See it as your customer does

There is tremendous value in striving to adopt your customer's perspective.

Take the example of my recent experience of closing time at a bar downtown...

The lights always come on a half hour before "closing time," which really means that they’re going to do just about everything in their capacity to clear the place in fifteen minutes. The problem, however, was that at the moment the lights went on, we had only just ordered our drinks fifteen minutes before.

It mattered little to the waiter who'd just served them to us, who came over and bellowed, "alright, guys, wrap it up! You guys need to get out! Wrap it up!"

I turned and looked squarely at him.

"You're speaking to us like this right now," I asserted, sternly, "because you're assuming that we're drunk." I paused.  "We're not. We're not bothering you, and we'd like to enjoy the drinks that we bought."

Still in his "closing time" mode, however, he pointed out, coldly: "Lights are on, folks."

"We know they are." I answered, undeterred. "But they weren't on when you sold us these drinks… And when you a buy a drink, with it comes the privilege of enjoying as quickly - or slowly - as you'd like. So I think you should let us have the next few minutes to do that."

He said nothing, and instead floated away. He then kept the other servers from interrupting us.
We cleared our seats, as promised, before the 2 am closing time.
As we walked out through the door he was holding open, he apologized to me.

“It’s okay,” I tendered. “You’re just doing your job.”

It’s not okay, however, that “doing your job” necessitates that you treat your customers this way.

When you're the server in this situation, you have a pretty simple position. For you, this is just another Saturday night. And all you're thinking about is stacking the chairs we're still occupying and sweeping the floors beneath them.

But what you don't realize is that for me - and I think my sentiment reflected that of my companions - this is the one night I’m in town, which is my hometown. And right now I'm spending it with some of my favorite people, whom I've haven't seen in six months. All I want to do right now is enjoy the rest of my beer - at the exact pace I'd like to enjoy it - and try to make these final minutes last as long as possible before we have to say goodbye for what is very likely going to be another six months.

We, as people, have multitudes to gain from embracing others’ perspectives.

And we, in business, have almost as much to gain from acknowledging those held by our customers.

The one thing you should never do to your customers

I'd like to think that most all businesses strive to make sure that things go as planned, and that unexpected mishaps are managed and mitigated. That being said, things are always bound to happen. And when they do, it's not the fact that they happened, but rather your response to them, that ultimately matters to the customer. And the one thing that always matters the most in your response: never, ever lie to them.

I was on a United flight recently, and we arrived early to our destination.
And that's great, I agree... right up until everyone on the flight realized: we had "arrived" only in the sense that we had landed.

And right about the time we all expected to head over to the gate, we realized that we were parking instead.

As we came to a stop, the pilot came on overhead with the following information:

"The flight departing from our gate is being de-iced. It should be about 15 minutes."

Okay. No big deal, right? The weather did seem to warrant de-icing and we were early, so this seemed like a reasonable statement. So we all sat patiently.

Ten minutes went by, and the pilot came on with a new message:

"The flight at our gate is just finishing up with the boarding process. Once they complete that, it'll take about another 15 minutes to de-ice."

Now hold the phone. How are they "just finishing up with the boarding process" and not yet started with the "15 minute de-icing business" if they started all this mess ten minutes ago!?

Suddenly folks started to get impatient. We began shifting, grumbling, talking to each other. Bear in mind: we were still early, and had still only been sitting for ten minutes.

So why the frustration?
Because nobody likes to be lied to!

There was abolutely no reason for this communication fall-out. Here's the thing: that plane was never de-icing when they told us it was. De-icing is not a subjective state. A plane either is or is not de-icing, and that plane wasn't. Plain and simple.

The message that is was should've never gotten to us.

So whether it was their pilot, our pilot, or somebody in the middle, United Airlines is seriously underestimating the severity of communication shortfalls like these. By allowing utterly untrue messages to be delivered to passengers, they're effectively saying: we don't care.

And if they think we don't notice we're being addressed as though we're not important enough to hear true statements, they're wrong.

It's one thing to simply "not know" when the gate would clear - and if that's the case, it's okay to say! I think most of us would rather hear someone admit that they "don't know" when the gate will be open rather than feed us information that someone, somewhere knows is bogus. It's generally preferable for an airline to deliver something undesirable but true than something only slightly better and absolute garbage.

Everyone - even the simplest individuals and probably even those responsible for this at United- knows what it feels like to be outright bullshitted.
 Furthermore, a good majority of us also understand: you don't lie to those whom you truly care about.

Lighting should say, "you're beautiful. Stay a while."

Sometimes, the restroom can make or break the customer experience.

This is particularly true in places where the customer's presence is dictated by a drawn-out desire to feel... well, good. I'm talking specifically about places like clubs, fine dining establishments, and high-end retail.

The way us women feel when we look at ourselves in the restroom mirror (and you know we will) will dictate the way we feel about ourselves when we walk back out. If we feel like we look great, we're going to feel more confident.

We feel more confident, we want to stay longer.

Restroom lighting matters more than most establishments realize. Flourescent lighting makes us look - and feel - unattractive. And who wants to bother trying on another pair of designer jeans or hanging around hoping that handsome chap at the end of the bar will come over when we suddenly feel... well, not good. 


I know that you think it's just a restroom or a fitting room... but to us, it's the space we're in right before we try to win our date's heart, the place we go to check our hair so that we walk into the bar like a rockstar, or the space we're in when we're trying to convince ourselves that we are, in fact, hot enough to pull off one size smaller.

I don't know many people - women or men - who leave the house hoping to feel lackluster. Help them in their endeavor by giving them the easy wins.