I bought outdoor lights last week. Got home, opened the box, and there were no globes.
A quick dig through the packaging found it. Not the globes. A very small statement, tucked away on the back of the box: "Globes not included."
Yes, they told me. The information was there. But in the smallest font they could get away with.
The extra $8 for globes wasn't the problem. The trip back to the store was.
The packaging statement solved the company's problem, not mine.
When we unbox a product, there's a window where we're either delighted or disappointed. It's a small moment, but it matters. That's when we decide if we like what we bought, or if we're already irritated with it.
The company ticked a legal box. But they didn't think about the moment I'd open the actual box and realise I needed to make another trip.
The question isn't "did we technically tell them?" It's "what experience do we want them to have when they bring this home?"
Those are very different questions.
* * * * *
Three things that happened to make me write this:
- The outdoor light box itself. I noticed the warning printed in a font half the size of everything else. Designed to be technically present and practically invisible.
- A flat-pack delivery last month that arrived missing two screws. The instructions said "additional fixings may be required." That's a sentence written by someone who knows the customer may get annoyed and is hoping legalese softens the blow. It doesn't.
- A forgotten subscription that quietly renewed. The email confirmation came after the charge, not before. Technically a notification, but practically a receipt.
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