Morton’s steak stunt with Peter Shankman: Brilliant cherry picking

Peter Shankman, returning from a meeting with Kirstie Alley here in Tampa Bay, was hungry:

By the time I got back to the airport, it was close to 4pm. Flight boarded at 4:30pm, and I knew that by the time I got home, I wouldn’t have time to stop for dinner anywhere, and certainly didn’t want to grab fast food at either airport. When I got on the plane, my stomach was a rumbling a bit, and I had visions of a steak in my head.

As I’ve tweeted and mentioned countless times before, I’m a bit of a steak lover. I go out of my way to try steakhouses all around the world when I can, and it’s one of the reasons, no doubt, that my trainer at my gym is kept in business. But it’s all good – give and take. Over the past few years, I’ve developed an affinity for Morton’s Steakhouses, and if I’m doing business in a city which has one, I’ll try to schedule a dinner there if I can. I’m a frequent diner, and Morton’s knows it. They have a spectacular Customer Relations Management system in place, as well as a spectacular social media team, and they know when I call from my mobile number who I am, and that I eat at their restaurants regularly. Never underestimate the value of a good CRM system.

Back to my flight. As we were about to take off, I jokingly tweeted the following:

Hey @Mortons – can you meet me at newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks. :)

Let’s understand: I was joking. I had absolutely no expectations of anything from that Tweet. It’s like how we Tweet “Dear Winter, please stop, love Peter,” or something similar.

So, Peter lands in Newark, and there’s a guy from Morton’s, waiting with a complete steak dinner, ready to go.

Brilliant! (As the gentlemen from Guinness would say.)

Peter blogged about it and the criticism was almost immediate:

It’s doubtful they would have done this for an equally good customer with 500 followers or so, don’t you think?

No, they probably wouldn’t have. It’s obvious Morton’s cherry-picked this opportunity.

Good for them.

Morton’s delivers every day against high service standards and expectations. Then, in this case, they took a select opportunity to reinforce their brand experience with an outside-the-box — or outside-the-to-go-box in this case — event that amplified positive buzz. What’s wrong with that?

Morton’s day-to-day service levels provide the street cred that allows Morton’s to pull off a stunt like this.

PR and customer service are forever entwined now. So deliver amazing experiences for all your customers, and pick smart opportunities to go way above and beyond to amplify your reputation.

That’s how great PR is done in 2011. Nice work, Morton’s.

(I’m suddenly disappointed by the prospects of my chicken-centric lunch today…)