Peak's Apple and Harley-Davidson Customer Pyramids

Peak companies are a rare breed. In the last two chapters, I suggested that moving up this pyramid has a lot to do with increasing the intimacy of your customer relationships. The level of intimacy is directly correlated with the quality of the listening or empathy you're offering your customer. One thing we know from studying the Hierarchy of Needs is that what's at the peak is often intangible and priceless; yet, few companies seek the peak.

The first step in rising to the peak of the Customer Pyramid is to be willing to ask the simple yet penetrating question “What business are we in?” It may sound rhetorical, and it may elicit blank stares from your colleagues, but don't be intimidated by the stunned silence. Know that this question has helped some legendary companies climb to the peak of their customers' pyramid. But make sure to follow this question up with “What are the unrecognized needs of our customers?” Let's explore two companies that have transcended their base-line industries—computers and transportation—to rethink their business and address the unrecognized needs of their customers.

Ron Johnson was senior vice president at Apple in charge of retail stores worldwide. Before being with Apple, he was the guy who helped reposition Target into a fashionable big-box retailer by introducing designer Michael Graves' $40 teapots (previously, the most expensive Target teapot was $10). During Ron's time with Target, the company moved up the Customer Pyramid such that shopping at Target became a bit of a status symbol for those who wanted to think of themselves as smart, hip, and thrifty.

I had the pleasure of spending a morning with Ron on Apple's campus, talking about how the company used Maslow in conceptualizing the launch of its retail stores. The question Ron asked his colleagues was “What if the store is more about the higher needs of the ownership experience than the base needs of a sales transaction?” He summarized this higher need in the following way: “We will help you get more out of your Mac so you can get more out of yourself.”

There is a historical context within Apple for seeking to create higher potential for its customers. Steve Jobs' original contention was that the personal computer was a “bicycle for the mind,” giving people the ability to “explore like never before.” So, the store could meet the base expectations of a customer with the opportunity to purchase an Apple product in a nicely designed store. The customers' desires (social and esteem needs) could be met by creating a sort of clubhouse for Apple users to connect. And their unrecognized needs might be satisfied by giving Apple users the sense that they can do just about anything with their Apple product. I would also suggest that Apple provides its customers with an identity refreshment because being an Apple user means you're connected to a hip brand.

Of course, Apple's think different approach to going retail wasn't widely supported back in 2001 when it launched its first store, as many stock analysts questioned Apple's contrarian logic at a time when the tech biz was weakening. In fact, Apple decided to go retail just as Gateway was starting to close its stores and Dell was winning the personal computer war with its direct approach that had nothing to do with retail stores.

Typically, retailers who sell you the products you buy infrequently (like cars, appliances, and computers) choose low-rent locations, but Apple chose to be in highly centralized locations with expensive rent. The company designed expensive and stylish showrooms (a far cry from Radio Shack), hired noncommissioned salespeople, and provided free Internet access to anyone who entered the store. Excuse the silly pun, but Apple was going way out on a limb.

Ron told me that Apple took its cues from the hotel industry. He brought 18 friends and associates (whom he considered thought leaders) together and asked them about their ultimate service experience. Sixteen of the 18 mentioned a hotel experience, so Ron and his team patterned the Apple stores after how a hotel operates. There's a greeter at the door of the Apple stores, just like a hotel doorman. There's a Genius Bar, sort of like the old hotel bar, but instead of dispensing alcohol, these geniuses dispense practical advice about how an Apple user can get the most from their Mac or how other Apple products can be successfully integrated. Ron even had his first 10 employees spend some time observing service at Ritz-Carltons in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans because he wanted to create a “culture of service” that was unheard of in consumer technology stores.

Ron and his team launched Procare to satisfy the peak needs of Apple's customers. This program offers Apple's “most self-actualized customers” the ability to pay $99 per year for unlimited access to everything in the store, including one free hour of personal training each week. These customers end up being the company's biggest individual spenders and most avid word-of-mouth evangelists.

Given this contrarian strategy, Apple became the fastest retailer in history to reach $1 billion in sales, and it has some of the highest per-square-foot retail sales of any retailer in the world. Its price per square foot of sales is five times more productive than Best Buy. In a way, Ron Johnson likes to feel that these are “like a gift to the community while, at the same time, providing Apple a great platform for our brand.”

So, if we were to summarize the Apple Customer Pyramid, it would look something like the figure above.

How about Harley-Davidson? What does its Customer Pyramid look like? At the base of the Harley customer experience is the Rider's Edge program (now called the Riding Academy), which introduces new potential customers who don't have a motorcycle license to the bike experience. Working with its independent dealers and collaborating with each state's motor-vehicle department, Harley created an educational safety course for people to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Once you've completed your course, the dealer schedules you for a road test and lends you a bike to take the test. The total cost is low and is credited toward your purchase of a Harley motorcycle.

The social and esteem needs of the Harley enthusiast are met by the opportunity to join one of more than 1,000 Harley Owner Groups (the world's largest motorcycle club) that are perfectly suited to Harley owners' specific identity or affiliation needs. At the peak of the Harley Customer Pyramid is being able to “express yourself in the company of others,” Harley's version of identity refreshment. Self-actualized Harley customers like their bikes and enjoy the social connection, but they are truly at their peak when they're experiencing freedom of expression. That expression can manifest itself in the route a rider chooses to use, whether it be the back roads or coast side or in the way they choose to customize their bike because Harley owners regularly embellish their vehicles with grassroots folk art. This self-actualization also manifests itself in the message Harley riders send themselves by just knowing that Harley stands for being a rebel or individualist. If you want to see this Harley self-actualization on full display, go to Sturgis, South Dakota, each summer for the motorcycle rally.

Jeffrey Bleustein, the former CEO, says, “We want to fulfill the dreams of our customers through their motorcycle experience.”² Harley-Davidson is a self-actualizing (and evangelical) tribe, not just a motorcycle company. How do we know that? What other company has hundreds of its customers tattooing its logo somewhere on their body? Harley's Customer Pyramid might look like this:

Creating Your Own Customer Pyramid

Virtually any well-known company that has created an evangelistic customer base could draw its own pyramid. If you are struggling with how your company could draw a powerful pyramid, let me give you two more examples.

Consider Whole Foods Market, the world's leading natural and organic foods supermarket. Whole Foods has created a food fervor among its customers based on providing a great product at the base of the pyramid, engaged and personalized service and a real sense of community at the middle level, and a commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability at the peak. Whole Foods is a great example of how customers can feel self-actualized by supporting a company that is committed to a cause. The figure below depicts my interpretation of what their Customer Pyramid might look like.

But Whole Foods' former co-CEO Walter Robb suggested to me that this model needs to acknowledge that what's at the top of the pyramid may vary depending on which set of customers you're talking about. Whole Foods stores are serving three primary customers: (1) those who live a natural or organic lifestyle, (2) those who might consider themselves foodies, and (3) those who are mission-driven and choose the companies they buy from that match their worldview. Robb believes that the peak of their Customer Pyramid is being “a place to help you become what you want to be,” which is very Maslovian. So, if you're a foodie, the peak would be feeling that Whole Foods helps you become even more knowledgeable and proficient as a food connoisseur. On the other hand, the fact that the company has an environmentally sustainable mission might satisfy the other two market segments. Robb's point is a good one. Your customers aren't monolithic; therefore, your pyramid needs to be adaptable depending on which customers you're talking about and their changing tastes.

Come to think of it, Joie de Vivre's brand and its individual hotels don't have the same customer pyramid. The base of JdV's brand pyramid would be California flavor at good value. The middle would be a unique, localized experience, maybe with a socially popular restaurant or bar on site. At the peak would be delivering identity refreshment. But, for an individual hotel like the small, 26-room Petite Auberge, the details would be more specific. The base is an affordable, safe, and quiet Union Square location. The middle is an opportunity to meet other guests at the plentiful breakfast or evening wine hour, both free to guests. And the top of the pyramid would be the specific adjectives that define this hotel's identity refreshment (as well as some services, amenities, or décor that deliver this): European, cultured, sensible, calm, and coquettish.

Let me show you one more customer pyramid based upon conversations I've had with WeWork vice-chair Michael Gross. Founded in 2010, WeWork is the leading global shared work-space company that provides collaborative office space, community, and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, small businesses, and now Fortune 500 enterprises. Some observers might suggest they're a real estate company but their pyramid suggests differently. They've done such an impressive job of both creating a quality experience for their members and putting dots on the map (roughly 200 locations globally by year-end 2017) that their private market valuation is now more than $18 billion. The meet expectations base would be defined by work: the quality of the spaces that their members use, the flexibility of not having to sign a long-term lease, and the affordability of paying for things like group meeting spaces only when you need them.

WeWork's meet desires middle would be defined by a combination of ambience, services, and network. WeWork is well known for the quality of services they provide as well as the collegial nature of the design of their spaces. This design fosters connecting with locals who might be able to provide you with graphic design, legal, or branding services, and access to major metropolitan markets globally to tap into their local WeWork locations and networks. This is particularly appealing to the growing number of global nomads who need just a good WiFi connection, their laptop, and a smartphone to do business anywhere. Plus, like Holiday Inn offered in the early days of the hotel chains, a member—who may be new to coworking spaces—can appreciate the familiarity and predictability that WeWork offers in their spaces globally.

Finally, at the “meet unrecognized needs” peak of the pyramid is “thrive” or the sense that WeWork helps you to create your life's work, not just make a living. Part of the way WeWork accomplishes this self-actualizing differentiation is fostering community and interpersonal camaraderie by being the largest events company in the world (more than 19,000 events in their spaces in 2016). Whether through their trademark “Lunch and Learn” or wellness classes or social events, there is a strong sense of community connected by common values of passion, open-mindedness, and ambition. So, the WeWork pyramid would look like the one shown below.

Think of just about any company that's at the top of its game, and you'll find that it's scaled the peak of its own Customer Pyramid. Nordstrom, Zappos, In-N-Out Burger, Amazon, Google, Airbnb, Trader Joe's, Dyson—these companies follow business plans that have deviated from the norm. But they haven't done this just to be different. Whether it's been a conscious part of their business strategy or not, these companies have moved up the Customer Pyramid by addressing the unrecognized higher needs of their customers. Companies that create self-actualized customers inspire true devotion and evangelism.

Understanding the Unrecognized Needs of Your Customer

New York–based supermarket chain Wegmans has built a loyal following and was named Fortune's number one “Best Company to Work For” in 2005. Company CEO Danny Wegman recognizes that the company's success is due to its “near-telepathic sense of customer service.” He says, “Focus groups will tell you what they want to shop for, but that isn't enough anymore. Today, it is a retailer's job not only to deliver what the customers want, but also what they'd never think to ask for.”³

So how do you get inside the head of your customer? Go out and buy Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman's insightful book How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. Zaltman believes that most companies think their customers make consumer decisions in a linear or hierarchical way, but he writes, “Figuratively speaking, they [the customers] don't experience a cake by sampling a sequence of raw ingredients. They experience fully baked cakes.” He goes on to say that consumers' buying behavior is driven more by unconscious (or unrecognized) thoughts because 95 percent of thought, emotion, and learning happen without our conscious awareness. Zaltman says, “The more skilled companies are at listening to customers, the more effective their marketing strategies will be in establishing the value of the firm's offerings.”⁴ But his idea of listening is at a subconscious level.

This book helped me to understand there are metaphors or mantras that underpin the purchase decision our guests make when they choose our boutique hotels. Essentially, in making a purchase decision, our Hotel Vitale customer is sending a message to herself like “I'm not getting older, I'm getting better.” This is because Vitale reaches out to the guest who has outgrown the hipper boutique hotels but is not yet ready for the more formal and stodgy luxury hotels (what we call our “post-W, pre–Four Seasons” guest). It isn't just that they're getting their identities refreshed; these guests are also creating a story about themselves based on the purchases they make. Apple and Harley customers clearly also have subconscious mantras.

After your crash course in mind reading from Professor Zaltman, you need to channel a little Margaret Mead. Cultural anthropologist Mead did her groundbreaking research studying the behaviors of people on the distant corners of the planet. My sister was an anthropology major in college, and I was always intrigued with the subject but felt it wasn't practical enough for the business world. Boy, was I wrong!

Consider Richard Hayne, cofounder and CEO of Urban Outfitters, a company that has demonstrated a remarkable knack of completely understanding the nature of its 18-to-30-year-old “upscale homeless,” whose purchasing behavior is driven less by their home lives and more by their social lives. Hayne was educated and trained as an anthropologist. Maybe that explains why he named his next retail chain Anthropologie, which became a hit, with more than 100 stores perfectly suited for the sophisticated 30-to-45-year-old woman who has a “natural curiosity about the world.” William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre write in Mavericks at Work that Hayne went on a “cultural odyssey” for two years with architect Ron Pompei to understand the nature of this customer. The result of their research “translated into a retail concept that was as much about human behavior as about purchasing behavior.”⁵

We have a modern word to describe anthropology as applied to your customer: ethnography. This practice has become very popular: many of America's largest companies have hired a fleet of ethnographers in-house to study the behavior and minds of their customers.

Ethnographers closely observe people where they live and work, which allows companies to zero in on their customers' unarticulated desires. Intuit, the dominant retail software company for tax preparation and small-business accounting, is well known for its sleuthing skills, and they even have a cute name for this ethnography practice: a “follow me home.” Intuit's follow-me-home team looks for “pain points” or surprises that arise from customers using their products. In Fortune magazine, founder Scott Cook said he discounted initial research showing that its Quicken software for individuals was being used by small businesses. But once he dispatched employees to visit users at home or work, he came to savor the surprise that Intuit's new QuickBooks product could be customized for small businesses. Cook is such a believer in this sort of ethnography that in 2003, Intuit's QuickBooks division sent more than 500 employees on follow-me-home assignments for three days.

In the book Priceless, Diana LaSalle and Terry Britton cite an example of how ethnographers from Kimberly-Clark spent time in their customers' homes and “discovered that parents didn't consider diapers a disposable product as the company thought, but an article of clothing. This discovery gave the product a whole new dimension in terms of looks as well as pricing, but more important, it uncovered hidden value. By observing and then talking to parents, the company learned that the adults saw pull-on diapers as a positive step toward more mature behavior and very useful in the potty-training process.”⁶ Kimberly-Clark came to realize its product was part of an unrecognized rite of passage for both children and parents, which led it to launch the successful Huggies Pull-Ups with an “I'm a big kid now” theme.

Can't afford an ethnographer on staff? Neither can we. Consider other ways to get inside the heads of your customer. I know a hotel company that gave its guests disposable cameras and asked them to photograph things they considered “magical” or “dreary” at its property. Then, at the end of the guest's stay, a hotel manager would meet with the guests to hear their vivid stories and observations about what worked at the hotel—and what didn't. Or the example from marketing professor Barry Bayus, who cites a study that Konica did with its customers in his fascinating paper “Understanding Customer Needs.” Konica found that its customers asked for only minor improvements to their existing camera models, but Konica's team went to commercial photo-processing labs to investigate the actual prints taken by customers. They found blurry images, under- and overexposure, and blank film rolls, which suggested that the customers had latent needs they weren't expressing to Konica's researchers. This led to Konica making a series of product improvements from auto focus to built-in flashes to automatic film rewinding.

In sum, my job requires that I not just be an amateur psychologist but also a budding sociologist. I love that Eureka! moment when I feel like I've truly understood the zeitgeist of a certain niche of the population. The last hotel I created, my fifty-second one, was in downtown Palo Alto, surrounded by tech start-ups and innovation labs. It was clear that many of the guests who would be coming to stay at this new hotel were looking for a moment of serendipity that could help them channel a breakthrough creative idea. We called the hotel The Epiphany (now rebranded as a Nobu) and designed the décor and collection of services to create the conditions for people to feel they could have mulitiple aha moments. The Epiphany became so successful that Oracle founder Larry Ellison bought the hotel just a little over a year after it launched.

Four Themes at the Top of the Customer Pyramid

How do you create a self-actualized customer? Once you've plumbed the depths of your customers' unrecognized needs, it's time to consider which of four themes you will pursue to help create self-actualization. Some companies, like Apple, are able to engage with their customers using all four of these themes, but most companies are lucky if they can connect on just one.

1. Help your customers meet their highest goals. Apple does this with its Procare service. Nike hints at this with its “Just Do It” motto, as does Home Depot with its “You can do it. We can help.” Lululemon Athletica offers a free tool, aptly named “goaltender” for setting and tracking one-, five, and ten-year goals for your career, personal life, and health. When a company can comprehensively assist customers to reach their highest goals, it has built a deeply engaged relationship.

   Google is a splendid example of this theme. In a New York Times article, “Planet Google Wants You,” Donna Hoffman, a University of California researcher who studies online consumer behavior, says Google “literally augments your brain. I don't have to remember quite a few things now because Google can remember them for me. Google is an additional memory chip.”⁷ But Google's success is also a function of the vast array of products—from Gmail to Google Calendar to Google Earth—it is creating to assist you in your life without adding complication. One Web designer was quoted in the Times article as saying that Google's elegant simplicity allows her to impose her own personality on the site while most other websites are full of clutter and blinking ads. This designer, Toni Carreiro, says that other sites have all this animation going on, but “I just want my stuff. That's what Google gives you—‘me.’” When a customer defines the product or service as a positive extension of herself, you've got to believe there's a little self-actualization going on in the relationship.

   Bank of America's “Keep the Change” savings program is another example of how a company can create a self-actualizing program for its customers by helping them reach their goals. In 2004, the company hired a firm to do ethnographic research on boomer-age women with children to understand how to get this consumer segment to open new checking and savings accounts. It learned two key insights: first, these women regularly round up their transactions because it makes the math easier in their checkbook; and second, the women were having a difficult time saving money. Keep the Change was the successful outgrowth of these findings. Here's how the program works: the amount consumers spend on each transaction of their Bank of America debit cards is rounded up to the nearest whole dollar, and the difference is transferred from their checking account into an interest-earning savings account each evening. The bank will match a portion of the amount saved with an annual limit. This program, which really was a form of customer mind reading, has created more than billions in savings for its old and new customers because it's easy to understand (sort of like an electronic change jar) and didn't require any dramatic change in the customers' behaviors. And Bank of America looks like a star, as it becomes an enabler of its customers' dreams rather than a barrier to their achievements, which is the way that many customers feel about their bankers.

2. Give your customers the ability to truly express themselves. The Apple iconoclastic halo effect makes its users feel special and unique. Harley-Davidson helps small-town middle-aged accountants feel like rebels. Joie de Vivre helps our customers express themselves with our approach to creating identity refreshment. If buying your product helps your customers to get in touch with a higher vision of themselves, you are helping to facilitate a peak experience.Peter van Stolk started Jones Soda Company (originally called Urban Juice and Soda) the same year I started Joie de Vivre in 1987. On his company's website (www.jonessoda.com) van Stolk previously wrote, “Jones was developed with the mindset that the world does not need another soda, so it is imperative that consumers feel that Jones is theirs.” This little company has grown its sales primarily because of the unorthodox ways it connects with its youthful customers. Jones invites its customers to create home-designed advertisements for its products, and it places thousands of expressive customer photos on the labels of its soft drinks. Van Stolk explained, “The photo labeling is important to Jones because it allows our consumers to be involved in the brand, thus giving everyone a sense of ownership. This is critical for Jones because it truly allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and create an emotional connection that in my opinion is the essence of the brand.”

   Visitors to the Jones website can rate customer label submissions on a one-to-five scale, and the company selects about 50 winning photos each week. These winners get to see their photo on labels in stores across North America. Jones has received millions of photos from customers with a fraction of these appearing on its website.

   While Jones has created a way for its young customers to express themselves, Starbucks has taken on a curator role for its slightly affluent, middle-aged customer base. The company has morphed from being the creator of America's luxury coffee experience to becoming the purveyor of a premium-blend culture based on the music, books, and films it is recommending in its stores. Thomas Hay, a 48-year-old contractor from Hartsdale, New York, says Starbucks helps him by editing down his cultural choices. He's quoted in the New York Times saying that the entertainment purchases he makes at Starbucks give him the impression that “some people of caring hearts and minds have looked at this and felt it was worthwhile and beneficial and would create a good vibe in the world.”⁸

   Howard Schultz, the founder and executive chair of Starbucks, believes that curating a lifestyle for his core customers “adds to the emotional connection with the customer” and keeps the Starbucks experience from feeling “antiseptic.” The Times article goes on to say that Starbucks executives describe the goal of the company's cultural extensions to be creating a sense of discovery for its customers. “Customers say one of the reasons they come is because they can discover new things—a new coffee from Rwanda, a new food item. So extending that sense of discovery into entertainment is very natural for us,” says Anne Saunders, senior vice president of global brand strategy and communications for Starbucks.

   So, if Starbucks created a Customer Pyramid, it would probably have premium product at the base level, providing a “third place” to connect with community or being recognized by my barista on the middle level, and creating a sense of discovery at the peak of its pyramid. Starbucks is acting as the curator for customers to express themselves through their beverage and lifestyle purchases.

3. Make your customers feel like they're part of a bigger cause. Guy Kawasaki, former senior Apple exec and author of Rules for Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services, says, “Macintosh started as a vision; then it became a product supported by a cult; finally, it became a cause—propagated by thousands of Macintosh evangelists.”⁹ TOMS “One for One” business model means when you're buying shoes, sunglasses, or apparel from them, they are reciprocating with similar goods to someone in need somewhere else in the world. In his later years, Maslow expanded his Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid from five to eight levels, with the highest level being self-transcendence, the almost spiritual sense of being on this planet for something beyond your own personal needs.

   Running their company like a community has created enthusiasm for socially responsible brands like Ben & Jerry's, The Body Shop, Clif Bar, Benetton, Kenneth Cole, and Timberland. But few companies do it better than Patagonia. Since 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1 percent of its annual sales to organizations that are helping to preserve and restore the natural environment. More recently, Patagonia helped create “1% for the Planet,” an alliance of hundreds of businesses that are following Patagonia's lead in donating 1 percent of their revenues to environmental causes. Check out Patagonia's website (www.patagonia.org), and you'll see how this company engages its customers (“Patagoniacs”) to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. This sense of being committed to a cause greater than themselves—even in the pursuit of consumerism—helps Patagonia customers feel more fulfilled. And it gives them motivation to evangelize about the company.

   Do you have to be perceived as a do-gooder brand to be able to connect your customers to a greater cause? No. Macy's flagship store in New York has held unique product presentations as a means of giving back. Instead of the typical demonstrations from suppliers hawking their wares, Macy's has brought in stately African widows to weave baskets that customers line up to buy. Hundreds of these African women are escaping poverty by selling baskets in this business partnership with Macy's. This is no charity. It is a win-win-win relationship that creates goodwill for Macy's, a good life for the women, and a good vibe (and entertainment) for the shoppers, especially once they learn each woman's unique story.

4. Offer your customers something of real value that they hadn't even imagined. Apple launched the iPod, which gave people a choice they didn't even know would ever exist. The Geek Squad offers a theatrical experience that punctuates a typical day's monotony and a frustrating day's tech woes.

   Jet Blue created a disruptive innovation with its launch of DirecTV service on all its flights. This brilliant offering allowed Jet Blue customers the ability to customize their in-flight entertainment and to have a bit of control in an environment in which they're completely out of control (being strapped down in tight quarters for hours at a time). Jet Blue created a peak experience for its customers, and this created nightmares for its competitors. On an Air Canada flight, the woman in the seat next to me asked the flight attendant about the choices of movies during a long flight. When the flight attendant mentioned the innocuous movie that was to be played (and then went to fetch the tape so we could read a little bit about it), my neighbor threw a fit and screamed, “Why are you treating us like cattle and forcing us to watch a single movie all at the same time?…Don't you know that Jet Blue got this whole thing figured out years ago?!” A bit of an overreaction, but perhaps my seatmate was irritated because some brilliant exec at Air Canada made the decision to start charging for pillows and blankets (yes, that's right) on their flights, yet flight attendants were giving headsets away for free (so we could listen to the movie we didn't want to watch). Who came up with that set of priorities for a long flight? Air Canada could use a Customer Pyramid to clarify the base and higher needs of its customers.

   Or how about Progressive Insurance, one of the fastest-growing auto insurers in the nation? It's delivered on a couple of unrecognized needs for its customers. Think of what happens when you're in a car crash with another driver. You're disoriented, maybe a little upset, and possibly it's not even clear whose fault it was. Progressive was the first insurer to promise it would have one of its adjusters on site within two hours of being notified. The adjuster is able to evaluate your damage and give you a check on the spot to save you all the hassles associated with the bureaucracy of dealing with your insurance company. Furthermore, Progressive's approach to quoting auto insurance rates for potential customers is completely unconventional but very convenient for the consumer. Progressive will quote its rates right next to the rates of the top three other insurers in that local market, even if Progressive's rates aren't the lowest. This idea sprouted within Progressive not because its customers were asking for it but because Progressive's CEO Peter Lewis was a college classmate of consumer advocate Ralph Nader—and Ralph suggested it.

   Sometimes the companies that will surprise you may be right in your own neighborhood. There's a healthy raw-foods chain of restaurants in California that I frequent called Cafe Gratitude. You probably won't find a place like this in Wichita, but we can all learn something from how this restaurant has trained its staff in a truly unconventional manner. When a server shares the special of the day with customers, he or she also asks a provocative question of the day (which changes daily) intended to awaken the customers' awareness of why they should be grateful. Owners Matthew and Tercis Engelhart shared a story with me about when two women customers were asked the question of the day “Who would you like to acknowledge in your life today?” Both women's eyes filled with tears as one of the women said to the other, “I would like to acknowledge her for performing open heart surgery on me!” Most customers don't have quite that moment of synchronicity, but a question of the day can offer an unexpected, deep conversation starter between the partners in a meal on a subject that may allow them to experience a little joie de vivre. Any restaurant that can help foster that kind of dining experience is at the top of my pyramid.

An interesting study entitled “To Do or to Have? That Is the Question” was highlighted in the book Let Them Eat Cake (which is recommended at the end of Chapter Eight). The researchers conducted three different kinds of experiments and found that nearly 60 percent of the consumers they interviewed believed intangible experiences make them happier than tangible material possessions. The researchers wrote, “A person's life is quite literally the sum of his or her experiences. The accumulation of rich experiences thus creates a richer life. The same cannot be said of material possessions. As important and gratifying as they sometimes are, they usually remain ‘out there,’ separate from the individual who attained them.”¹⁰ Interestingly, the more wealthy the household, the higher the ratings for experiential happiness, which seems to suggest that customers, once they've had their base needs satisfied, look for more intangible and unrecognized benefits farther up the pyramid. If you can deliver on those higher needs, you may very well create a customer evangelist for life. This is part of the reason why Airbnb expanded in 2016 from being just an accommodations company to offering travelers the opportunity to connect with locals through bespoke experiences.