Thread by @intentionally

This is the Magic Castle Hotel, considered by many to be the best hotel in Los Angeles.

It looks like an average apartment complex with a small pool.

And yet it has over 3500 glowing reviews on TripAdvisor and is routinely booked months in advance.

How did they do it? 🧵

There's a red phone and a sign on the left side of the pool. That sign says "POPSICLE HOTLINE".

When you call it, a waiter comes out with free popsicles on a a silver tray.

They have a “Candy Bar” where you can order free candy and snacks.

They do your laundry for free. Wrapped in butcher paper, with lavender.

The Magic Castle knew it couldn't compete with the Ritz Carltons of the world on their own terms.

But it didn't have to. They decided to go all in on customer delight instead.

There’s a great book called The Discipline of Market Leaders. It argued there are 3 ways to win:

1) Have the best product.
2) Be most operationally efficient.
3) Excel at customer intimacy.

All 3 are viable. The first two can be hard to pull off. But EVERYONE can do #3.

The bar is so low - all it takes is empathy for your customer, a willingness to think outside the box, and a skill for operationalizing delight at scale to deliver an amazing experience, every single time.

How can you create a Magic Castle experience in your own organization?

(P.S. if you'd like help designing your own Magic Castle Experience, I've run workshops for organizations on how to do exactly that. DM me for details.)