I'm glad I don't live in Glasgow...

I'm glad I don't live in Glasgow...

And it’s nothing to do with Scotland, or its fabulous city, but purely because of a recent event that caught my eye – a Wonka-themed chocolate event. And if we were living locally, I know that my wife would have insisted we go along to experience this £35 per ticket indulgent event!

Now, as someone who's been deeply embedded in the world of events and chocolate too, I found this debacle fascinating and, in a way, a valuable lesson wrapped in a not-so-sweet package.

Picture this: my family, especially my wife Kath, are chocoholics to the core. Kath even ranks chocolate as a top priority in her luggage over almost anything else when we travel!

It’s this love for chocolate that led me down the path of setting up, growing and eventually selling a small, award-winning family chocolate business a number of years ago. That business - The Chocolate Wrapper - was a real family adventure that not only taught me about the intricacies of chocolate, but also gave my daughters (who were teenagers at the time) a great insight into running a business and a lesson in the importance of helping to give children a 'hand up' rather than a 'hand out'!

At our peak, we were shipping anywhere from 50 to 5,000 chocolate bars a month and the girls had the potential to earn more money wrapping chocolate bars (whilst watching Friends on the telly!) than they did in their Saturday jobs at WH Smiths!

But I digress… Back to the Wonka event in Glasgow.

This ‘chocolate experience’ turned out to be a classic case study of an event gone sour. And here’s where my dual expertise in both chocolate and event management kicks in. The event, hyped by an ambitious AI-created marketing campaign, promised a world of pure imagination but delivered, well, quite the opposite. It set a precedent on what not to do, reminding me of the golden rule I’ve adhered to for over 20 years in events: always ‘under promise and over deliver.’

Why is this adage so important?

Simply put, setting realistic expectations, and then exceeding them, is the cornerstone of creating memorable, positive experiences. It’s about delighting your customers, giving them more than they anticipate and turning an average encounter into something extraordinary.

In the case of the Wonka event, the organisers set the expectation bar sky-high – too high, in fact. The result? Disappointment, frustration, and a valuable lesson for the rest of us.

As business owners, especially in the realms of service and experience-based offerings, we must never forget that our promises set the stage for our customers' expectations. And in the age of social media, failing to meet these expectations can have widespread repercussions.

So, as I reminisce on our family chocolate adventures of the past, and from 20+ years of running events too, let’s use this not-so-sweet tale to act as a reminder to us all who run businesses to always focus on the fundamentals of customer satisfaction. It’s not just about meeting expectations but exceeding them where possible. 'Under promising and over delivering' has been at the core of my events journey over the last 20+ years.

From starting up my very first events business over 20 years ago, to now being part of the fabulous team at We Are Wildgoose - a thriving global event-tech business with event partners in over 25 countries. It's also been at the heart of everything we are working hard to achieve with The Hertfordshire Business Growth Show - a not-for-profit event I founded in 2023 to support small business owners in Herts.

That principle has been at the heart of all my businesses over the years and is clearly something that the team behind the Wonka experience would do well to adopt too.

After all, being a business that pleasantly surprises and over delivers is how you turn customers into advocates and advocates into raving fans. And raving fans' are the holy grail of any small business.

Even Willy Wonka knew that!

#customersatisfaction #wonka #chocolate #eventmanagement