Passionate Users is really a great blog. The posts are a bit long-ish, but they have tremendous insight into the customer experience.
Kathy Sierra, one of the site's authors, relates a story about having to choose between practical and fabulous eyeglasses at a store where she has shopped for years. She went with the practical ones, and the optician ordered both for her, with the funky ones as a complimentary thank-you for all her past business.
"Oh, I talked to my wife last night about you, and you've been such a great customer that we decided you might want to have some fun... so we went ahead and made those purple ones for you as well. They're on us."
For the author, this was not just about the thank you, or the complimentary freebie, it was about the emotional high from the whole connection. Worth a read, and will make you wonder how you can do more to acknowledge your own loyal customers.
The comments are also worth a look, as they get into the debate about whether such treatment needs to be consistently offered or not.
