In another post I reported my experience with Ritz Carlton Hotels while when I talked about the 25 components of the DNA of market oriented companies we discovered real «customer obsession» like in Siebel Systems (CRM company) or in Newman Marcus (luxury brands retailing) where sales assistants run the company, reporting not to their bosses but directly to their customers.
Every small Hotel, Consultant, Restaurant, café, shop, … any service related company needs to make the personal experience its major differentiator to create satisfied, loyal customers, evangelists.
In tourism, big chains like Four Seasons or Amandari are able to create this feeling in any resort they manage; Singapore Airline, the best airline in the world but also Jet Blue and Southwestern Airlines are doing pretty good in this sense.
Apple is not an exception: on one side it is a closed, gated, high walled environment, managed by the most arrogant CEO in the world, but since Jobs return they offered great experiences and insanely great quality in whatever they touched. Quality is its culture. Quality is its brand.
Starbucks Coffee created a huge chain of smiling barista crews: «latte» was unknown everywhere but in Italy and Europe and they added quality and personal touch.
There is no further marketing tool as quality to satisfy customers and make them come back.