In the past, I’ve written and talked about 'Telling Your Story' and the idea is that you look to create the 'legendary' type of stories that come from your employees and set the bar for the customer experience you want to deliver.

Probably the best example is the famous Nordstrom story where a customer returned a set of used tires to a Nordstrom – and the store employee gave the customer a refund. We all know that Nordstrom doesn’t sell tires. If you don’t know the entire story, you can simply Google “Nordstrom Tire Story” and you’ll find plenty of information confirming the validity of the story.

The traditional way to get your story used to be to ask employees to share their best examples of the customer experience they created for a customer. Or, maybe a customer might write an accolade letter. Well, thanks to social media and online review sites, the customer now has a voice in your “Tell Your Story” efforts.

Yes, we hope for positive reviews on the different review sites, Google and Facebook. But why stop there? Why leave it to chance for your customers to leave those positive comments? Why not create a campaign that gets the customers who love you to not only share but get some attention for themselves?

So, here’s my idea. Have your customers create videos that tell the story of what it’s like to do business with you. You could create a contest. Customers submit videos about how much they love doing business with you and why. This can be shot using an iPhone, although some may want to bump up the experience and do something more professional looking. It really doesn’t matter, as long as they send something.

By the way, why just do it with your customers? Why not do it with employees? One of my clients had an internal contest where groups of people, mostly within their own departments, although not always, submitted short three-minute videos. It was a great teambuilding experience.

Once the videos were submitted, the company had a viewing party and awarded an “Oscar” statue for the team that created the best video, which by the way, was chosen by the audience – as in fellow employees.

Back to your customers. Their testimonials are powerful. Putting that into a video form means additional exposure compared to the written accolade. Consider putting these videos on your website and/or a YouTube channel. Be sure to ask permission before you do. Ask them to be honest, but also to have fun. You’ll be surprised what you get. As a thank you gift for submitting their video, send them the replica Oscar statue I mentioned to give employees. It’s a fun way of showing your appreciation and ties in with the “movie theme.”

Think about the power behind real people – or should I say, real customers – sharing their story about you on video. It’s powerful and different. Okay… That’s a wrap!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken. Shep is a regular contribuor to 4Hoteliers.com.

(Copyright © 2018, Shep Hyken - Reprinted with Permission)