Charles Holland worked the soda shop fountain at the Longhorn Restaurant when I was in high school. He called it his dashboard—you know the one at a soda shop all the different flavors you could put in a soda—cherry, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla…
He was about to close one night when one of those wild seniors—I think it was Bill Owens—came into the shop and said, “Charles, how ‘bout fixing me a coke with everything in it on the dashboard?” And he did. He put every single flavor in that drink, stirred it up, and said, “Bill, here’s your dashboard special!” And Bill drank it. I think it tasted terrible. But the word got out about this special Bill Owens drink called the “dashboard special,” and everybody wanted one. In fact, if you really wanted to impress your date, you ordered a dashboard special and acted like you liked it.
Customers today are attracted to organizations willing to be bold and experiment. It signals the organization is willing to change and adapt. It also communicates they are more likely to be around in the future. No one wants to invest a good relationship in an enterprise likely to be short-lived. Look for ways to demonstrate to your customers your willingness to be unique and ingenious. You will not only elevate their loyalty and longevity, the reputation will spread as fast as a dashboard special on a Saturday night.