There’s a hotel chain in California that takes the time to understand their customers preferences and tastes, matches paintings displayed and music played to fit that customer. Spas do that. What can you do to customize your product or service to your customer?

Let me give you some examples:

Example #1: When I stay at a Ritz-Carlton for a business conference, and set the alarm clock to wake up to the radio— it doesn’t play rap music and isn’t on a Spanish-speaking station. The Marriott, Hyatt and Sheraton are not like this. They haven’t thought about these customer profile preference details. The radio stations are usually left on the station of whoever cleans the room.

Example #2: When I go to Hertz to rent a car, it is set ideally for the demographic of whoever rents that type of car… mine is business account through the company. When I rent a car from Dollar, I get the favorite station of the person who cleaned or drove the car, and it is usually set for a music genre and a volume that is would not fit my business profile.

Also, rental car companies need to provide a hanger for your suit coat and an umbrella on rainy days. How expensive is a wire hanger? What if you had a box of hangers at the rental car location for business people?

The rental car radio could be set at:

Level 1- a variety of pre-set music

Level 2- ask me my preferences, and when the car gets washed, pre-set the radio stations to my preferences

Example #3: The other day, I went to Sbarro for breakfast at the airport, and the bacon wasn’t done. I asked if they could cook it more, and they said “no”…. just a flat-out “No, we don’t that.” “Would you like sausage instead?” I said “no, thanks.” I took my business elsewhere. Then, when I finally sat down to enjoy my breakfast in the food court area, there were two baggage handlers with the volume way up on their radios (walkie-talkies) blaring and disrupting everyone else. They weren’t even listening to the radios and raised the volume of their voices to talk over the blaring. Anxious to get out of there, I quickly finished my meal and headed to my gate. The Southwest flight was peaceful. The flight attendants smile, have fun, chitchat with you, and remember if you want cream with your coffee. It was like night and day from what I had experienced earlier that morning.

Southwest knows their customers have busy, hectic lives and that travel can be stressful, so they do their best to make it a relaxing, enjoyable experience for their customers.

Again, what can you do to customize your product or service to your customers?