The table was clean. The waitress arrived to take coffee orders within a couple of minutes. We tried to ignore the peeling corners of the laminated menu.

The food and the coffee were fine. The waitress polite in a ‘going through the motions’ kind of way. Her parting question as we paid the bill…..

“Was everything okay?”

Yes actually, everything was okay. We had no complaints, nothing to report and that, I guess is the problem for most businesses and it’s also the opportunity for you. Every day we have experiences that are nothing to write home about, micro make-or-break moments. Feelings that exist, but that we can’t explain. Changing how we feel in those moments is so important that Apple has a secret packaging room where designers test which box designs evoke an emotional response.

My friend Stuart who is an entrepreneur and gifted app developer once told me that what differentiates a great app from a good one is the feeling that a level of love has been put into it. Living in a digital age has conditioned us to expect. The goal posts for exceptional have shifted and it’s almost impossible to make a product or service fly now without that level of love.

We simply know it when we feel it. We don’t want everything to be okay anymore.
We want to feel the love.

Which brands change how you feel in the moment and why?

Image by Mark.