Made to Stick - Unexpectedness

In a nutshell... surprise people! Turn over their apple cart. Wake them up. Shock them. Disrupt their view of the world, of themselves, of the universe. Challenge their assumptions... Nordstrom (store in the US) prides itself on customer service. New employees though, come with a variety of ideas of what "good" customer services is... Nordstrom disrupts their ideas by telling them what some Nordie employees have done...

• iron the new shirt of a customer so they can wear it to a presentation that afternoon
• gift wrap a purchase for a customer... bought at Macy's
• refund a customer for tire chains... Nordstrom does not sell tire chains
• warm a customer's car while they shop

That's Nordstrom customer service... It's simple, it's short... and very unexpected! It wakes people up! And it sticks with them...

But then, once you've surprised them, how do you hold their attention? Well, appeal to their curiosity. Create a knowledge gap... and then fill it. Create a mystery. Point out something that they don't know and then fill that gap... People hate having knowledge gaps... they want to know... their curiosity will impel them to follow it through to the end. Think of a mystery story... Create a mystery and then solve it. Create an unexpected mystery... and then solve it.