The small stuff matters

How a tiny mistake can break your service.

Walking though a new shopping centre that had opened in Melbourne. I came across a small pop-up store that the centre’s mangement had set-up to show the products of different stores around the shopping complex. The service was staffed by two people who were tasked with giving people directions to the different stores or information as needed.

The service idea itself was sound. The design was OK too. It’s something that would be valuable to customers. It should have worked great. But it didn’t. In the time I was there I didn’t see a single person, Other than myself, enter into the store. People stopped in front, the looked in, they hesitated, then they moved away. Why?

For me the problem was obvious. It was a seeminly tiny problem. But it was a problem that was damaging the service, and one that the staff were oblivious of.

The problem was where they had positioned the service personnel. They were blocking the enterance! It looked as though they were guarding the store from you, rather than inviting you in. Even though I was almost certain the shop was open to customers I still felt compelled to ask the staff if I could go enter.

Was it a problem in the design of the service? Or was it just a poor implementation of the design? Either way when we design services we need to understand and take into account the tiny problems that derail all our good work. And we must communicate to both clients and service personnel the big impact that even a seemingly tiny mistake can have.