Customers judge you on what they can rely on every day.
Cast your mind back to a business you’ve stopped using. The chances are it was the inconsistency. The times it was great followed by the times it really wasn’t, until eventually you thought ‘I’ll try someone else.’
That’s exactly what your customers are thinking when your business has an off day.
The trust equation
Lots of brilliant experiences and one mediocre one you’re going to get away with, because you’ve built a level of trust. But one brilliant experience one day followed by one pretty poor one the next registers as unreliable in the customer’s mind, and unreliable businesses lose customers quietly. No complaint, no explanation, they just stop coming.
The businesses that build real loyalty are the ones that show up the same way every single time, because they’ve built a shared way of working that the whole team buys into.
They have OurWay of doing everything and that makes them totally predictable. The customer always knows what they’re going to get, they can rely on it, and that predictability is worth way more than the occasional outstanding performance.
The Big Mac standard
Just think about the Big Mac. You know exactly what you’re going to get when you order one. In Aberdeen or Adelaide, on a Tuesday morning or a Saturday night, that Big Mac will look and taste the same. McDonald’s achieved that by developing the McDonald’s Way to do everything, including how to build a Big Mac, embedded it with consistent training and simple, clear, repeatable standards that everyone follows, every time.
Why consistency matters
Your business might not be selling burgers, but the principle is the same. Your customers want to know what they’re getting. A first-time customer who gets a great experience will come back. If the second experience doesn’t match the first, they start to wonder. A third that’s different again and you’ve lost them, often without ever knowing why.
The good news is that consistency can be built, task by task in your business. You just have to want it enough to put in the work. But while you’re deliberating just remember that for your customers: Reliable beats remarkable. Every time.
Reliable beats remarkable. Every time.
