“the coffee’s over there… it’s self serve”
~ cashier

Trying something new isn’t always as simple as it should be. This morning, I had a few minutes to kill so I stopped in at a new (to me) coffee shop to grab a cup to go. It’s a fairly well known establishment in town, but I had only been there once before. Not thinking that it should be any different, I started into my normal coffee purchasing routine.

“What are you brewing today?”, I said as I stepped up to the counter.

They replied, “the coffee’s over there… it’s self serve”.

The answer didn’t help me at all, but I thought I’d proceed anyway. I ordered a “this size” (pointing to one of the stacks of cups in front of me) and, since the cashier/barista didn’t hand me anything, asked if I should take a cup.

She said, “nope, cups are over there by the coffee… it’s self serve”.

It’s not that I’m opposed to serving myself or that I mind paying and then going to pour my cup of coffee. I’m open to a different process than I’m used to at my usual coffee joint, but the people working the counter at this establishment didn’t make me feel smart or help me learn what their process was. In addition, they left confusing clues about how things worked. If I get the to-go cup next to the self serve coffee, then why the big stack of cups next to the till? And why avoid answering my brew questions. Dispensing my own coffee doesn’t make my “what are you brewing?” question invalid. What if I didn’t want the dark roast that you had on tap today?

The experience reminded me of how we often deal with people in our product approach. Often a customer asks a question that we don’t expect and we give them a short, pat answer because we believe they should understand how our process works.

People are often up for doing things differently; they just need to know what to expect. Outlining your sales and customer care process, and even giving a few reasons why you do what you do, can go a long way. IKEA does a great job of this by posting information all over the store that explains why you have to assemble your own furniture, do your own delivery, and even clean up your own dishes in the cafe. By explaining that the little extra effort on my part helps to keep the cost down, I’m completely willing to take part.

Sometimes we forget to communicate our process and rationale. As an example, people might appreciate your prices, but they still expect the extras. If you explain that you’re focusing on the core needs to keep the costs down, people will appreciate it greatly.

We’ve tried really hard to let people know what to expect when having a standard website designed with lift, but I’m realizing that we need to take this approach in every area of our business. For our image portfolio product, Parade, we need to continually get better at explaining how we’re different and why. We don’t want the act of buying something so simple to be frustrating and difficult.