5 Lessons in Customer Success from Donuts

Last week my wife and I(mostly my wife) made about 300 donuts that we delivered to 60 of our friends and neighbors. It’s an annual holiday tradition that goes back to my wife’s childhood days. The concept is simple, make fresh homemade donuts and personally deliver them to neighbors and friends wishing them well through the holidays. As we baked, cooked and delivered plates of warm donuts, a few parallels to customer success came to mind.

Preparation

Making donuts is time consuming and requires preparation. It takes roughly 6 hours to make, knead and raise the dough before you can cook. Like making donuts, good customer engagement requires preparation. Customers can tell they are important to you by how prepared you come to meetings and on-site events. Take time to learn about your customers before you pick up the phone or walk in their door.

Face to Face Interactions

Delivering the donuts and wishing our friends happy holidays is the most enjoyable part of the process. It’s important to talk to customers frequently and find opportunities to meet face to face. Many times we can’t remember the content of meetings but we remember the interactions.

Customer Delight (Tastes good)

Delighting customers is enjoyable but it goes beyond ensuring your product is working as promised or demoing a new product. It means being available, listening and even surprising them at times.

Immediate Response

This year was more unique than previous years primarily due to immediate responses sent by our friends soon after consuming the donuts. What a great feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment to receive a near instant response of appreciation. Are you responding quickly to your customers? Are you showing appreciation?

People Want More

Every year we have people who ask us when we are making donuts, not only do they remember them but they also look forward to having them again. One of our friends actually asked us when we would be doing it next year so they could block their calendar. When you genuinely delight customers they will want more which will likely lead to easier conversations when renewal periods arise.