Why Your Regular Customers Should Be Treated Like Celebrities

Whether it’s for a sandwich, a coffee, or a gourmet breakfast, there are probably some food establishments you frequent on a regular basis. When customers get comfortable with these locations and get to know the employees that work there, they begin to expect the employees to recognize them right back.

TikTok user @itsmichaelmoses decided to put to the test how long it would take different restaurants, cafes, and food stands to recognize him as a ‘regular.’ His experiment required him to go to the same place at the same time every day and order the same thing. Once they had his order ready before he even had to ask for it, he would consider his mission complete.

It all started in late November when the comedian behind the trick, Michael Moses, walked into Ben’s Pizzeria in New York City and ordered one slice of the chicken bacon ranch pizza. The first couple days the server had absolutely no recognition on his face when he saw Moses approach the counter, so the customer started cracking jokes about the ranch topping hoping it would make him a more memorable pizza-lover.

On Day 7 it finally worked. Moses opened the door, made eye contact with Hernando at the counter, and before a word was exchanged had his chicken bacon ranch slice ready to eat.

Michael Moses’ viral experiment reveals just how much customers crave this same recognition. They want to walk into their favorite establishments, make eye contact with the employee they’ve seen a dozen times before, and have an unspoken bond that makes the experience feel special.

If you’re the proprietor of any establishment, you likely have (or regularly do) experience one of the three following  scenarios:

1. The client recognizes you, but you don’t recognize them.

This scenario might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to the humiliated customer.

There is a very small museum in Hoboken, New Jersey called the “Hoboken Historical Museum.” It’s an adorable space consisting of one large room with a lofted area above it. There are two older men that work there, both of them from Nassau County on Long Island, who have lived in Hoboken since their college years.

How do I know all this? Because I’ve talked to them at least a dozen times. Every time someone is visiting town, I take them to the local treasure. This quintessential small-town museum treats you to a postcard with your five-dollar admission. Visitors can even get it mailed to friends and family directly from the establishment. There are old videos, original architecture plans for the square mile town, and tons of Frank Sinatra artifacts. Every time I go in, I speak to the two people running the space and every time they say the same thing to me:

“Hi! Are you new in town?”

They are usually met with an expression of great disappointment. Not only am I not new in town, but I am probably one of the only “regulars” at this museum. Yet, they have no idea who I am. I have told them my name, we’ve connected about hobbies (beekeeping), talked about extended family that still lives on Long Island, and have even spoken about where we went to school. Yet every time I go, I have to recount the same information to them again and again.

I love the little place, but the lack of recognition definitely deters me from going more frequently. It is a humbling experience, to say the very least, to go somewhere often that feels special to you but, to them, you are just another passing face.

It doesn’t matter if they are a daily user of your product or try it once, each customer is different and should be treated as such. When you “forget” to remember customers, you treat them as just sheep in the herd. You’re telling them they aren’t special, they should not be treated specially, and they should not have a unique experience at your establishment.

Try to remember your customers by writing down the information, looking back over entry/ purchase logs at the end of the day to jog your memory, and paying attention during each interaction. It might end up being more important to the customer than you think.

2. You recognize the client but because of a negative interaction the two of you had.

Doesn’t matter where you work, there is probably a client you’ve interacted with that is known to your organization as being difficult to work with. When I was station manager at my college’s radio station, it was one of our “community DJs.”

She was an older woman who had a show once a week that played smooth jazz. She would come in early before recording her show to talk politics and complain to anyone that was sitting in the radio station office. If you pretended to be on the phone, she would wait till you were off (did not matter how long it took) to chat.

It was very challenging to work when she walked into the office with her oversized jacket and ranted about what was stressing her that day. When the not-so-admirable tactics of trying to ignore her or pretend we were busy when she came in didn’t work, we found another method to handle her speeches: predict them.

When something happened in the news, when we sent out an email blast we knew she would have comments on, when her show was having a guest speaker and she was worried about their access to the studio—we would plan to have something ready for her: A printed article, a more in-depth explanation of the email blast, a guest pass all ready in her mailbox.

She is one of the only community DJs I remember from those days and, while it might be because she was a little bit of a handful, remembering her allowed me and my team to plan around her visits. We knew when she would be arriving (within a few hours of her weekly show), and could save time and energy by simply preparing for her visits. Not only that, but she felt recognized and special by the entire team, and it made us better employees for all our community members—not just the memorable ones.

3. You recognize the client, and the client recognizes you because of positive interactions.

Ah, the sweet spot that our friend Michael Moses was shooting for.  Making jokes with the customer, sharing nice greetings, exchanging smiles. It is what every regular customer dreams of: the feeling of getting special treatment even if the only thing the employee is doing special for you is giving you a casual nod of the head.

I am grateful to have had a few of these experiences myself. When I first moved to Manhattan, I was not a happy woman. I had been living in California for the last few years and was not looking forward to the cold embrace New York was known for. The first apartment complex I lived in was right across from the m42 bus stop (a bus that runs up and down 42^nd street, pretty self-explanatory). I would take it at 7:16 AM every weekday morning to the gym. Every day was the same driver, an older man with a toothy smile.

Despite my initial assumptions that he would never remember my face out of the hundreds he saw every day, the bus driver continuously acknowledged me. When I missed a day at the gym, he would ask me the following day what happened. If he saw me running out of my apartment as he was about to depart the station, he would wait an extra minute for me (I’m sure the other passengers did not appreciate that as much as I did). When the winter holidays came around, I got him a little present with a gift card.

The bus driver and I hardly became lifelong friends, but I saw him every day and formed a bond with him. It was so flattering to be recognized and it was comforting to know someone was looking out for me—even if it was just for a ten-minute bus drive on my way to work out. Because he recognized me, I recognized him: getting him presents and being as nice as I could. Because the employee improved the customer experience, the customer improved the employee experience.

My business runs almost entirely online, how is this relevant for me?            

The examples I included here all revolve around in-person experiences, but that does not mean this employee-customer connection is impossible to achieve with an online business.  Regardless of the model your business uses, you likely have audience members, buyers, clients, and customers that keep your business moving.

Online modalities may not have the face-to-face contact that makes in-person retail so enjoyable, but they do have access to something even better: data. Online businesses know when their users log on, when their customers make purchases, which pages on the site they view, and how frequently they do it. This can help them remember their customers, prepare for their consumers, and develop rapport with the regulars.

For example, suppose you are the head of customer service for a food delivery service like DoorDash or Uber Eats. You notice that there are a few customers who, if their food is not at their home the minute the app predicts it will be, they call support.

You could just say those customers are a pain and let the customer support agents deal with them, or you could make a plan. You could ask the drivers delivering those meals to text customers when they are on the way with the order so the customer does not have to worry if their pizza is burning in an oven somewhere. Maybe you could even add five minutes to the predicted expected delivery time, helping the delivery person in case of traffic or obstructions on the route. This would build a positive relationship with the restaurant and the consumer, as well as the delivery app and the user, with minimal effort to the driver.

Furthermore, if that customer still needs support, making sure the agents have complete access to the customer’s order history and protocols for how to deal with that customer is crucial. It could be the difference between the customer starting an argument with the live agent and the customer sharing a joke with them.

After just one week of consistent orders, the employees at Ben’s Pizzeria learned enough about one of their customers to ensure he would be satisfied with his experience every time before he even had to ask for his slice. Though the process and timeline may look a little different depending on the modality of your business, the same positive employee-customer relationship is possible. It just requires a little data retention and memory skills.

Header Photo: Photo by Vitaly Sacred on Unsplash  

Photo one: Photo by Ivan Torres on Unsplash  

Photo two: Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash  

Photo three: Photo by Guusje Weeber on Unsplash  

Photo four: Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash