This is the fourth post in an ongoing series about small ways that businesses large and small can stand out. It’s good for your customers (they’ll remember and appreciate you), and it’s good for your business too (you’ll be memorable, talked about, and probably get more customers too).
The post office can be remarkable
Seth Godin’s recent experience at the post office was sad. But, here are three examples of how people with repetitive jobs and lots of rules to follow can still find ways to stand out and, dare I say it, be linchpins.
1) My postman greets me by name (I live in New York City, in an apartment building – it’s not a small town where everyone knows each other).
2) A few days ago, I was on the way to mail a Netflix movie. A passing mailman saw me, and wanted to know if I was off to mail back the DVD. I said yes. He held out his hand and popped it in his bag.
3) My mom sent me something in the mail. She put the wrong address on the envelope. Instead of sending it back as unknown, they looked up the correct address (don’t know how they knew which Jodi to pick), and delivered it – all in three days.
Share your thoughts
Got your own examples of small things that are remarkable? Something that happened to you? Or, something you do yourself? Share them here.
You can find the first three here, here, and here.
Jodi, I signed up for the email newsletter from the Knob Creek Distillery a while back, and though they rarely send their newsletters (?), they did send me a free (and pretty nice) t-shirt promoting the notion that there’s a shortage of their bourbon, and that I’d better stock up. Then about a month later, they sent me an oak bunghole cap. Yes, an actual bunghole cap, a bunghole being the aperture through which a whiskey cask can be filled or emptied. (“Bunghole,” of course, makes its way in many bar conversations, though whiskey barrels is rarely the subject.) Their whiskey’s pretty durn good too.
Those bourbon guys are good! Do you think it’s the bourbon? 😉