Jillian Beard

Reflecting back on 2011 when I managed social media for Morton's Restaurant Group, I was fortunate to connect with many of our guests. There’s one instance you may have heard of… in fact, it generated so much attention, Jack Dorsey named it one of the top 10 tweets of 2011. It was my response to Peter Shankman’s tweet, back in August when he was hankering for a steak. Peter is a loyal guest of Morton’s so when I saw his tweet: “Hey @Mortons – can you meet me at the Newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks.” I jumped at the opportunity.

I researched flight information and prepared the restaurant team with how to find Peter at the airport when he landed. Peter was so happily surprised, he wrote the this blog post: “The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told, Starring Morton’s The Steakhouse." The story caught on like wild fire and in addition to being covered by ABC Nightly News, Time.com, Huffington Post and it generated over 300 million impressions. Overall company sales increased 17% in one week. We also received tremendous praise for its social media, including Scott Monty naming us one of the "5 companies that are rocking social media." Just goes to show the power of social media and excellent customer service!

My response to Peter Shankman’s request was one example of how we connect with our guests, but we did this for all people ALL OF THE TIME on twitter – whether they had over 100,000 followers or 100.

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