The Devil, Details and Your Domino's Pizza

When we last spoke, I talked about Mitch Joel's "little big things" post and I said that while the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the net effect of how the whole "feels" is important, too.  And it's because of the attention to the little parts that makes the "whole" what it is.  There was this lovely quote from Marco Arment that was in this post:

"...I learned the value of giving people little delights... You can do the same thing with any business...  I try to find new and tiny ways to delight my customers. They may not notice, but it helps drive goodwill and makes your product remarkable."

I then spent the rest of the post talking about Butterball and its annual Turkey Talk-Line and said that we're not buying a product so much as we're buying confidence, joy, excitement and any other emotion because that product or service alleviates a (hunger) pain or solves a problem.  The delights from the Talk-Line distinguish the Butterball brand from another and every time we want to make turkey anything, we'll remember that brand experience when we're in the poultry aisle at the market.

All of this brings me to Ramon DeLeon who is the Domino's Pizza Guy To Know not only in Chicago but internationally as well.  You've all either heard of Ramon, seen him in person or heard him speak on a webinar.  You've heard his Tweetable Facts, too.  Here are some refreshers:

• I cannot make money selling pizzas for One Dollar, but I can make money off the conversation it generates.
• My Goal is to get Customers addicted to the Domino’s Pizza Experience!
• My Goal is to promote my customers.

As you know, Ramon has multiple anecdotes where he has surprised and delighted many a customer which are #RamonWOW moments.  A recent one involved sending pizza to a hungry pregnant lady within an hour of her tweeting that she was hungry.  As you know, I'm all about surprise and delight moments and it's a thrill to see them unfold when they're done well.  And that one was done spectacularly well!

What Ramon and his dedicated employees are doing has absolutely nothing to do with pizza.  It's about the relationship that they build with customers every time an order is placed.  It doesn't matter if it's the first or fiftieth, each order is yet another opportunity to make that customer feel special, appreciated and "smart" for ordering a pizza from them as opposed to competitors.  Even when an order isn't fulfilled, swift action is taken to restore confidence and repair the potential damage to the relationship.  

And why all this effort?  It's because he understands that but for these customers, he would not exist.  Every opportunity can either have huge upside or downside unless careful attention is paid to every detail of the transaction.  One other look at the Tweetable Facts reinforces this.  Every #RamonWOW moment that gets shared takes a sometimes simple loss leader strategy and transforms it into a windfall that travels in concentric circles.

Let's hear it from the man himself.  Here's Amir with Ramon after we heard him speak the other day:

If you think about it, Ramon's creativity in delivering unexpected delights where possible to bring a smile to someone's face is a series of "little big things" that have made him a success not unlike Butterball's Talk-Line.  We can all do right by our customers if we have the desire.

Parissa Behnia
Idea Chef

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