A story, and some valuable lessons:

Last summer, my two-year-old son ran into the shallow end of a pool. There was no time to think, so I ran after him.

My iPhone was in my pocket.

It drowned. And permanently.

Neither blow dryer nor rice-and-baggie trick would save it.

So, off to the AT&T Store I went. The lady looked at my account and advised me it would be $700 to replace my phone, unsubsidized because I was still under contract. I’m a persuasive guy. I negotiate with CEOs and CMOs every day. But this was to no avail — the only thing this woman was empowered to do was to sell me a new iPhone for $700.

Next, I went across the street to the Apple Store, where I had heard they allow customers to replace a broken iPhone for $200. I would have been thrilled with this solution.

I got to the Genius Bar at my appointment time, and the young man listened to my story. He shined a black light at my phone to confirm it had been exposed to water. And this is what he said:

“Thank you for telling me the truth. I can’t tell you how many people come in here and tell me stories. I can do this for you once. Here is a new iPhone. Thank you.”

He reached behind him and gave me a replacement phone. He activated it and sent me on my way, utterly and insanely thrilled. The whole thing took three minutes.

Here are the lessons from this experience: 

1. Make it your priority to thrill one customer at a time. Ideally, thrill one customer per day. Why? Because it’s a wildly effective way to market. I have retold this story to hundreds of people in my private consulting projects. I have shared it with thousands of people in speeches, think tanks, and teleconferences that I host. This is the first time I’m detailing this story in writing, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that more than 10,000 people have heard about how happy Apple made me on that day.
2. When you thrill one customer, you influence hundreds and maybe thousands of others.
3. You can leverage that happy customer by notifying the media about his or her experiences. You can do this every single day if you make this an active part of your marketing story.
4. It is basically free to implement this technique into your strategy, and I can’t think of a marketing activity that generates more powerful results for companies. I’ve implemented this approach with a number of clients, and it works equally beautifully regardless of the company size and industry.
5. A lesson on empowerment: The AT&T customer service woman was empowered only to extract $700 from me for a new phone. Her job was to collect revenue. The Apple technician at the Genius Bar was empowered to make me happy. His job was to thrill me. So, empower your people, and empower yourself to make one customer per day extraordinarily happy with you.

What will you do to thrill one customer today?