How Often Do You Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes?

Let’s get something out of the way up front. I have worked in retail, food service, and public libraries, and I can definitively say that the customer is NOT always right. You know your business and your industry, and nobody should be second guessing that, including your customers. The customer isn’t always right — but their experience is always real.

Which means it’s worth paying attention to.

Recently I was at the vet with my cat. A tech came to bring her to the back for some blood work, and in the course of the handoff, asked me what tests had been ordered and what kind of infection we were treating. I assume that she just hadn’t checked the patient details yet, but for her to be asking me in that moment, kind of threw me. It felt like I was handing over my beloved kitty to someone who didn’t really know what they were doing. My trust took a hit.

Not trust in their honesty. Trust in their competence.

Those are two very different things, and I think the second one is underrated.

We spend a lot of time thinking about how to be trustworthy in the sense of being reliable and honest — and that matters enormously. But there’s another kind of trust that’s equally important, especially in service businesses: the confidence your customers feel that they are in capable hands. That they don’t have to manage the situation themselves. That they can relax, because you’ve got this covered.

That kind of trust isn’t built through grand gestures. It’s built — or eroded — in small moments. A tech who has reviewed the chart before entering the waiting room. A stylist who remembers your preferences without being reminded. A front desk that doesn’t ask you to repeat information you already provided.

Here’s what makes this interesting from a business systems perspective: the tech checking the chart before pickup probably wasn’t in anyone’s procedure manual. It might not even have occurred to anyone to put it there, because from a purely operational standpoint, it doesn’t matter when she checks — only that she checks. But from the customer’s perspective, the timing is everything.

This is the kind of thing a training audit can surface. When you look at your systems and processes through the lens of your customer’s experience, you start to notice the gap between what works for your team and what builds trust with the people you’re serving. Sometimes closing that gap is as simple as reordering a step.

Your systems and processes exist, rightly, to make things run smoothly for you and your team. But it’s worth asking, occasionally: what does this look like from the other side of the counter? Or the waiting room?

What could you do to build more trust with your customers? Let me know in the comments!