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May 24

Getting a “thank you” for a purchase is always nice. Scott at Blankbaby had a great buying experience with a premier Philadelphia clothing store recently. But when I saw this post on Mere Cat it just blew me away. What would it take to motivate your people to be that creative with a “thank you” note. I’m going to buy something from CD Baby just because of Tony’s story. Here’s a little taste of what they said:

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Read the whole thing on Mere Cat. It’s an excellent snapshot into real motivation.There’s employee engagement, the theory, and there’s employee engagement, the practice. I’d go with a little less talking about engagement and “discretionary effort” and a helluva lot more of the kind of creativity that CD Baby used. Wow.

NB: If I had a job in a big HR organization, I’d be thinking about forwarding that CD baby note to your chief customer officer and the heads of marketing and operations right away. The price of a dull thank you and a dazzling thank you is the same.

About the Author

Frank Roche

Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.

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Charlie says:

May 25, 2007 at 9:30 am

Frank-
After reading this blog post, I was so moved that I felt I needed to do something. I hope you don’t mind, but I emailed a copy to a manufacturing outfit in China where select artisans are using traditional methods to make a series of 40-foot rice-paper banners extolling the virtues of customer communication. I have arranged with the city of Philadelphia to have them flown over Broad Street the entire month of June.

PS: I have also tattooed this manifesto on my face.

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Frank Roche says:

May 29, 2007 at 5:52 am

LOL…I was looking for the banner over the Phillies game last night.

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