Perspective Alters the Customer Experience

A couple weeks ago I talked about the impact of perspective on your to-do list.

For lunch today I went out to grab a quick sandwich at a small deli near our office – a tiny mom & pop shop that’s about quality, not quantity. I ordered one of the combo subs I love with fresh roast beef, smoked turkey breast and Virginia honey ham.

Exceeeeeeept one minor detail…they were out of the roast beef. And that gave me a thought about perspective with regard to the customer experience.

Being Out of Stock Can Be a Good Customer Experience

Had I been at Subway I’d be pretty annoyed. The only thing worse is going to KFC and being told they’re out of chicken.

Yet my first reaction here was much different.

…Is the roast beef that popular that they’re all out?

…If they’re out that means they’ll be ordering more soon, so I know it’ll be fresh when it’s back

…I bet they do at best 1/2 the volume of Subway, so if they were never out of stock I’d start thinking meats sat on their shelves for weeks.

Honestly, very easily none of the above could be true. But that doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is the reaction to the customer experience that I had, and how much different it was based on just a slightly different change of perspective.

What about you? Have you had some customer experiences that would have been amazing or dreadful has the perspective been shifted slightly?