It Happens Every Day

It’s a beautiful sunny and warm afternoon in San Francisco; one of those typical “summer” days we enjoy in the fall after our usually cool June, July, and August. I’m meeting a friend for coffee at a small, independent-looking place on 3rd Street in the trendy SOMA neighborhood. We met to catch up and talk a little business.

We picked this coffee shop strictly based on the look of their sign out front. Neither of us has been there before but it struck us as “not Starbucks” and had a slightly warmer, hipper look than the place we passed just up the street. It’s not crowed but there are several customers arrayed in the typical way sipping their drinks, working their smart phones, or engaged in conversation.

As we approach the counter a young, tall exotic-looking man in dreads gazes out from behind the counter. My friend reflexively orders an iced tea after getting an explanation of the one kind they serve. Our cashier glances at me and then begins preparing Nancy’s tea. Just as he begins to ring us up, I ask, “May I order something as well?” After we’re served, we find a comfortable spot and begin chatting about the experience we just had at the counter.

I wonder if the cashier, or his coworkers behind the counter, was trained to take orders the way he took ours. In my mind’s eye it would have sounded something like this:
• Always appear busy.
• Don’t look customers in the eye because there isn’t time for conversation.
• Most customers just bark their orders at you so don’t waste your energy asking them what they want.
• If they don’t speak up, close out their ticket as fast as you can.
• When you process their payment, look over, through, or past them to the next customer in line so they understand that the transaction is over.

After I’d had my snarky fun, I realized I’ve had 100s (if not 1,000s) of similar experiences in coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants, hair salons, banks, big box stores, small retail shops, and on and on. That moment reconnected me with the one thing I’m most passionate about: Working with small business owners to create experiences where their customers actually feel better after they leave than when they came in—not the other way around.

This is what I call the Transformative Client Experience and it is the one thing I do better than anything else.


Jim

Lucavia
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
www.lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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