This publisher knows exactly what they’re doing in stirring up this drama”), and my instinct when faced with it is to provide the facts. Yet I know this is patronizing, which isn’t good. I need to work on the fine balance between hearing a customer’s frustrations while also providing information with the intent of serving them.
Importantly, Guidara also mentions that there’s no tolerance for a customer to abuse, harass, or threaten his staff; there is a civil, constructive way to provide feedback or share your perception.
Remove customer anxiety
I recently went to a pretty nice restaurant in St. Louis where we ordered appetizers within a few minutes (we had looked at the menu in advance). But we then didn’t see the server again for the next 30 minutes; well, we saw them, but they avoided our table. We couldn’t order our entrees, and we were increasingly hungry while we waited for the appetizers.
I’ve worked as a server at a few restaurants, and I learned quickly that leaving your guests in the dark–especially without something to munch on–creates anxiety. It’s not a good way to start the meal. Rather, I tried to do everything I could to ease that anxiety by having something they could eat while waiting for their order, and checking on them (subtly or overtly) in the meantime.
Compare this to Guidara’s method at Eleven Madison Park (and fine-dining restaurants in St. Louis, including the big three: Bulrush, Vicia, and Mainlander): The restaurant has a bite of food ready for you to eat as soon as you arrive. It’s a way to immediately address customer anxiety. It says, “We were expecting you, and we’re ready to take care of you tonight.”
I read this chapter around 2 weeks into the shipping process for Wyrmspan (a process we expected to take around 4 weeks total, given the number of orders). It’s usually around this time that we send a shipping update to all customers who haven’t received a tracking number, which hopefully addresses some of the anxiety I mentioned. But the book inspired me to do a little more: In the update, I sent a special link to those customers so they could check out Wyrmspan on Tabletopia (the public Tabletopia launch will happen on the retail release day, March 29)–an amuse bouche while they wait for their copy to arrive.
Lead with vulnerability
There’s a great section in the book about how Eleven Madison Park started asking guests not just what they couldn’t eat (i.e., allergies) but also which ingredients they didn’t want to eat. At first when they implemented this, guests didn’t say anything–perhaps they didn’t want to seem picky in front of others.
Then Guidara tried asking a little differently. Before the question about ingredient preferences, he told a table that he doesn’t like sea urchins. As soon as he revealed this–a small moment of vulnerability–the guests opened up about a few ingredients they didn’t like, allowing the restaurant to better serve them.
This is one small example of the power of leading with vulnerability. It’s something I try to do on this blog, but it’s something I can definitely do more of, especially when addressing concerns about our games. I think it’s okay for a publisher to say, “We made a mistake” or “That’s a great idea–we didn’t think about that.” If customers appreciate that type of vulnerability and accessibility, I think it helps if they don’t use those admissions as “gotcha” opportunities. We can make things better in the future, together.
Improvisational hospitality
The book builds to its most famous chapter, one that is referenced in the TV show The Bear and Guidara’s TED talk. It’s about how Eleven Madison Park started using a combination of research and well-intentioned eavesdropping to provide special gifts and experiences for customers.
For example, they overheard a family visiting from a much warmer climate mention that they were amazed by the thick blanket of snow enveloping New York City. They had never seen snow before. The server passed on this information to the person in charge of creating “legends,” as EMP calls them, and they arranged for a car to pick up the family at the end of the meal and take them–and several sleds bought for the family–to a hill in Central Park so they could go sledding.
I discuss this type of unreasonable hospitality in a previous blog post, and my takeaways this time were one (a) there’s a huge value in actively listening to your customers to learn about who they are as people and (b) it’s ultimately about the story you’re able to create. Small acts can lead to big, memorable stories. This applies to narrative game design just as much as it does to customer service.
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I loved listening to the audiobook of Unreasonable Hospitality, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for ways to better serve and bring joy to their customers. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the categories above (or anything else from the book) in the comments below.
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Also read:
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22 Comments on “Are You Unreasonably Hospitable?”
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[…] Are You Unreasonably Hospitable? […]
Unreasonable Hospitality is a good way to put how I not only try to run my publishing company (Jellyfish Game Studios) but also just my life in general. Always trying to over deliver for the people around me, weather that’s my wife, co-workers, friends, strangers, etc.
One such moment that really sticks out in my memory of when I accomplished that is when I had a booth at a small local convention. And at these conventions I sell my games, but also games from other local pacific northwest designers/publishers. Which I had a woman approach me and instantly B-line towards a copy of Fantastic Factories (awesome game made by an awesome person) and she expressed that she’s been wanting the game for a while and was wondering if I could give it to her for a discount as she’s meeting up with some friends to work through arrangements for her fathers funeral.
I could see the hurt in her eyes of even asking for a discount, and I responded by saying she could just have the game for free. Which led to a sob fest where we hugged it out and I gave her some words of encouragement. Which then resulted in her insisting to buy a copy of our game Vamp on the Batwalk. Now that was not the intent of the interaction and I offered to just give her a copy of that as well, but she insisted to pay for it.
Now who knows if I will ever see that person again, but that one moment will always stick with me and I hope it helped her in even a tiny way grieve the loss of her father and continue on to happier times.
I think that’s a wonderful way to live, Cody! I appreciate you sharing this example of hospitality and empathy.
Martin Wallace’s latest offer on Gamefound is “Steam Power.” He’s invited supporters to be involved in choosing touches that will personalize the game (within reason, of course; there have been some polite declines to some suggestions).
Whether this includes voting on which of several rail-themed quotes to print on the inside of the box cover, or developers listening to a suggestion to change in the type of cloth for the bags from velvet to cotton to better suit the theme of the dawn of rail, this game, in the end, feels bespoke. They even have a cat-themed version of the game as an expansion because of the obvious market for it, lol.
I love that example! Thank you for sharing.
One company that reminds me of some of these examples is LEGO. In every interaction I’ve had with the company, the experience has been amazing.
I’ll provide an example of one of those experiences:
While browsing their website for some product I noticed some strange listings. A couple of the newly released (small) sets were listed as Retiring Soon, which is normally a tag to indicate a product is flagged as discontinued. I was interested in getting these sets but since they were new I didn’t yet have that opportunity.
I took this chance to call LEGO’s phone support, which put me in contact with human extremely quickly. I told this representative the unusual tagging on these new products and that they were also listed as unavailable. She also thought this was strange and noted that she’ll follow up with the appropriate department why some new sets were listed as Retiring Soon.
The proactive part of this encounter is that she sensed my concern over perhaps not being able to order this product (in the event the Retired tag wasn’t a bug). While the product was out of stock, she manually added most of the pieces of that set to a custom order and had it sent to me for free. Completely without my prompting… my only intent to the phone call was make them aware of the potential bug. I didn’t expect service so above and beyond, it was amazing. She also took the time to chat briefly about some of the sets she enjoys while we she was looking up information.
This representative removed my anxiety, addressed the issue, connected with the customer, then offered incredible hospitality based on what she heard. It’s these kinds of positive experiences that really stick with a customer.
Thanks for sharing that excellent example! I love proactive, empathetic customer service like that.
I don’t think SM games has anything to worry about. In fact, in my experience you lead the way in many aspects. At a recent family event my brother asked me my favourite boardgame company. An easy answer and it was lovely to broadcast SM’s commitment to transparency, equality, diversity and tackling the climate crisis. Unique in my experience of boardgames. Perhaps you should write a book to teach other companies a better way of behaving!
I’m honored to hear that, Lesley, and I hope we can continue to lead by example. :)
hi Jamie,
I bought a 3d printer off Prusa. The printer has to be assembled which is a tedious kind of a job. When the parts arrived in the box, I set about taking out all the pieces and splaying them out on a table. Included in the box is the assembly and instruction manual. I think I might be like a lot of people, I don’t particularly like having to read through pages of instructions. Prusa have also included a pack of jellie bears to chew on while you are assembling the 3d printer. I just thought it was a lovely gesture and it calms a man down when he is working on a tedious project. I think it’s a nice touch.
Kieran
That’s brilliant! I love that example.
It actually reminds me of a litter box I bought for my cats last year. It came, unexpectedly, with a ping-pong ball, which completely distracted the cats while I was assembling their new litter box.
Off-topic, but if you want to distract a cat to atmospheric heights, then put the ball in the tub and start things off by showing them how it rolls around the edges. They’ll take things from there. Ping-pong balls eventually get flung out, so I started using marbles.
I’m definitely going to try that! :)
Earlier today (so this is quite topical), we had guests at our café and after their order, they had waited for their food…in reality, our new staff member failed to add it to the order, so when I asked the chef he noted to me (in Indonesian which was good because the customer couldn’t understand) that it wasn’t on the order. My wife went to their table and explained the issue and immediately asked that if they would wait, we’ll prepare it for them “on the house”. At the end of the day, they went away happy and we avoided an embarrassing issue for a few individuals.
Thanks Joe! I think that’s a good example of reactive customer service, which I believe is important. I’m even more excited about *proactive* customer service, elevating the baseline experience beyond what the customer expected.
It’s funny to think that you can have an anxiety inducing experience at a cafe but this reminded me about my cafe I order breakfast from. I always get my orders to go because I live close and I pay for my order, leave them come back later. This last time the person that took my order didn’t (from my perception) enter my order I their terminal. They were really busy at the cafe so I waited to get their attention because I was stuck at the cafe and couldn’t leave and I WAS starting to feel small amounts of anxiety being stuck there. Turns out they DID put the order in but I missed it and they didn’t tell me so I had a wrong thought process but it could have been easily avoided if they told me the order was in instead of taking it and then walking off without sayng anything .sounds like you and your staff really take the time to make your customers feel taken cared of and kudos preserving that positive experience buying them a meal.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin
That’s who you folks are dealing with, Jamie. I really feel bad about those who deal with customers.
Andy: I’m glad we have customers! Please don’t feel bad about that. All of our jobs at Stonemaier Games depend on customers, and our goal is to bring joy to those customers. It’s what we’re happy to do.
I really want to start my comment by saying that I love all the games I’ve bought from Stonemeir games and the customer service for the company and the staff are marvelous. I want to share one experience that was not so great at the time years ago to make a point though. I hesitated to provide the feedback because I don’t want to have this come off as an attack or a gotcha moment but to add to what the article says; customers also have long memories. Years go I bought Tapestry from Pax. I did not get a discount. I paid 100 dollars. The privilege of getting the game before everyone else. No regrets and totally reasonable so no gripes. My particular copy came with the civ mats printed upside down. I thought it was amusing until the first expansion came out and I realized I’d have to shuffle all the matts together facing different directions. It was mildly annoying but fine….
I remember making a comment about it on the comments page and half jokingly asking if I could get replacements and was told that the Matts from a functionality standpoint were fine so that wouldn’t be an option. I took it in stride and never thought about it again….until the next expansion and then the one after that. Still no biggie and it’s perfectly acceptable to deny my request. Then the last time I thought about it was when I bought the upgraded mats and was relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with that minor annoyance anymore but still I did have the thought “I have to pay to get this fixed? Really?” My perception as a customer was I bought this product and the maker’s obligation is to give me a perfect product. The company perspective is the Mats function as intended for the game. Both valid points but I still to this day think I’m right. So adding to what the article says customer service can also be tricky because customers have long memories and ones experiences can be carried with them forever. In my job I had people say they were dissatisfied with my department and I’d ask the customer how long ago they had the bad experience and was gobsmacked to hear 7 years ago….i didn’t understand how they could still carry that in their minds all that time it but now I do. Little thinks can just be constant reminders of the past over and over.
Does that mean I think that SM games is awful. No way! 99 percent of my experiences are wonderful but it’s worth pointing out that it’s human nature that the negative experiences last and if a person generally is cognitively on autopilot and doesn’t critically think about things they can generalize which I don’t but it’s worth adding to the conversation none-the-less. I agree with you though. The Customer isn’t always right. Good customer service is managing expectations. And while I still think I am right I feel like my expectations were reasonably managed.
I hope this post doesn’t cause drama and apologize if it does. It’s not my intent.
The last thing I want to address is can customer perception be changed and what is the value. Sometimes. For the person that had a bad experience with my company 7 years ago, no amount of good customer service I provide will erase the bad experience because people remember the negative things forever. They however can have new positive experiences such as I did with SM games but the past can’t be changed. The solution then to me is that if the specific negative situation is remediated at the time of the incident then damage can be repaired.
To me it’s about placing value and investing in customer retention. So what has more value? Saving the cost of some game replacement components for the company or preserving positive perception of the customer? As a person providing the customer service I would have gone with managing the customers expectations and my perception traditionally would have been well new positive experiences will erase the negative one… but being on the flip side as the customer and having little things over the years happen over and over again remind me about the negative experience makes me wonder if as the company it might have been better to take the hit on the replacement components instead. Saving money for one day is short sighted. The cost of saving that money is a potential negative perception for years to come that one act could have prevented…Now I’m not advocating a customer is always right approach and caving to every demand made by dissatisfied customers but there has to be a good compromise that works somehow….let me know if you figure it out because I haven’t.
Cheers
Jordan: I appreciate you sharing this. As far as I’m aware, the backs of ALL Tapestry core game civ mats were upside down–this wasn’t a case where we had *any* mats where the backs that were flipped the other way.
It’s too bad that we can’t erase that bad experience, though, because the Tapestry revised civ pack fixes the flipped backs.
Ha. This being about customer perception- I’m sorry my perception was that SM Games had replacement Mats that could have been provided which apparently was not the case. And certainly if the entire print run came out that way then it would be a very monumental and costly endeavor to print new mats specifically for the purpose to remediate the print run which I now understand. The situation does definitely illustrate the power of perceptions (right or wrong) and its impact on the customer experience. Doesn’t change my mind about the rightness of eating properly printed game components but that just means we were BOTH right. No good solutions in that situation No worries. Obviously it has not changed my love of SM games and continued support. And I later became a Champion.