Exceptional Experiences
Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business
Exceptional Experiences is a clear, bubbly business guide to integrating luxe details into a company’s business model.
Neen James’s business guide Exceptional Experiences details how to incorporate luxury experiences into a company’s strategy to deepen customer relationships.
In business, the book argues, luxury represents both attention and connection to customers. Its guidance is focused on curating exclusive experiences to differentiate a company’s products and services from those of its competitors. Its model is made up of five pillars for integrating luxe details into a company’s business model. Its first section defines luxury products and services in broad terms, emphasizing the necessity of creating “mind share” with customers via such experiences, which translates to market share and revenue. Four primary mindsets are delineated in support of these insights.
The book’s five foundational values are focused on enticing, inviting, exciting, delighting, and igniting customers, and each is explained in turn. Enticing can be about sharing a company’s story to connect with customers on an emotional level, while exciting them can mean engaging their senses. The book’s approach is tactical, too, involving all levels of an organization, including sales and marketing, advertising and promotions, product packaging and shipping, and customer-facing roles. Examples from sectors including the hospitality, communications, and travel industries are used to illustrate the model’s utility. For example, a prominent airline is shown to incorporate all aspects of the model to connect with and retain its customers.
The book’s tone is energetic and playful, with storytelling used to reinforce its business principles. Tales about the transformation of a North Carolina university are used to focus on experiences of excellence, and a champagne brand’s techniques are used as a throughline via chapter-ending “champagne moments.” Extravagant guest experiences at five-star hotels are also explored. Stories about James switching schools often as a child and receiving a customized LEGO figure gift from a colleague are also used to highlight experiences of, and desires for, luxury experiences.
Though the book aligns with familiar messaging, branding, and retention practices for engaging customers, it distinguishes itself by its intentional methods for bringing a discriminating mindset to all aspects of a company, empowering employees to elevate a customer’s experience. The breadth of its industry examples and its practical guidance, paired with its bubbly prose, set it apart.
A concise and engaging business guide, Exceptional Experiences provides a distinctive framework for adding a luxury mindset to a company’s product line.
Reviewed by
Katy Keffer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
