PaPa's Pumpkin Patch - It's not about the Pumpkin!

Customer Experience creation goes beyond the product or service you sell. It's about creating Emotional Engagement and memories.  PaPa's Pumkin Patch in Bismarck, ND has been creating memories for 23 years...

This weekend, we went out to PaPa's Pumpkin Patch http://www.papaspumpkins.com a few miles north of Bismarck, ND. It's an annual tradition to make the short drive north of Bismarck along the Missouri River to watch our greatest joys - Macauleyn 6 and Gracynn 9, have fun picking out pumpkins and running through the hay bale maze. It's a feel-good place where time is lost and summer is kissed good bye and fall is acknowledged.

Did I mention the pumpkins? Oh yeah. They have pumpkins - lots and LOTS of pumpkins and so much more! And they aren't cheap - but who cares! Every grocery and discount store has pumpkins but going out to PaPa's Pumpkin Patch beats anyone selling pumpkins. It's really not a pumpkin unless you get it from PaPa's...

A typical PaPa's Pumpkin Patch conversation... "Hey... Is that pumpkin PaPa's?"

"Yep... Yours?"

"Yep... Went out last weekend..."

"Us too..."

Yet, we don't go to PaPa's Pumpkin Patch to just buy pumpkins. We go to reconnect and just enjoy one another's company, watch others enjoy the day, laugh, and take pictures of one another as well as the thousands of pumpkins and horse rides and trees... It's beautiful. It's an experience we look forward to every year...

Apparently more people than ever want that same experience.  Every year we end up parking further and further away.  It's part of the experience to walk through the field.

Ever seen a Trebuchet?  They have one that can chuck a pumpkin several hundred feet!  They also have pony rides, trails to walk on, and all kinds of cool things made out of corn stalks, straw bales and more!  Oh my!

Of course we bought several pumpkins and plan to go back to get more in the next week or two. What's fascinating is what we paid for those pumpkins.... We paid more than we would have at the grocery or discount store. We even paid an entrance fee of a dollar a head to just get in. We didn't just buy pumpkins...

Ever notice that? When you go to a summer or sporting event. You pay $2.00 or more for a soda and don't think anything of it. It's part of the experience.

Possibly without realizing it, PaPa's Pumpkin Patch has created a Customer Experience that goes way beyond pumpkins. They really don't sell pumpkins - because you can get pumpkins anywhere. But you can't get the warm feelings of family togetherness, the memories that last a lifetime, nor the smells you smell (straw and manure!) and the really nice people that run the place who smile warmly and give a lot of the proceeds to local charities. While they sell a lot of pumpkins at PaPa's Pumpkin Patch, they sell something spiritual that you can't get very often anywhere else.

We'll be back this Saturday... Watch for four redheads...

Want to improve your Customer Experience?  Check out our website at www.therainmakergroupinc.com

Copyright 2006, Christopher Young, chris@therainmakergroupinc.com