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When was the last time you became a customer of your own business?
I'm not talking about knowing your product’s features. I'm talking about actually experiencing what it's like to navigate your company from the outside in.
Last week, Cliff Robinson, the COO of Chick-fil-A, was sharing with our team his challenge to be a customer. There are many benefits of this:
- Seeing what your physical looks like from the vantage point of a customer
- Interacting with the employees on the front line
- Navigating the check-out process from the customer’s perspective
One of the greatest benefits of looking at your business from the perspective of a customer is identifying well-intentioned internal processes that are making a customer’s life more difficult.
I saw this clearly the last time I went to the doctor. I filled out three pieces of paperwork where I was required to put the same exact information each time. I can only assume that is because on the doctor 's side, it is easier on them if I repeat the same information every time (I’ll spare you my separate rant about customer service in the healthcare industry).
It usually begins with good intentions. Your team has a meeting where someone says, "Wouldn't it be great if customers could...":
- Fill out this additional form
- Provide more detailed information
- Adapt to our scheduling system
Seemingly great suggestions, but customers don't care about your administrative workflow or documentation requirements. They care about solving their problem with minimal friction. Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look for more efficient ideas, but we shouldn’t do them at the expense of the customer.
Yet businesses create procedures that make perfect sense internally while creating maddening experiences externally. Your process has become their problem.
Consider these examples of companies I use that have effectively improved my customer experience:
Delta Air Lines has improved their app experience not by chasing technology trends, but by obsessively removing customer friction points. On a travel day, when on a different page of their app, I used to have to click multiple times to get back to my boarding pass. Now, no matter where else I am in the app, my boarding pass stays accessible at the bottom of my screen.
Or take Enterprise Rental Car. One of the most frustrating parts of renting a car is all of the things I have to say “yes” or “no” to, often because of the legal requirements imposed on the rental car companies. Enterprise makes it easier by streamlining the process – getting me from counter to highway with minimal friction. They've mastered what I call "process invisibility"—handling complexity without transferring that complexity to the customer.
Here are a few questions you can ask about your customer experience to measure how well you’re doing this:
- Who's carrying the complexity? If your internal simplification creates external complication, you've failed.
- Is this step necessary for the customer or just convenient for us? Eliminate or reduce anything that doesn't directly serve the customer's goal.
- What emotion does this step create? Frustration is friction's emotional signature.
Here's my challenge: Become your own customer. Don't just walk through the process—experience it with fresh eyes. Look over a first-time customer’s shoulder as they navigate your business.
Where do they hesitate? What confuses them? When does their enthusiasm diminish? Those moments are your friction points.
Then ask: "How can we make this simpler?"
In today's marketplace, the businesses that thrive won't be those with the most features—they'll be the ones that master the art of friction elimination.
