A girl walks into a coffee shop.  “I’ll have a medium latte.”

“We don’t have medium, we only have large or small.”

A girl walks into a coffee shop.  “I’ll have a medium latte.”

“We don’t have medium, we only have one size.”

A girl walks into a coffee place.  “I’ll have a medium latte.”

“We don’t have medium.”

I learn the most from our customers.  Second to that, I learn a lot from being a customer.  And in the past two weeks, my local coffee places have enabled a lot of learning.

What irked me about the three situations above isn’t that they didn’t have the size I wanted.  What irked me was that they didn’t try to help me solve the problem.

See, it’s 8:15 and I’ve already solved a lot of problems myself.  I got myself up, dressed, and ready for work, then I got a toddler up, dressed, and ready for daycare.  I got the toddler into a stroller, the dog walked alongside the toddler, the dog dropped off back at home, the toddler dropped off at daycare, and then myself on the bus to the train to my stop.  First world problem solving to be sure – but problem solving nonetheless.

And I am at the coffee place because I want someone else to solve my coffee problem.

Frankly, I order a medium because it’s easy.  It’s 12 oz in some places, 16 oz in others.  I just say “medium,” so I don’t have to think about it.

And here’s what I’d like to have happen:

A girl walks into a coffee shop. “I’ll have a medium latte.”

“Here are our two sizes, which one would you like?
“Here is our latte cup, will this work for you?
“How’s this size cup?”

Help me solve the problem.

I think that’s what our customers want too.  I think they want us to help them solve their problem.

Just like I want the cashier to think about what brought me into the store, I think our customers want us to think about their entire data center and business priorities, not just the part that relates to us.

Just like I want the cashier to quickly hone in on what it most important to me (COFFEE!), I think our customers want us to quickly hone in on their biggest challenges and how we can address them.

Just like I want the cashier to offer me options to make it easy to get my problem solved quickly, I think our customers want us to offer them options too.

And I think most of our customers also occasionally want a cup of coffee.