Offering Experience: A History from Pelion

This summer because of my pregnant wife, we decided to go on a quiet mountain vacation.

So we chose Pelion with concise procedures, which combines both mountain and sea. So I found an available hostel in Tsagarada that I did not know but that had very good reviews.

Somehow we started and after a few hours of travel we finally found ourselves in the cool and enchanting Tsagarada. As GPS guided us through some dirt roads into the forest, our curiosity about the place grew. And finally we arrived at “Amanita”. A guest house taken from a fairy tale, with traditional stone houses, with a garden full of fruit trees, vegetables and herbs, with fresh air full of field smells. So we were surrounded by chestnut trees, plane trees and various other trees of the mountain of Centaurs while in front of us in the background stretched the Aegean Sea.

And after I described the location, it’s time to reveal to you what makes “Amanita” unique – the gastronomic experience of breakfast!

To fully cover this chapter I must refer to the owner Mr. Filaretos Psimmenos, fodder collector, writer, mushroom picker and many other qualities, who together with his family made our vacation unforgettable.

This man offers a breakfast, literally taken from his garden. With what he produces, and in collaboration with local producers, together with his wife they create a terrific breakfast with traditional pies of Thessaly, homemade jams, homemade sweets, salads with fern, village eggs and much more. Certainly the reason is a very small means to convey to you the feeling we experienced while living in the hostel of Mr. Filaretos and his family.

But what matters and I want to mention is the concept of experience.

Ever wonder why people love to travel? Have you ever wondered why some places and some people remain unforgettable while others pass by our thought without stigmatizing it? What are people really looking for away from home, away from the ordinary?

So what will make you spend a lot of money, travel many kilometers, get tired, go to the unknown – and on top of that do not care that you spent money and time, but enjoy it – is the promise of experience.

But this is not just a romantic travel article but it really is something that can be applied in the daily work of each of us.

What each of us is looking for as an exchange for the money we exchange is experience, whether it comes from products or services. What we call “experience” in this content really means experiencing something that you consider worthwhile and that it offers you something that creates unprecedented positive emotions.

When you give your money somewhere you expect to receive the best representative samples of it.

Now the same thing happens in a job, whether you run a restaurant, you are an employee of a private company, or you have a store. The customer expects to experience a nice result from their interaction with you. If you can offer something original, even better. Nevertheless, even listening carefully to what he is asking for, being honest with him and delivering what he asked for will be something “original”, as most companies are lagging behind even in these.

My dear friends, as times change, exchanging what you offer without creating a sense of experience for your customers will leave you behind. All large and organized companies deal almost exclusively with this issue, that is, to create experiences for their customers and thus ensure positive reviews. Keep in mind that recent research has shown that three out of four consumers intend to spend more money on companies with good reviews and also to compensate for a negative review they need twelve positive ones.

So how do you do all this cool stuff?

One : Increase the control in your business, push your partners in service levels you never thought they could reach.

Two : Tell the world why you’re amazing, yet the best, then deliver what you promised and more. You have just come up with an incentive to reach higher levels of efficiency.

Three : Work with passionate people, with professionals who love their job and do not see it as a “job.” If you think they do not exist, you are wrong ˙ they are rare, but they exist, and they are more likely to look for a passionate team to add to.

Four : persevere until the end, until you reach or surpass the desired service levels. The degree of success you will achieve will be proportional to how much you persevere during the difficult period.

In closing I will tell you that I have never been satisfied with the service of my own customers, and I am always thinking and looking for ways to become better and more efficient. This does not mean that I am not satisfied with the progress we are making, but that I am never complacent, especially on such important issues.

I wish you a good and productive period.