
If You Run a Small Business, Park in the Back of the Parking Lot - cloudmanic
https://skyclerk.com/blog/if-you-run-a-small-business-park-in-the-back-of-the-parking-lot
======
takinola
Lots of comments seem to miss the point of this article. The point being made
is to put the concerns of the customer first before yours. I see the opposite
happen all the time in software development. You have two systems that somehow
don't talk to each other. Instead of implementing some kind of connector
between them, you make the customer log in twice and transfer information
between the two systems. In this case, the maker has prioritized their
convenience over that of the user. This is the wrong approach. Before someone
gets pedantic, obviously, if you have analyzed the costs and decided it makes
sense, then go ahead and do you but don't just make default decisions to
benefit yourself at the cost to your customer

~~~
Thriptic
Exactly this. Further, I'd expand on what they are saying to say that the
difference between a bad customer experience, good customer experience, and
great customer experience typically lies in the little details and goes beyond
the core offering. Great customer service orgs take the time to check up on
you and make sure you are happy (and have it not be an automated effort), they
bend the rules to fit an edge case, they always own mistakes and try to make
it right, and they are fundamentally customer focused. Bad orgs treat
customers like numbers and hide behind policy and contracts at every
opportunity so that they don't actually have to deal with people.

For example, I took my girlfriend to a nice hotel for our anniversary last
year. When the hotel heard I was having an anniversary, they sent up a very
nice hand written congratulatory card, a bottle of prosecco, and a selection
of deserts on the house. That couldn't have taken them more than 15 minutes
and cost them like 20 dollars, but it is something I will always remember; I
will definitely return there in the future; and I recommend that hotel to any
friends seeking a nice place to stay. That is great customer service.

At a more basic level, I was at a mid tier hotel a few weeks ago and somehow I
didn't get the room upgrade I paid for. The management immediately refunded me
the difference without complaint and gave me a few drink tickets to use at
their bar as an apology. That is good customer service.

Contrast those to my experience at my former favorite steak house this year
where for the last ten years I had been telling everyone to go. I went there
for Valentine's day (had a reservation) and was told I had to wait 30 minutes
for a table to open. While I was waiting, I saw multiple couples of the same
size come in behind me and get seated. After the 30 minute wait, they tried to
seat us at the loud and noisy bar. When I complained, they basically told me
tough shit you get what you get. A reservation just guarantees you a table not
a good one. I concluded that they were discriminating against us because we
are younger than the average clientele there. Not only did I walk out and cost
them my business, but I gave them a scathing Yelp review, and now shit talk
them at every opportunity. I will never go back even though they were great
every other time I was there, and instead always point friends to one of their
main competitors when asked my opinion about local steak houses. I do this
even though I know the competitor's food isn't as good. They could have given
me the table I deserved; they could have comped some drinks or something; but
no, they were right and I was wrong and so they lost a loyal customer instead.

~~~
milchek
Your story highlights why customer service is not as easy as we think because
of the requirement for sustained performance being quite high.

By your own admission, you went to this steak house for 10 years and had liked
it so much you encouraged others. I'd imagine you would've visited multiple
times per year? So, let's say 20~30 visits total? All that time you were happy
and raved about it, but one bad visit and not only did it sour your opinion to
the point you won't return, but you also mentioned that you will disparage
them whenever you can. At around 30 visits, 97% of your experience there was
positive to the point of rave reviews.

I'm not having a go at you, I'm just using your story to highlight the
difficulty in customer service and how fickle we all are as customers (myself
included). I suppose that really just speaks more to our recency bias as
humans as well.

~~~
paggle
It also speaks to the need to know your customer. The restaurant should have
had discreet cameras with facial recognition software to alert management
immediately that a high value customer was walking in the door, and to make
sure he got treated right.

~~~
cwkoss
I hope this is sarcasm

~~~
paggle
Isn’t it more fun to wonder?

~~~
stallmanite
On HN there’s always brilliant commentary and there’s always posters defending
the undefendable. I’ll be wondering forever.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
This certainly isn't unique to HN.

~~~
stallmanite
My favorite forum is Slashdot so I get that.

------
josefresco
A month ago my wife and I passed a business while on vacation to a location we
frequent. She remarked "oh it looks like they closed down, that's too bad"
Upon closer inspection there were in fact open, the two employees present had
parked in the back, leaving a completely empty front parking lot.

The parking location is not all to blame, but at the time I remarked "the
employees should really park out front to help it appears as though there are
customers".

Obviously if your lot is frequently full this isn't an issue. This was in a
rural location where most likely that never happens as it was a large lot, and
not a business that would see surges of customers.

~~~
adrianmonk
It might even be an effective strategy to add a few extra cars to your parking
lot, so it always has at least a moderate number.

When I worked at a mall food court, I noticed something interesting: during
slower periods, sometimes one restaurant would have a line while other
restaurants would have no customers at all. And not always the same
restaurant. I attributed it to customers seeing that one place had customers,
then inferring that it must be open and it must be one of the better places to
eat.

Popularity isn't a very reliable indicator of quality, but it's not totally
invalid either. If a place is always deserted, it's probably not very good. If
it's always busy, it's likely that people are willing to wait for a reason.

~~~
mikeash
Reminds me of a time I was searching for parking in downtown Washington, DC.
Block after block was full. I eventually came to a street that had _no_ cars
parked at all. Jackpot, right? Must be some obscure rule prohibiting parking
there. I kept looking. Still no luck, so I finally went back to the empty
street. I carefully studied the signs and concluded that it was legal to park
there. I got out of my car and paid. By the time I was done paying, the entire
block was full of parked cars!

~~~
joncrane
This is like the old adage. "If you truly believe in market efficiency, you
would never bother to bend over to pick up a $100 bill because if it were
real, someone else would have picked it up already!"

~~~
hartator
Except the market is very inefficient, blind, and poorly guided. It’s just
always better than a central government.

~~~
webninja
Except sometimes you’re wrong and the market is right.

------
foxylad
The last example is the best - that making your service hard to cancel means
your customer's enduring memory is of pain. And it validates the customer's
decision to leave, because there must be other better options if you are so
desperate to stop them going.

When a customer phones up to cancel, we do it immediately and make sure they
know there are no hard feelings on our side. We ask if there was anything we
could have done better, and tell them we'll still be here if they ever need us
again. We get a significant number of customers return.

~~~
soapboxrocket
Not exactly the same, but it's one of the prime reasons that I don't have a
Costco membership: I hate when I go with members and after they pay you are
treated like a criminal as they scan your receipt and check all the items in
the cart. I also avoid Fry's Electronics for the same reason.

~~~
sk5t
I take the more charitable perspective that the receipt checkers are
validating the cashiers' work, and that it is part of the "membership"
bargain.

~~~
sky_rw
I worked at costco during college. The receipt checking stops a significant
amount of shrinkage. At these warehouse stores it's surprisingly easy to walk
out the door with large items you wouldn't be able to take at places like Best
Buy. We caught people stealing washing machines, tvs, 4-packs of tires, etc.
It helps keep costs down to have a quick verification check.

------
ksdale
I think this can be a two way street. I don't own a retail business, but I
feel like, as a general rule, clients who complain about things like parking
tend to not be the best clients.

I think it's totally valid in the sandwich shop example, where people will
literally choose something else based on what they have to walk past to get to
your door.

But for a professional service where you have an ongoing relationship worth
potentially thousands of dollars per year, if someone is put off by a lack of
front row parking, what other utterly trivial things are they going to find
fault with? Those tend to be the clients that ask for the world and get it at
a bargain and then still complain about the bill.

It's not that I'm not happy to go the extra mile for good clients, but there
are definitely good clients and not good clients and creating a rule that you
should always delight everyone all the time means you're going to waste a lot
of time trying to delight people who complain about having to walk across the
parking lot...

~~~
tptacek
But keep in mind that not everyone who cares about parking complains. I can
think of several Chicago places I really like, but tend to actively avoid
because it's hard to get parking. There doesn't have to be a complaint or even
an active finding of fault for silly-seeming stuff like this to drag your
business.

~~~
gist
> that not everyone who cares about parking complains.

To that point people who complain are often the canary in the coal mine for
larger issues. I am a big complainer. Typically in the end I get thanked for
bringing things to a businesses attention. And I am a good customer. My
largest 'reward' to date was a $5000 amount from a large german car
manufacturer. They said 'we have never done this before'. What I said started
out as a complaint. At first they were not really responsive. I finally
brought home (successfully) that I was doing them a favor and that their
dealer (a luxury car dealer) did not handle things the way they should have
with a recent transaction.

I complain all the time at Whole Foods (where I spend a ton of money). Things
just jump out at me. That said not everyone is me. Will say that I have owned
a small business in the past. For every person that voiced a complaint there
could be a hundred who don't open their mouth honestly. That's what I have
found.

People think they shouldn't complain in a restaurant as another example. No
the restaurant would rather have the complaint than you not returning or
telling others. It's their chance to make things right and buy loyalty. Same
story 'thank you for bringing this to our attention here is a $100 gift
certificate'.

~~~
D-Coder
Similar to my personal relationships! I'd rather hear about a possible
problem, so it can be addressed, than not hear about it.

------
elihu
It's a bit amusing that if you look at the picture of the parking lot showing
where the author's dad worked and where he parked, his parking spot is not way
off away from everything else, it's actually in what would be prime parking
location for some other businesses' customers. I feel like there's a lesson
about externalities there.

------
markstos
As a small business owner, I saved hundreds per month by not driving to work
at all. I biked or walked. To enable this, I intentionally purchased a home
within walking or biking distance from the office and located the business is
a town with a low enough cost of business to allow that.

~~~
duxup
Man I dream about being able to bike to work.

Maybe one day...

~~~
subleq
What is preventing you now?

~~~
bigwavedave
Commute distance, legality (biking from city to city on the interstate is a
big no-no), inability to shower after a ride, weather (I'm looking at YOU,
Scotland!), medical conditions, take your pick.

~~~
benj111
"interstate ... Scotland"

Where are you based?!

------
andyv
Old quote, can't rememeber where I first heard it:

"At universities, the employees get better parking than the customers".

Although it wasn't true at my alma mater, where the only difference was that
for staff and faculty the university would deduct the parking fees from your
paycheck. For your convenience.

~~~
benj111
Are students customers or product?

~~~
pkaye
The students pay so they are the customers. The product is the degree.

~~~
benj111
I feel you could make an equal case for the government/lenders being the
customer.

I think you're probably right about students not being the product, they're
more of a raw material?

I'm being slightly cheeky, but I don't think the relationship is best viewed
as the student being the customer, certainly not if the degree is the product.

------
paultopia
The credit card/tab point is a really good one, IMO. There's something really
offensive, as a customer, about walking into a business and being immediately
subject to the assumption that I'm there to rip them off. Why would I want to
patronize your business if you want to treat me like a criminal?

A particularly infuriating example of this is bookstores that demand you turn
in your bag at the desk. I just walk out.

~~~
jacquesm
It's extra rude if you consider the history. Bookstores of old had a counter
where you entered, you placed your order and if the book was in stock someone
would go and get it (or in case you ordered ahead they'd get your pre-packaged
order for you). Then we figured that self-service is the way to go: rely on
the customer to do their own orderpicking, en-passent exposing them to a lot
of marketing and hopefully selling some more books.

So now, on top of being required to do the work of the bookstore employees you
_also_ lose the benefit of the doubt and are being treated as though you are a
common thief.

Industry secret: lots of theft from bookstores is by employees.

~~~
jessaustin
That's also lots of theft from convenience stores. 20 years ago I had a friend
who, as _manager_ , knew that the cameras didn't catch what happened when the
lights were turned off at the end of the day. And he had the key... I made
sure never to go to that store, either before or after closing time.

~~~
benj111
"I made sure never to go to that store, either before or after closing time"

I don't understand.

Why would your friend potentially (?) stealing put you off visiting?

~~~
jessaustin
Since he lived closer to the mountains than I did, I was over at his house a
lot. Stolen items were all over the house, and it seemed possible that he
would be caught eventually. We had both recently moved to the area from
several states away (not intentionally, we were both surprised) and it would
have been easy for a cop to imagine that we were in cahoots. If I get arrested
I want it to be for a good reason...

~~~
bluGill
Your should have turned him in - for your protection. My uncle had a roommate
pulling something like that. (the roommate was actually a cop who would find
open doors and then rob the place while checking out why the alarm was going
off). My uncle figures that given how quick his roommate was arrested after he
turned his roommate in that they already know his roommate was doing something
and were just looking for evidence because there is no way he wasn't involved
in the crimes.

~~~
jessaustin
I don't think the two situations are that similar. I'd turn in a dirty cop in
pretty much any context, but probably not a friend since junior high _for
theft_.

------
chrismckleroy
In reference to making it hard to quit a service... "In reality, it is a great
way to ensure a customer never comes back and likely does not recommend the
company to others. This approach is trading short term greed for long term
growth. A leader obsessed with customer experience would make sure canceling
their service is painless as it will likely lead to revenue in other ways --
counterintuitive right?"

I want to believe. But seeing how painful it is to leave Facebook + iCloud, I
find this hard to believe. It feels idealistic, but I wonder if the data says
otherwise. People are lazy. It's unethical. But people are lazy.

~~~
projektfu
I will say that my experience with gyms and their cancellation processes is
awful. "We recommend sending a certified letter to cancel your membership,"
for example. It only makes me not want to go back to the same one when my
circumstances change. And I'm unlikely to give referrals because you basically
kick me in the nuts on the way out, just to try to scam an extra month or two
of unused gym time.

------
randlet
"Morning dropoff is stressful, to say the least, _we are always late_ , my
kids never cooperate,..."

I know this is just a throwaway comment in the article but my god does it bug
me when parents use their children as an excuse for being late. Yes, kids are
sometimes tough to get out the door but it's _your_ fault that this somehow
catches you by surprise every morning.

~~~
ktpsns
+1. And don't use the car to deliver your kids. Use the bike. It is possible:
There are children seats and trailers. And there are ebikes. There is little
excuse for driving cars. Despite you live in countryside US, where you
apparently need a truck to get anywhere.

~~~
mayank
> There is little excuse for driving cars.

In the case you mention, airbags are a pretty good reason. Also distance. And
disabilities.

~~~
abtinf
And convenience. And warmth. And AC. And comfort. Unless your goal is to
exercise, a car is almost always better in every dimension.

~~~
okmokmz
For your own comfort and convenience perhaps. For the environment and your
health a car is almost always worse in every dimension

------
gumby
The overall point is excellent and typically misunderstood by companies large
and small (think about what your customer wants, not what you want), but
there's another reason to park in front when you're starting out: to make the
business not look empty!

That is, early adopters may like to try out a new business, but a business
with no customers, no cars etc can lead people to think it's
unsuccessful/undesirable.

This is why early stage customers like to put the logos of customers on their
home page.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Potential self-driving car feature: move itself to the back of the lot when
the front gets too full; return to the front if it gets too empty.

~~~
wruza
Just closed my eyes and imagined this hell of hundreds of cars trying to
relocate themselves closer to the front at irregular intervals. Few billion
microseconds later some of them become self-aware and experience an
existential crisis. Front Lot Stock Exchange emerges in attempt to optimize
driving efficiency. 4 FLSE collapses and 23 self-poweroffs registered up to
datetime.

~~~
benj111
Don't worry, nature has this sorted, penguins huddle and rotate, taking turns
in the middle, and at the edge.

Of course my startup will require a few billion to iron out the rough edges.

------
inlined
I’m surprised this doesn’t go without saying. As a divemaster intern I never
dared even park in the lot during school days. I found a spot on the street.
In college I was a paintball ref. There were separate lots for employees that
was farther away from customer lots.

------
dpcan
There's always an exception. While running a brick and mortar business for 3
years, I found that when parked around the corners (out of a courtesy to my
customers) I looked either out of business, closed, or dead.

Our business ran on weekends. Everyone else in our complex was closed on the
weekends.

We started parking our cars up front because people were FAR more likely to
come inside if it looked like other people were there.

Otherwise, we noticed that they would sometimes drive by slowly, try to peer
in our windows, then drive off.

So, parking up-front for us was just marketing.

But I get it. Give the best spots to your customers if possible. The customer
experience must be optimal. They aren't always right, but it can still feel
good.

~~~
hnick
Did you have any flags or flyers making it clear you were open? I've walked
past more than one cafe with enough tinting on the window that I'd have no
idea they are open, but they put an A-frame, flag, or something else outside
to make it clear they are.

It's pretty cheap compared to the alternative.

------
woliveirajr
> Customer Experience is All About the Little Things

Big things are expected and are exactly what you pay for. Neglect them and
you'll lose all your business, because you're offering nothing.

But when costumers are comparing two companies (or small business, whatever),
it's the small details that will make difference.

~~~
lloyddobbler
Well-said.

This makes me circle back again to the concept of "Minimum Viable Product."
It's been said that as a startup, if you're not embarrassed when you ship v1,
you waited too late. But what's often not looked at is "just how embarrassed
is embarrassed enough?"

Going against the concept of launching an MVP is the idea of "you only get one
chance to make a first impression." Which is why a number of founders started
talking less about launching Minimum Viable Products, and more about launching
_Exceptional_ Viable Products.

Those few extra details can be crucial levers to determining your product's
success with customers. Of course, the key is determining which of those key
details are the ones you need to pay attention to, and which ones you can pass
over for now.

Here's Rand Fishkin on MVP vs. EVP: [https://qz.com/work/1277369/the-lean-
startup-methodology-wil...](https://qz.com/work/1277369/the-lean-startup-
methodology-will-kill-your-reputation-if-youre-not-careful/)

~~~
hnick
> "you only get one chance to make a first impression."

Yeah this always weighs upon my mind, to the point where sometimes I don't
move ("perfect is the enemy of good", you can find a quote from all sides of a
situation).

I think the ideal use case for a MVP is exposing it to a limited subset of
users. These can be internal staff first, friends and family, or the noisy but
helpful people who file a load of issues with you for another version/product.
I think releasing a MVP to the whole world can be a big mistake, there are so
many games out there I can't play them all. Some are fully realised in early
access but others get a quick look then I never go back, even years later.

~~~
lloyddobbler
> I think the ideal use case for a MVP is exposing it to a limited subset of
> users.

This. So much this.

MVP has a key role in product development - but its place is not necessarily
at the phase of "launch it to the public with a marketing campaign." It comes
before that.

------
mikorym
This reminds me of Jiro Ono and Jiro Dreams of Sushi [1]. He would notice, for
instance, that his customers are left handed and adjust the way they then
would get served.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi)

------
CapitalistCartr
Here in the United States, there are two major, competing home building supply
stores: Home Depot and Lowes. At Home Depot, all the doors will open up when I
walk up, whether they mean for them to be entrances or exits. At Lowes, only
the one labelled "Entrance". I think that sums up the two companies'
priorities.

------
Causality1
>In reality, it is a great way to ensure a customer never comes back and
likely does not recommend the company to others.

I've make significant lifestyle changes just because companies pissed me off
enough to create a personal grudge. For example, I was an Xbox fanboy starting
around 2005. Several years later I got a girlfriend and bought her an Xbox
Live Gold subscription so she could play with me. It turned out not to be her
thing, so I tried to cancel the service, except Microsoft made it an absolute
nightmare. Reps bounced me from person to person, and several times I received
a monthly bill despite the rep assuring me the account had been canceled. It
filled me with such rage I canceled my own Live subscription, sold my Xbox
360, and swore off console gaming entirely. I'll be in the cold, cold ground
before I give Microsoft another damn cent.

------
HereBeBeasties
I have recently become a customer of Bulb for my energy. They won me because
when I tried to sign up and this failed, they followed up with an email
explaining that my existing supplier had a weird set up for my smart meter
which made it impossible to take over automatically and how to get them to fix
it, which appeared to have been written by a real human.

In most companies, that'd just be an error in a log file somewhere. They then
followed up later to ask if things had been handled well. They also have one
single, good value tariff with no option not to have green energy.

Principled, with A++ customer service and a competent mobile app, complete
with a time line for switching and starting my account with them. I'm totally
sold. They could be quite a lot more expensive than my existing supplier and I
frankly wouldn't care given the whole experience so far.

------
neves
Well, you should leave the good parking slots for your consumers. Better yet:
park in front of your competitor! :-)

------
yepthatsreality
If you advocate for the club-line effect to draw in customers so it seems
popular. You’re probably the kind of person who falls for that sort of thing.

------
vmurthy
It's a great metaphor but reality seems to be that there are a lot of good
practices followed by so many people that it is impossible to keep track of. A
_via negativa_ approach to this might be easier. Does someone know of a
compendium of bad business practices ? Life would be a lot better if we can
first avoid the bad practices , no? :-)

------
bayesian_horse
The overarching concept is to be conscious of when you inconvenience other
people (like customers), and avoid it at much cost (but not any, of course).

This seems to be the cornerstone of Western etiquette. It can be different in
Asia, where it may be more important to "save face" and let others also save
face.

------
asdf21
Are there bars that don't hold a credit card when you're running a tab? I
don't know of any..

~~~
djsumdog
There was a local bar in my home town that didn't, but I think just for the
regulars. I remember coming in once and one of the owners said, "You have
$11.50 tab from <two months ago>" ... and you didn't tell me the like ... 30
times I've been in here since then and paid my tab in full?

Occasionally there was a list on the chalk board, first and last name, of
everyone who owed a tab. This was at late as 2008. This was also in a city of
like 150; so not even a small town.

~~~
dvtrn
_I remember coming in once and one of the owners said, "You have $11.50 tab
from <two months ago>"_

Heh, my bar is like this. Been going there long enough that I get to run a tab
for a few weeks before the owner finally (jokingly) gives me a hard time about
it.

------
hwj
> It would be one thing if the bar was making the customer’s life easier so
> when they were done they could simply walk out effortlessly paying the bill
> but that is not the typical case.

It is the case in Germany.

------
billions
Steve Jobs frequently parked his Mercedes in the handicap spot next to the
building

~~~
sushid
Yes he was an asshole but he also wasn’t exactly a “small business owner.”

------
bigend
When starting to read the article, I thought it would be either about meeting
potential customers in the parkinh lot or spending that time to walk with your
kid..

------
groby_b
Sure, this would be nice - and yet, he's still sending his kid to the school.
And the school is still running. It seems to make no difference in this case.

So, what are the reasons to actually focus on customer experience? When does
it pay off? (Not as often as you'd like. Amazon is a prime - pardon the pun -
example that once you have enough of the market, you can let customer
experience go downhill, because people value convenience over experience)

------
RickJWagner
Same philosophy shared by Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos, etc. Customer first.

It's easy to say, not so easy to execute.

------
anonu
Park in the back... Unless you're a restaurant, then park in the front.
Always.

------
jeffrallen
Or take public transport. Just sayin'.

------
OrgNet
welcome to common sense....

