I was waiting for my order at a bakeshop.
A customer walked in. No one went to take his order. A new employee kept rearranging things near the counter. She avoided eye contact. She wasn’t ready to face him.
A minute passed. Maybe two.
Then the manager walked out, took the order, handled it fast. The customer ate and left.
What happened next stuck with me.
The manager turned to the new employee and said something like: “It’s almost lunchtime. That person might just be hungry. Entertain them. You don’t have to know everything. Come ask us if you’re unsure. You’re not alone.”
She didn’t say “we’ll lose customers.”
She didn’t say “think about our reputation.”
She said: that person might be hungry.
That’s it. The whole lesson was empathy, not metrics.
And I thought about the last time someone followed up on a project inquiry. Or sent a second message on a contact form. Or replied to a quote you sent and never heard back from.
That person did the hard part. They reached out.
They’re not a lead. They’re a person. Maybe in a hurry. Maybe already embarrassed they had to follow up twice.
You don’t need a perfect response. You need a first response.
The best bakeshop in my town isn’t the best because of systems. It’s because someone there taught a shy new employee to see the human first.
That’s the standard.
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