Dave Morin

Under promise, over deliver. A mantra often talked about, but rarely executed. If you do this, your customers will love you, rave about you, tell ALL of their friends about you. Fortunately, there aren’t many people, businesses, or companies that can effectively and consistantly do this. That means, if you do, you’ve got an advantage.

There is a chinese restaurant in the Marina in San Francisco called Feng Shui. It’s on Lombard Street, facing south. If you’ve ever been to San Francisco you’d know that the Marina stretch of Lombard is one of the busiest streets in the entire city. All of the traffic coming off of the Golden Gate flows through Lombard. Feng Shui is on the north side, right in the middle, in an awkward location. Every time I walk by, or stop in to eat, they rarely have a soul eating inside the restaurant.

Where are all of the people?

How are they still in business?

They deliver. They deliver fast. Really, really…fast. They deliver so fast, its almost ridiculous. They also have incredible food. When you call, they take your order, make sure they know the cross streets, and let you pay with cash or a credit card. They also tell you it’ll be “about 30 minutes.” I’ve timed them. The last 5 times, they’ve delivered in under 10 minutes. They also make sure their menus are well designed, and carefully placed on every door in Cow Hollow and the Marina.

Chinese food is about delivery. Everyone loves having chinese food delivered. So, if your business’ global brand is about delivery, and the number of restuarants in a large city practically makes your food a commodity. How do you get people to rave? Tell them it’ll be 30 minutes.

Then show up in under 10. Every time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005 at 4:27 pm and is filed under General. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.