While I don't bemoan this man his steak, this kind of things increasingly bothers me.<p>On the internet I sometimes get the impression that "everyone" has cute things like this happen to them. When you dig, it often turns out, like this, the person is big in PR or some related field.<p>It can get easy to forget that 99(.99?)% of the people regularly on the internet aren't getting free stuff, lighting up twitter, hitting the front page of reddit, etc.<p>From the article:<p>"I don’t think it’s about my follower numbers. I think it’s about Morton’s knowing I’m a good customer, who frequents their establishments regularly. "<p>I am 100% convinced this is not true. I'm sure if I (with 15 twitter followers) had posted something similar there would be no chance of something similar happening.
I respectfully counter this 'greatest' customer service story with the story of Katie the Prefect:<p>"A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about our plans to take our daughters -- particularly our nine-year-old Elizabeth -- to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Orlando. I worried, I suppose, that nothing surprising and magical would happen. Well, as it turned out, something surprising and magical did happen."<p><a href="http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/01/katie-prefect.html" rel="nofollow">http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/01/katie-prefect.html</a>
"I was catching a 7am flight out of Newark to Tampa, Florida, for a lunch meeting in Clearwater, then heading back to Newark on a 5pm flight, getting me in around 8:10pm, and with any luck, to my apartment by 9 or so. We all have days like that, they happen from time to time."<p>I don't have days like that, and neither should anyone else. With modern communication systems, flying in airplanes to lunch meetings and flying back that night is such an absurd waste of resources it qualifies as obscene. The fact that an expensive steakhouse decided to pull a cheap PR stunt by delivering a free steak to the airport to some well-known Big Shot is less obviously wasteful, but still a repellent manifestation of gratuitous luxury.<p>People within the cocoon of the upper percentiles of wealth often have a sense of how they are perceived by others, and usually take some care to disguise their self-satisfaction. It is always educational to get a glimpse into the mental world of extreme privilege.
These sort of "social media success" stories need to stop.<p>As many here have pointed out, this was a marketing/PR stunt, because they know exactly who Peter Shankman is and what he would do in response. It's a no brainer from Morton's perspective to give him a free steak in this case.<p>But is this a "social media success" story in customer service? No. They gave a famous person a freebie. For free positive PR.<p>If you follow Peter in the slightest way, you know he has this happen to him all the time.
tl;dr one of the most famous people in the PR industry with over 100k Twitter followers gets a free steak after he jokingly asks for one on Twitter.<p>Still, well played by Morton's and well-earned following I believe.
I think those pointing to his follower count are missing the point. Morton's has established what sounds like a pretty great CRM for their customers. I'd be really interested to know how they're set up.<p>We live in an age where everyone is a media creator. Instead of spending money on mass advertising campaigns (spray 'n pray) with little lasting value, this type of customer service is like launching smart bombs that target actual customers and the people around them. This story & pictures is now in the internet -- it will be around forever. Is that worth the drive from Hackensack? I bet it is.<p>I think the question we should be asking ourselves is how can we be this awesome for our customers every day?
Great story! This happened to a coworker of mine who was traveling KLM. His flight was slightly delayed and mentioned that and that he was flying KLM. He was met in Amsterdam at the gate with a book about the Tour de France (they had checked his profile to see he was a sports fanatic), and surprised him. Then again. KLM has a good social media team too, and they do several stunts like that a day sometimes. They have a website <a href="http://surprise.klm.com/" rel="nofollow">http://surprise.klm.com/</a> that lists al their surprises.
Pretty disappointed by the assessment by the HN crowd.<p>I find it interesting how strong cynicism has crept into our social ideology. It's almost like a social darwinian requirement nowadays. You can't be happy about an interesting situation because it is, at some level, linked to some sort of marketing directed towards you. At least that's the perception, thanks to the Internet.<p>And thus, you are angry. Rawr. Upset that _you_ are the victim of some kind of marketing stunt. Travesty!<p>So an interesting and unique deed--whether the person was truly deserving because of some arbitrary, subjective parameters placed on the recipient--is thrown the curb because the cynical perception is since it's talked about, it's marketing, and therefore it needs to be discredited.<p>Bravo, HN community. Bravo! But I don't blame you. I just blame the social media tools on the Internet that half of us are building.
Careful.<p>Peter Shankman might direct message you on Twitter (and not follow you so you can't direct message him back) and say he expects more from you.<p>Like he did to me an hour ago.<p>Peter Shankman: "would have expected more logic from you on your hackernews comment... Morton's can put a dollar amount on this, yes. It's business."<p>Peter Shankman: "Read the comments on their website. They do this all the time for non-famous people. As does KLM. And Virgin. It's good biz."<p>Peter Shankman: "An entrepreneur should know that. :)"
I think these stories about Domino's drivers saving lives beat Morton's delivering a free steak to a lucrative customer. (Which I agree every company should do occasionally for their own best interests.):<p>Old lady doesn't place her regular order, driver takes the initiative to drive over and check on her. Sure enough, she's fallen and she can't get up:
<a href="http://consumerist.com/2011/02/dominos-delivery-driver-saves-life-of-regular-customer.html" rel="nofollow">http://consumerist.com/2011/02/dominos-delivery-driver-saves...</a><p>Psycho ex threatens to stab customer with the door open as the driver arrives, he sneaks away and calls the cops:
<a href="http://www.uhpinions.com/dominos-pizza/" rel="nofollow">http://www.uhpinions.com/dominos-pizza/</a>
That's not customer service, it's advertisement. There's a difference. When you do something to get a mention from a guy with hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers/blog readers it's marketing. If they did that for me it'd be customer service.
Great PR. You know who else would have done this, and you wouldn't have bothered to even tweet or write a blog post about it? Your mother.<p>Sounds like a best seller in the making to me, "Everything I learned about PR I learned from my mom."
The brilliant part of the logistics is that Morton's really had no risk here, other than the cost of the food itself and some time. If they didn't find him, missed his flight, etc, no biggie - they just go home, forget it, and go about their business.<p>That is the real lesson here - that it is OK to try to pull marketing stunts, especially if there is no real downside to your company in the case of failure.
The only part of the story I found rather oft-putting was the fact that he quickly dismissed the fact that Morton's did this because they knew it would be broadcast all over the interwebs.<p>The most likely explanation is that Morton's does what a lot of companies do: know exactly who their most important customers are. He just happens to be one of them.<p>As an aside, I find it funny how a guy that is too health conscious for fast food orders a 24oz steak. I love my steaks but that's a little much.<p>+1 for Morton's for sure, but -1 for the media expert not being able to realize when he's being manipulated.
Wow. A shame... So let's see... According to Hacker news... I'm:<p>1) Super Rich. (Not by a long shot.)<p>2) Horrible because I travel for a business lunch. Sorry, but in the real world, business is much more fruitful when done over a handshake, and not a pixelated image.<p>3) A celebrity. If that's the case, can you inform my cat? I just cleaned up his puke from my couch. Don't celebrities have "people" do to that?<p>4) This was a set-up. Really? I'd risk 15 years building a professional career for one stunt? Thanks for playing, but no.<p>Sad. I expected more out of y'all. But hey, it's just the Internet, right?
SF Food critic Michael Bauer says<p>"Even with items removed, the check totaled $159.05; otherwise, it would have been more than $200 for two cocktails and practically inedible food."<p><a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-09-09/entertainment/23994311_1_chicken-cutlets-morton-ruth-s-chris" rel="nofollow">http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-09-09/entertainment/23994311...</a>
I think it is a fantastic story, but is pretty obvious that they did it because he have a significant number of followers and not just because he is a regular costumer. And there is nothing wrong with it, they are just maximizing their gains with this action.
His evidence that he was treated as any other customer is that ... a robot retweets mentions of their restaurant, prepended by "Cheers!"?<p>He gets a steak. I get a retweet. Yeah, boy, Morton's treats all their customers the same.
To the people who say that it's about follower count after all,<p>Uh, think about that. Pick a different celebrity, like @neilhimself has 10 times the followers, and ask what would happen if he posted something like that. I will tell you: nothing. You know why? Because Morton's would have NO IDEA what he likes to order because he ISN'T a frequent customer. And do you really think they'd send a steak without anything to go with it?<p>That's why it's a customer service story.
"I don’t think it’s about my follower numbers. I think it’s about Morton’s knowing I’m a good customer, who frequents their establishments regularly. "<p>Of course it makes no economic sense for Morton's to do this simply because he frequents Mortons establishments regularly.<p>The interesting part is that he believes that there are people who would believe this. But he's smart enough to think down to that level.<p>His parent's must not have been critical. People raised by critical parents (who call them on everything they say) wouldn't think anyone would believe this.<p>Being able to think like this is actually very helpful many times in coming up with schemes to make money.
This isn't a customer service story. This is a PR story. If it isn't something they do for all customers in a similar situation, then it's not customer service, it's a stunt.
Okay, so this story gives me a new startup idea.
Twitter2Deliver<p>You sign up for the service, associating your twitter account to a real live person, phone, address and payment details.<p>Later, you're hungry, so you tweet "@twitter2deliver carls jr. large #6, criss-cut fries, coke."<p>Or "@twitter2deliver Big Apple country fried steak, baked potato, green beans"<p>A little later, and a delivery guy knocks on your door, food in hand.<p>Technically twitter2deliver is a concierge service, so it can incorporate more than food delivery.
Looks like a pretty easy to spot "hidden" advertisement to me. Don't believe anything you read on the internet unless you can and will verify it. Same applies to newspapers, but I guess the internet being a more dynamic place it is a lot tougher to sort out truth from lies so you best be safe not believing <i>anything</i> out there unless, as I said, you verify it.
As Author said this a good stunt because author had many followers. I do not see how this stunt can reflect on the general customer service of the company.<p>I have worked in situations in where management have tried to please customers by granting them their wish list. This has almost resulted in customer treating that particular favor as his born right.
tl;dr - if you have 107522 followers on Twitter, you <i>may</i> get a restaurant deliver a free steak to the airport if you ask. Obviously in return for free PR. And, no, it has nothing to do with the customer service.
I've never heard of Morton's, but I will look for it now. They have gained one potential customer at very little cost. I call that a job well done for their PR and Marketing folks.
> Do you know anyone anymore who doesn’t have a camera in their phone, or anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account?<p>I kept thinking "ME, ME, ME" as I read that.
could it be that his secretary or driver arranged such? if morton's did that for everyone, that would seem like a loss considering there's no real contract for the transaction, too many things could go wrong. i think this customer must be a top spender so received special attention, don't expect to have this service if you're a regular blow.
Whether it's due to Internet fame or not, this concept of customer service shifting from private emails and phone calls into a publicly visible space is very interesting. Maybe the Internet Pitchfork Society (e.g. Reddit) will lead to whipping notoriously awful customer service into shape. Or maybe it will be unfair gang-annihilation of small businesses, like victims of unfair Yelp reviews claim.