Are Your Prospects Learning or Assuming?

This exchange has been on my mind all week.

After reading a LinkedIn post, I asked a mutual friend to make an introduction. She was kind enough to connect us and mentioned that I have a client who may need his services. I was looking forward to the conversation.
It's now been a week without a response. As the days have passed, I've started forming opinions about someone I know almost nothing about.

I wonder whether he's interested. I wonder if he's simply that busy or away on vacation. I even find myself wondering whether the lack of communication is an indication of what it might be like to work with him and whether I'm willing to put my name behind a recommendation to one of my clients. The truth is, I have no idea. I'm filling in the blanks with the only information I have.

It strikes me that our customers are doing exactly the same thing.

Long before they experience our product or service, they're experiencing our business. They're paying attention to how quickly we respond, whether different people tell them the same thing, whether we follow through on commitments, and whether working with us feels organized or frustrating. Every interaction becomes part of the story they're writing about what it will be like to become a customer.

That's why customer experience doesn't begin after the sale. It begins the moment someone encounters your business. By the time a proposal is signed or a contract is executed, many customers have already decided what kind of organization you are.

Whether my assumptions are right or wrong isn't really the point. The point is that they're influencing how I think about someone I've never even spoken to.
That's exactly what's happening in our businesses every day. Before we ever have the opportunity to explain ourselves, customers are drawing conclusions from the experience we create.

The question isn't whether your prospects are making assumptions.

The question is whether you've given your team a clear process for earning the assumptions you want customers to make.