Dan Gingiss, CSP on Creating ‘Pull Out the Phone’ Moments for Organic Marketing

In a recent LinkedIn post, Dan Gingiss, CSP discusses a simple yet powerful litmus test for assessing customer experience, focusing on how businesses can organically encourage customers to become brand advocates. Gingiss, a noted customer experience expert, shared his thoughts on how to create shareable moments that naturally lead to word-of-mouth marketing.

Gingiss proposes a straightforward approach to identifying effective customer experiences: “If people don’t need to be told it’s a selfie spot, it’s a selfie spot.” He illustrated this with an example of a wall in Greenville that he encountered, which he found to be inherently engaging without any explicit direction to take a photo.

The Power of Organic Sharing

According to Gingiss, the true value of such an experience lies in its ability to prompt customers to share their moments. “And when customers pull out their phones, what usually happens next? They share it. With friends. With followers. With the group chat,” he wrote. This act of sharing, Gingiss argues, is essentially “word-of-mouth marketing at scale, powered by experience.” It transforms a positive customer interaction into a form of user-generated content that can reach a wider audience organically.

Identifying ‘Pull Out the Phone’ Moments

To help businesses cultivate these organic marketing opportunities, Dan Gingiss, CSP outlines a series of critical questions leaders should ask themselves. He posits that the goal is to move beyond the ordinary and create something truly memorable.

Key Questions for Businesses

Gingiss prompts businesses to consider:

• What’s the “pull out the phone” moment in our business?
• Is it unique to us, or could it be anywhere?
• Does it make someone feel something (delight, surprise, pride, nostalgia)?

He emphasizes that the effectiveness of these moments hinges on their distinctiveness and their ability to evoke an emotional response. As Gingiss clearly states, “Because nobody posts ‘ordinary.’” This highlights the necessity for businesses to innovate and create experiences that stand out from the mundane.

From Experience to Marketing

Dan Gingiss, CSP’s insights underscore a fundamental shift in how businesses can approach marketing. Instead of solely relying on traditional advertising, the focus is on designing customer journeys that are inherently shareable and emotionally resonant. By creating unique, delightful, or surprising experiences, companies can empower their customers to become their most effective marketers.

Gingiss concludes that by understanding what prompts customers to reach for their phones and share their experiences, businesses can unlock powerful, organic growth channels. The underlying principle is that exceptional experiences, not explicit instructions, drive authentic promotion.

“If you want your customers to create content for you, ask yourself: What’s the “pull out the phone” moment in our business?”

This approach encourages a customer-centric view, where every touchpoint is an opportunity to create a moment worth sharing, thereby fostering a stronger brand connection and wider visibility.