The High Impact of High Touch

POSTED JUNE 1, 2016 - by Dina Silver

I saw a gorgeous rocking chair in a lovely little shop in Oregon a few weeks ago.  Super comfortable, spectacular and detailed woodwork and naturally, pricey enough. The artist who makes these chairs works to order.  I couldn’t resist.  I placed an order and put my deposit down.

I expected to get notification in a couple of months that my chair was ready and would be crated and shipped and that would be that.  Instead, the artist, Kelly Hawk, emailed me, introduced himself and began sending me photos of my chair in progress– the wood for the headrest, the slats, the choices of wood that he recommended and beautiful details of how the chair will look.  I get a progress report from him every four or five days and I have never felt so delighted in a purchase, so eager to see and welcome the finished product, and most relevant to this blog post, so inclined to hire him again.

Kelly made a personal connection just because that’s how he works.  In the best sense of the word he takes things personally.  He even offered to deliver the chair personally (he lives in Washington State and I’m in Los Angeles!) if I would pay for gas and split the cost of a motel with him.  Needless to say, this guy goes the extra mile, and I am a raving fan.

Kelly and his wife drove down to LA and made an adventure of the delivery of my beautiful rocking chair.  We invited them for dinner and they stayed overnight and they headed back home the next day.  

I think the question for each of us is how to incorporate Kelly’s natural gift for deepening connection so that our staff and our customers begin to incorporate us into their lives because our connection to each other has meaning to them.

We can share our process, we can share something of ourselves, we can reach out to learn more about those to whom we provide service or product.  The more consistently and creatively we are able to bridge the anonymity that so often prevails between customer and company, the more likely we are to truly distinguish ourselves to our public and create raving fans and customers for life.