It could not have happened at a worse time. A major snowstorm was howling outside. Whole Foods supermarket at Bishops Corner in West Hartford was jammed with shoppers anxious to get home for dinner.

Suddenly, the computer crashed. None of the cash registers could function. Ted Donoghue, the assistant manager running the store on the afternoon of Dec. 13, consulted associates and made a snap decision:

All customers passing through the registers would get their food for free until the computers were working again.

The complete article is here.

Now obviously this isn’t possible in every situation, but this does show an amazing institutional commitment to customer service. In total the decision cost the store about $4,000. A chain the size of Whole Foods can clearly absorb that cost, and I guarantee that each of those customers will not only be a customer for life, but will tell several friends about their good experience.

The best way to market yourself is by being remarkable.

One of the things we're working on here at SandwichBoard is the ability for you to see how much traffic your web site is getting and where that traffic comes from. This helps you determine if SandwichBoard is a good use of you money. (Actually, it's really so we can show you how good SandwichBoard is at bringing you business.)

One of our customers, Carminha Simmons of Aqui Brazilian Coffee, goes even farther. Whenever she spots someone new in her coffee shop, she simply asks them how they found out about Aqui. We launched her site on a Friday morning. The next day she had three new customers come and visit simply because they visited her web site. Armed with that knowledge and our stats, restaurant owners and managers cannot only see that SandwichBoard is a good investment, but can also figure out how customers got to their site in the first place, and build their marketing strategy in the direction of real leads.

SandwichBoard has just entered Intuit's Just Start competition. After viewing our entry, go ahead and submit your idea for that next restaurant of yours.