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The Paprika Effect: The Brain-dead Simple Formula to Instant Customer Delight

Written by: Michael Reining

Article Overview: It takes a lot of effort and time to add customer delight to your main product items, which are your main course. When it come to the smaller things, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ as it were, if you tweak the little things first, you will create a domino effect so that by the time you reach the ‘main course’, you already have a line of fanatical customers. Think about the various components of your customer relationship. Think about a small thing that other people ignore that you can make great. What tweaks can you make? When you do those little things, you create something for your customers to form a long queue about.

The Paprika Effect: The Brain-dead Simple Formula to Instant Customer Delight

This customer delight formula is based on inspiration I got on my trip to Singapore; namely from my trip to Aston’s Grill, which is a budget western food place.

It also happens to be the only budget food place I know with a queue that goes down the length of the entire street – people queue up from end to end to eat steak – and it took us about an hour to get in!

Here’s the question: why do they have such a long queue for a budget food place? The obvious answer is, “yes, the food is great”, but beyond the generous portions and pleasant atmosphere, the first thing people talk about isn’t the steak, nor is it the service.

It’s the SIDE DISHES. The potato chips. The French fries. The baked potatoes. My friends have stories of people ordering 15 side dishes to go with a chicken chop, because the side dishes are just that great.

People are raving about the side dishes! Why? Because the French fries had paprika salt sprinkled on top of them, and people queue up for an hour down the length of the street to enter Aston’s grill. No doubt the portions are good, and so is the food, but when people think ‘Aston’s Grill’, they think paprika fries. Why?

I think this is the answer. First, take your entire customer service process –no matter the field or genre you’re in- and break it down into its components. So, for example, in a steak house, you have the waiters, the menu with French fries and other side dishes.

Next, take the seemingly most insignificant thing, and add a dash of effort to it. When you add a dash of paprika to your fries, it creates a pleasant disruption to your customer’s expectations because they haven’t seen anything like it before. When people eat the paprika fries, the place is elevated in their minds because of the tiny, extra touch. I call this the Paprika Effect.

The main problem is that it takes a bit of effort and a considerable amount of time to add customer delight to your main product items– your big offerings, which are your main course. But, when it come to the small things, the smaller battles, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ as it were, if you tweak the little things first, you will create a domino effect so that by the time you reach the ‘main course’, you already have a line of fanatical customers.

In the same manner, in the US, everyone goes to Gordon Biersch because of the ‘Gordon Biersch Garlic Fries’. It’s a very similar concept, but it’s funnier because Gordon Biersch is a micro brewery and people go there because of what they’ve done with their fries!

Let’s put it this way. When people go to a grill house, they expect good steak and decent side dishes, simply because they’re mostly paying for good steak. They get satisfied, but they don’t get delighted. Just adding paprika to the chips turns customers into fanatics who want to come back, and knock at your door again.

Joe Girard, the world’s #1 retail person, said something very simple: his strategy was to send out postcards that said, “I like you.” For example, every now and again you could send your customers a postcard that says ‘I like you’, and with it comes with a small extra bonus. It can something as simple as an audio, but is has to be totally unexpected. I emphasize on ‘customers’ because we know that if you start by giving things free, people don’t normally value it at all.

You can start immediately after they buy - you can turn people into fans right from the beginning and get rid of all the doubts they may have had. It also gets them to consume more of your products, and that in turn makes it more likely that they’ll come back to buy more. When you add that element of customer delight, your business even has the potential to go viral, a formula that Centerpointe has used quite successfully.

You can do it, too. First, you need to create and put in place a proper customer relations system. For example, make sure you have a separate buyers list. Once you have the basics in place, you can start figuring out how to add paprika because if you don’t have proper customer relationships or a proper back end, doing this might not be as effective.

Then, you can think about the various components of your customer relationship. Where can you add paprika? Think about a small thing that other people ignore that you can make great. What tweaks can you make? Instead of a .pdf file, can you send a video file instead? When you do those little things, you create something for your customers to form a long queue about.

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Article Tags: amount of time, atmosphere, baked potatoes, chicken chop, customer delight, disruption, food place, french fries, generous portions, genre, inspiration, no doubt, offerings, paprika, potato chips, queue, side dishes, steak house, waiters, western food



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