Olivia: A study found that 80 percent of companies believe they provide 'superior' customer service. The shocker? Only 8 percent of their customers agree. Jackson: Whoa. That is not a gap, that's a canyon. A 72-point canyon of broken promises and bad hold music. Olivia: It’s a canyon where customer loyalty goes to die. But it’s also where today’s book lives and thrives. We’re diving into Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans by Peter Shankman. Jackson: What a title. Olivia: And Shankman is a fascinating figure to write this. He's not some academic in an ivory tower; he's a serial entrepreneur. He founded and sold Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, a service built entirely on connecting people and providing value. He lives and breathes this stuff, and you can feel that energy on every page. Jackson: Okay, I have to ask right out of the gate. 'Zombie Loyalists'? It sounds a little... creepy. I was looking into it, and some readers found the metaphor a bit distasteful, almost dehumanizing. Are we talking about mindless hordes, or is there something more to it? Olivia: That’s the perfect question, because it gets right to the heart of his argument. He’s not talking about mindless consumers. A Zombie Loyalist, in Shankman's world, is the opposite. They are a customer who has been treated so exceptionally, so humanely, that they become a passionate, evangelical, unpaid marketing army for your brand. They are fiercely, relentlessly loyal, and they exist to "infect" others with their enthusiasm. Jackson: Infect them with enthusiasm, not a craving for brains. Got it. That’s a relief. Olivia: Exactly. And the reason it's so easy to create them, he argues, is because most of us suffer from a chronic disease he calls "service crapitis." Jackson: (Laughs) Service Crapitis. I think I've had a lifelong case of that. The symptoms include long hold times, robotic email responses, and the overwhelming feeling that no one actually cares. Olivia: Precisely. Our expectations for service are so incredibly low that when a company does something even slightly better than terrible, we're shocked. When they do something genuinely amazing, it short-circuits our brains. We don't just become a customer; we become a convert. And that's when the "infection" begins.

Jackson: Okay, so you’re saying because the bar is on the floor, it’s surprisingly easy to become a high-jump champion of customer service. But what does that "amazing" level of service actually look like? It can't just be a polite phone call. Olivia: Oh, it goes so much further. And Shankman himself was the recipient of what might be the most legendary example in the entire book. It’s the story of Morton's Steakhouse. Jackson: I’m ready. I hope this involves a steak. Olivia: It does. So, Peter Shankman is a frequent traveler. He's flying home to Newark, New Jersey, after a long day of meetings. He knows he's going to be starving when he lands, and he won't have time to eat before getting home. So, as he's sitting on the plane, he jokingly tweets something like, "Hey, @Mortons, you should meet me at Newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours. K, thanks. Bye." Jackson: Right, just a classic, throwaway internet joke. Something you tweet and forget about five seconds later. You don't actually expect a steak to materialize at baggage claim. Olivia: You absolutely do not. It's a fantasy. But someone at Morton's was listening. Not just listening, but empowered to act. A marketing manager saw the tweet. She figured out which flight he was on, when it was landing, and which Morton's was closest to Newark Airport—it was over 20 miles away in Hackensack. She called the general manager of that location, Mike Khorosh. Jackson: This is already an insane amount of logistical work for a joke tweet. Olivia: It gets better. Mike, the manager, gets the call and doesn't hesitate. He gets a full meal order together: a 24-ounce porterhouse steak, a colossal shrimp cocktail, a side of potatoes, bread, two napkins, and silverware. He then gets one of his servers, a guy named Alex dressed in a full tuxedo, to drive the 23 miles to Newark Airport in rush hour traffic. Jackson: A server in a tux is driving a steak dinner to an airport. This sounds like a scene from a movie. Olivia: It feels like it. So Shankman lands, deplanes, and walks into the terminal. And there, standing by the arrivals area, is Alex in his tuxedo, holding a Morton's bag and a sign with Shankman's name on it. He walks up to Peter and says, "Mr. Shankman? We heard you were hungry." And hands him the entire, freshly cooked meal. For free. Jackson: No way. They actually did that? That is completely, utterly bonkers. I'm speechless. Olivia: Shankman was too. He was floored. He took a picture, posted it online, and the story went viral. It became a textbook case study in what Shankman calls "bringing random amazement into normal situations." It generated massive, positive PR for Morton's that they could never have bought. They didn't just make a customer happy; they created a story that that customer, a marketing expert no less, would tell for the rest of his life. They turned him into the ultimate Zombie Loyalist. Jackson: Wow. That is an incredible story. But it also feels like a one-in-a-million PR stunt. I mean, how can a company actually plan for that? Can you build a system for that kind of magic? It must have cost a fortune for one customer. Olivia: That's the million-dollar question, and it’s the one that takes us from the what to the how. Because Shankman's answer is that it's not about big, expensive stunts at all. It’s about building what he calls a "breeding ground" for these moments. And that has almost nothing to do with the customer. It starts from the inside out.

Jackson: Okay, a 'breeding ground.' That sounds even more ominous than 'zombie.' What does that mean? How do you build a company culture that can pull off an airport steak delivery? Olivia: It comes down to one core principle that Shankman hammers home again and again: you must empower your employees. The Morton's story wasn't a top-down directive from the CEO. It was possible because the social media manager felt she had the authority to try something crazy, the restaurant manager felt he had the permission to spend the money, and the server was willing to go on this wild adventure. They weren't afraid of getting in trouble for trying to delight a customer. Jackson: Ah, so it’s not about a "steak delivery" budget line. It’s about a culture of trust. They weren't following a script; they were given the freedom to be awesome. Olivia: Exactly. And the most famous example of this kind of culture-building is probably Zappos, the online shoe retailer. They are legendary for their customer service, but it's how they build their team that's truly radical. During their training period for new hires, they make an offer. Jackson: A job offer? Olivia: No, a quit offer. After a week or two of training, Zappos offers the new hires a bonus—it started at a few hundred dollars and went up to several thousand—to quit on the spot. Jackson: They pay people to leave? That sounds like the worst business model of all time. Why on earth would they do that? Olivia: Because they only want people who really want to be there. They want to weed out anyone who is just there for a paycheck. They figure it's cheaper to pay someone a few thousand dollars to leave than to keep a disengaged, unenthusiastic employee who will poison the culture and provide mediocre service for years. They are filtering for passion. They are building the breeding ground. Jackson: That is brilliant. It’s a self-selection mechanism for creating a team of potential Zombie Loyalists on the inside, who can then go on to create them on the outside. Olivia: Precisely. Shankman shares another story about a consultancy hired to fix the customer service at a major transportation hub. They interviewed hundreds of employees, expecting them to ask for more money or better benefits. But that wasn't their primary request. Jackson: What did they want? Olivia: They just wanted to be heard. They wanted to know that their ideas for improving things would be listened to by management. A survey in the book found that almost 60% of employees would work harder and take better care of customers if they simply felt like their employer cared about them. It's not about the money; it's about respect and empowerment. Jackson: So the throughline here is that you can't expect employees to treat customers like gold if the company treats its employees like lead. The external experience is just a mirror of the internal culture. Olivia: That's the entire thesis. If an employee is afraid to bend a rule, or has to get five levels of approval to solve a simple problem, you'll never get a Morton's moment. You'll get "I'm sorry, that's against our policy." Shankman tells a personal story about working at a yogurt shop as a teenager. The brass poles out front were grimy, so during a slow period, he took the initiative to start polishing them, thinking it would make the store look better and attract customers. Jackson: A good, proactive employee. Olivia: You'd think. But his boss came out and yelled at him, saying, "I don't pay you to think. Get back behind the counter." That's the anti-breeding ground. That's the culture that creates "service crapitis." He was actively punished for trying to improve the customer experience. Jackson: And that yogurt shop owner probably complained that he couldn't find good help, right? It’s amazing how these things are connected. The steak at the airport and the polished brass poles are two sides of the same coin: one is a culture of "yes, and...", the other is a culture of "no, because...". Olivia: Exactly. One breeds Zombie Loyalists. The other breeds, well, just zombies—disengaged employees and unhappy customers.

Jackson: So when you put it all together, the book is making a pretty radical claim. It’s saying that most of what we think of as marketing—the ads, the promotions, the social media campaigns—is secondary. The real marketing department is your customer service team. Olivia: Or even more broadly, it's every single employee. The book's real, deep insight isn't just 'be nice to customers.' It's that exceptional customer experience is a lagging indicator of employee empowerment. You can't buy Zombie Loyalists with a loyalty program; you have to cultivate the internal environment where they grow organically. Jackson: Right. The takeaway isn't to go deliver steaks at airports. That's just the spectacular outcome. The real action item is for a leader to look at their own company and ask, "Do my employees feel trusted enough to even think of an idea like that? Have I given them the freedom to be amazing, or have I trained them to just follow the script?" It’s about fixing the internal culture first. Olivia: And Shankman has this great acronym for it: BRAINS. Bring Random Amazement Into Normal Situations. It’s not about grand gestures. It's about finding small, unexpected moments to show a customer or a colleague that you see them as a human being. It could be a handwritten thank-you note, remembering a customer's name, or just taking five extra seconds to solve a problem instead of passing it on. Jackson: I love that. It makes it so much more accessible. You don't need a million-dollar budget. You just need a culture that encourages kindness and initiative. Olivia: And that's a powerful idea for anyone listening. So here’s a challenge, a practical first step. Whether you're a barista, a software engineer, or a CEO, think of one small, unexpected, kind thing you can do for a customer or a colleague tomorrow. Something that's not in your job description. Jackson: That’s a great challenge. And we'd love to hear what you come up with. What does random amazement look like in your world? Share your stories—given or received—with the Aibrary community. Let's see if we can start our own little positive infection. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.