Customer Service Story – Hilton Hotel’s Point Break
Delighting customers does not have to be expensive, just doing the little things has the potential to yield bigger positive results. The following customer service story illustrates how much of an impact a Hilton employee made on the brand (and customer) by fulfilling an odd request.
Sometime in July (2018), Author Mark Nagi made an online reservation with Hilton Hotel. Hilton’s online reservation form includes an optional space for additional requests, but with a caveat that “staff cannot guarantee” them.
Mark made his reservation and made an additional request for a picture of Johnny Utah and Bodhi from the 1991 classic “Point Break” waiting for him upon arrival.
When Mark arrived at the hotel, he was amazed to find a photo of Utah and Bodhi (played by Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, respectively) leaning against the pillow in his hotel room.
As expected, Mark was delighted to see the hotel had gone outside the norm to fulfill his odd request. He went on social media and tweeted about it. Mark’s tweet went viral, being retweeted over 9,000 times with 48,000 likes.
This seemingly absurd request would have been ignored by a lot of employees, but a front desk employee at Hilton went above and beyond the call to fulfill a customer’s odd request. As a result, the Hilton brand received a healthy dose of positive customer perception from Mark’s tweet.
To delight customers, most times it is the little things that matter. Empowering employees and encouraging them to go the extra mile even in little ways can help an organization improve customer satisfaction, brand perception and a lot of customer goodwill.
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