Value-added has long been the service solution for the best-of-class service providers. They take what customers expect and add a little more.

Chip Bell, award-winning author, speaker, and consultant on customer service, thinks its time to up the game:

It’s time for value-unique service.

Value unique is different from value-added. It is not about addition – “they gave me more than I anticipated.” It is about a unique and unexpected creation. If your team members are asked to pleasantly surprise customers by creating unique experiences, they feel prized.     – Chip Bell

Bell’s book The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service is your instruction manual and inspirational guide to providing an experience that causes your Guests to be surprised, smile, and sing your praises to others.

On the ninth day of Christmas Guest Experiences, your Guest Experience peers give to you:

9 Principles of Innovative Guest Experiences

1. Put a surprise inside – design Guest experiences that constantly astonish and amaze.
2. Connect with respect – deliver Guest experiences with an extra helping of sincerity, an enduring act of benevolence, and a genuine interest in making a difference for your Guest.
3. Elevate the class – create processes and systems for your Guest experiences that ensure red carpet treatment.
4. Put total sense into service – what should your Guest experience smell like-sound like-feel like-look like-taste like if you wanted to create an experience not easily forgotten?
5. Before and beyond service – anticipate Guest needs before they arrive.
6. Hardwire wisdom into service – look for chances in your Guest experience that can be turned into opportunities for learning.
7. Monogram the moment – display the upbeat attitude you want your Guests to have.
8. Effort removal squared – examine all Guest experience processes through your Guest’s eyes and find ways to remove angst where needed.
9. Turn an oops into an opportunity – understand, empathize and mine the Guest’s expectations until a good solution is found.

The more principles you can appropriately build into your Guest’s experience, the more likely it will be experienced as exceptional rather than expected, remarkable rather than routine.     – Chip Bell

inspired by and adapted from The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service by Chip Bell