A week ago, I was at my home; packing my stuff to leave for Mumbai — the place where I work. My sister, who recently moved to Mumbai for studies, had asked me to bring one bag from home.

I just asked my mother to give an old bag which was lying around for my sister. She found one bag and gave it to me after filling it with stuff I needed so that I could simply keep the stuff and give that bag to my sister. After reaching Mumbai, when I was emptying the bag, I found a tiny little piece of paper inside the bag on which my mom had scribbled.

The piece of paper had my sister’s name, phone number, college name and address.

To give you some context, my sister had lost her previous bag which is why I had to bring one for her from home. My mom knew this (by reading historical data, if you will) and was thoughtful enough to put an identification card in the bag, in case it’s lost again.

This was not the only time she had done something like this so that her children have an easier experience. Whenever I am about to leave for a train journey, I always ask her not to pack anything to eat because it just adds a to the amount of weight that I have to carry. Plus, I can always buy stuff from pantry if I am hungry.

She secretly packs food and tells me after the train has left. She asks me to eat it just in case I can’t find food. And invariably, my stomach starts growling and no one is in sight to buy stuff from. Mom’s parathas come handy there.

And how can she not make your favourite food when you’re coming home? It’ll be a crime for her to not do that.

I could just go on and on but I guess you get what I am trying to say. The kind of experience you get when you deal with your mother is probably the best experience you can get anywhere in the world.

After all, you are her baby. :)

My point being that you should treat your users with the same love and affection which you receive from your mother. Always be thinking about their interactions with the app and remove the friction. Make choices for them using the historical data. Try to guess as much information as you can.

Make sure you predict what will go wrong and make an active effort to fix the issue. Understand what the users really want versus what they say they want. And, sometimes, just shower them with the kind of pampering they will not find anywhere else.

Google, with the knowledge of your tickets in your inbox through Gmail, reminds you that you already have these tickets when you search for some more.

People have been asking airlines to increase leg space between seats, claiming they’re willing to pay a premium for it. But the airlines aren’t falling for this. They did it once and found that people only booked the flights with cheapest fares. So they let go of extra space to accommodate more people at reduced rates for everyone.

Just check Snapchat on your birthday, all messages have a gift as icon in place of blue or red squares. You also get some different photo filters exclusive for your location and time. How can you not feel special with things like these?

The small details like these become the difference between having customers and loyal fans.

Thanks mom, for everything.