Thinking on Building Trust

Hi, I'm Kahran. Hi, I'm Dewey. And welcome to episode 15 of Thinking on Thinking. This week we spend a lot of time talking about trust and looking at how does trust get built between customers and brands.

When is that trust built on key moments and when is that trust built gradually over many experiences? We talk about how moments can lead to a growth in trust and what comes out of that and also how sometimes things can erode trust

and talk through some examples of when that has happened and why we feel like that does happen and continues to happen. We hope you enjoyed this week. We had a lot of fun recording. Let me put it like this. We have a bunch of different things that we have always found interesting

that we have been trying to talk about in different ways. And initially I was just thinking the way we have distinguished them which is like one is us with the company, one is company with its own customers and one is us towards the customers.

Those three distinctions feel right but as we kept thinking about it more it doesn't seem right. But today like right now when you were talking about it something just clicked in my brain and I was thinking that

sure we know that we want to be working towards loyalty and trust and like those are the kind of things that we want to be building towards for our customers, for our clients. What is needed for loyalty is this thing that so I have heard of this concept more in context of human conversations

and human connections but it's this idea of practical trust and emotional trust and in the context of human connection it is practical trust is I trust you to do your thing well. Like in a work context let's say

I trust you to perform the task that is assigned to you well and emotional trust is I trust you to have my back if I fail or if I fall. Interesting. And you can think of many organizations

where one is lacking or the other is lacking in their attitude towards their employees or towards their customers. Towards their employees. Like you would have worked in environments where you felt like there was a lack, extreme lack of emotional trust

or an extreme lack of you might have felt overburdened in environments where you had a lot of emotional trust but extreme lack of practical trust. Now I'm just like trying to expand that thing and there are certain things that would build emotional trust to the brand which is like the stuff that we have talked about which is values

and which is all of these things which the brand sort of like subconsciously communicates to you. The way they experience is how they are acting and then there is practical trust where it's like can I actually reliably trust your product

to do the thing that I'm expecting it to do. At least in my experience, most successful brands most successful relationships in your life most successful work relationships in your life will have healthy balance of both.

Doesn't have to be equal but it has to be equitable in the sense that like you need to get what is essential for the relationship to become strong and long term. Do you think one precedes the other? In my experience I would say different environments

and different relationships might have both come at different times. So I think the framing you've said makes sense to me right? I think there is a question like can you fulfill the kind of need that I had that I came here for right? I came here to do something.

I've interacted with your brand or this person or this experience for something. And then I think the best brands I think have kind of realized that when something goes wrong it is an opportunity to be able to build that kind of emotional trust

because a lot of times there's no opportunity in very transactional relationships. Like to give you kind of two examples I thought of just there. Both have to do with hotels but once I was staying at the W I was like I was going to I think in Paris.

It was like some W-western or something like that and I was using my computer in bed and fell asleep and then woke up before my flight and was like oh shit my flight is very soon. And packed up my stuff and left for the airport and my computer was under my pillow.

And they figured it out right? And shipping to India is not the easiest thing in the world because you have to like deal with customs and blah blah blah but they figured it out and they got me in my computer I think like three days later or something

you know I was a CEO of a company like my computer was a thing. It was a huge hassle but it was amazing. And I've never forgotten it right? Like it's built so much trust from that experience. Similarly I think the reason why Gaurav and I like the Oberoi so much in India

which is you know this hotel chain. They're not a ton of Oberoi's in India. I think maybe like 10 or something like but it's not like the other big five star hotel chains. But like whenever we've had something go wrong

and I think because we stayed with Oberoi a lot of times when we've had weird stuff like we were wedding shopping or like running around. There's always this opportunity where like you just feel so that people are there for you you know like whatever may come

like they're always looking at every opportunity as a way to like say how can we show you that we are there for you? Like I remember one person just to give you a small example we were staying in Mumbai when we were again doing wedding clothing shopping and we had to get a COVID test and we had planned to get a COVID test.

We planned to like use a different basically get a COVID test in a different way and that fell through the last minute and this woman like she gave her contact information because like that was the only way the guy would show up. She got someone to come to our hotel room and like and then because it was her contact like her personal contact info she actually got the test reports

which she felt really bad about and then she like forwarded them to us and then there was like all these things right where she like right someone had to kind of go through all the work to make sure it happened and someone did they didn't just like give it to me and be like oh yeah call this number which is what in a lot of situations like that's what happens right they're like oh yeah

we found someone be able to help you you'll have to call them and set it up but they want to make sure like you're gonna be taking care of you want things to go around where you need something unusual. I wonder if you've had experiences where this is um so of course there is you made a mistake or you need help right like this is one category

but have you had emotional trust built with a brand where you just felt like oh I didn't even know that I needed to be taken care of in this way and that like almost makes you feel extra seen like I didn't know this need of mine and you saw it. You know there's a client or potential client for us in Delhi in the luxury clothing space

part of what really attracted me to that business was really that right like like when you when you walk in and tell him his name is Sukheth and when you meet Sukheth like like he really just just makes you feel so clothing has never just been a thing that I feel super connected to like it's just been always kind of hard for me to like to navigate like I don't know people just some people have like a really instinctual understanding of like fashion and it's not something that I really

feel like I came from. But I feel like like Sukheth was able to kind of be like this will make you happy and I think the thing that was really impressive was like now I look at those clothes and they make me happier than they did in the store like I didn't realize when I was buying I was kind of nervous about them when I was buying them but now I see like I choose to wear these crazy pants that I bought from him that like have a print of these

Maharajas and Maharani's playing golf and like running around it's beautiful it's also floral there's these huge the most crazy print right they're forest green. Oh it's like that jacket that I have which has like all of these Japanese women on it. Correct. Correct.

Except imagine if they were like playing modern activities I think you've seen the pants I don't know but I'll show them to you. I haven't. And they were stripped of velvet down the side right they're like they're so they're so over the top but I've worn them so many times since right and I was so hesitant about it when I was buying them but it was something that and they don't own anything like it it's not like he looked at it and was like oh you know you should be in this direction but I think even as I was browsing through

he was like I think you're on like your Prince journey. Anyway so long story short I feel like in this case here was something where I felt like I was it's something I wish I was better at and then this brand made me feel like I was better at it. No I see how that would I see how that would be a thing. I think that that is what happened with me and when I started using Nike Run Club.

Like I all of the coaching on like the Run Club app it made me feel like I can run all of the questions of oh I'm not running fast enough and I'm not running well enough like just it literally felt like what I haven't had sports coaching I am not somebody who is athletic was never athletic and just having somebody not sort of beating down on me but actually telling me no you do your best and that's what and I know it's recorded and all of that but still it was such a perspective shift that I almost felt like oh I'm exploring a part of me that I wish was better but I didn't know how to make better and like that generated a lot of trust with him.

Now of course like I've always known that Nike is a brand that like supports so many like sports people so of course they're probably very good at what they do. No I was going to ask is do you feel like there was an inflection point in that relationship or it just slowly grew or decision point maybe inflection points the wrong word actually. I mean I was already running but I was struggling with it. Was it like a point where you had an injury where you were like didn't know what to do and it was like oh you know it was there for me or just like you know every day you put another block. I mean I felt like I was a bad runner.

It's so tedious like how can I not even run a kilometer. This is so horrible and like listening to them made me feel like oh it's okay. It's okay if I can't and I think that is what sort of changed for me. It was just like a repeated exposure but then I also know that like with most workout related things it is about repeated exposure to the thing you just go there again and again and almost like the emotional trust I had in brand helped me build practical trust in myself that I could do this. Do you feel like that is weaker than when there's been an event.

The example I was thinking about while you were talking was an airline right so I there's a certain airline called Alaska that's very big in Seattle where I grew up and I have a lot of loyalty show Alaska Airlines because I spent so many times on one of their airplanes and had good experiences. But the thing that I realized is when I have not as good experiences that can sometimes erode my feelings about about the airline, because it's not so much built on like there hasn't been key moments where I felt like they've really been there for me. It's been this gradual upswell of like good moments but I feel like there could also be a gradual downswell, which is different than how I feel about like I would be more forgiving of of organizations I felt like had been there for me in key moments. I was curious whether you feel similarly. I wonder if it is person dependent because I don't think that I trust singular moment events as much.

Like so for me, if I were to say mathematically I think I trust peaks a lot less than I trust area under the curve. So even if a brand has given me or that's like what's coming to mind right now but like even if a brand has given me one or two good experiences, I don't think that I feel like this is it. It has to be over time. It has to be like, I think that's because we start from different positions of trust. Okay, like I was thinking about this. So there's this tool that I was reading about a couple of days ago on this website called there's an AI for that. And it's called Clear Voice and Clear Voice will remove all the filler filler words and pauses and you know, dead space from a podcast.

So like this is great. I'll upload ours and see what happens. And so I uploaded it and it was like, oh, this podcast is over 30 minutes. You only have 30 minutes of free credits. And it was 10 euro to pay for more credits. And so I was like, right, like I wouldn't start from the point of saying like, oh, this thing doesn't work. Like, do I even know if this works? Should I even pay for it?

Like, maybe I'll upload something and see if it works. I'm like, I'll start from a position of like trust. Like I like to start from positions of trust. I'm like, I will have you can have my trust until you give me a reason to not have trust. I don't think I start from position of distrust.

But you're starting to think I start from zero. I'm not starting from a plus 10 for most things. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it because it's not like I can't start from zero, but most things will start from a plus 10. Yeah, like I have friends, like one friend comes to mind who always starts from minus 10, especially when it comes to people. Like people really have to earn her trust for them to like, you know, be let in almost.

I know that like with people, I generally start from like a slightly more positive. I don't start from zero. I start from like slightly in a generous place. So not to take us too much aside, but it was a very deliberate choice for me. Like I remember when I was like, Oh, this is a thing and I will also be like this.

So when I went to work rather than in 2013, I kind of realized that that was what felt so unique to me about this organization. Like, my dad is not someone who's very good at other things is the company my father started. My dad is not someone who is very good at like controls or good at putting processes into place in an organization. But what he's very good at is making people feel that he trusts them. And so he created this kind of like feeling that you were trusted through the organization and people rise to the challenge in a lot of ways, right?

People because the losing the trust is almost like you. It's like the loss aversion kicks in, right? And it's something that feels so precious to them. I mean, your dad definitely has like, I believe in you all. Like, okay, you believe in me. I will believe in myself too.

Like I was telling you, this is just a funny thing. But like after talking to him in your wedding and him being like, yes, one should climb the stairs. This is one of the keys that has kept me feeling like, yes, I can do physical things. I should not let things go. And after that, I've been trying to climb 12 floors.

It's such a weird thing. Like my brother has been doing it for years at this point. He does not take the lift unless his foot is broken or sprained or something. But like when Pradeep said that, I was like, yes, I should also do this. I can do this. I can see how he can like create that feeling of almost like unconditional belief in your ability to rise to the challenge kind of a thing.

And I think it's almost just like, I almost would put it as trust. It's like trust. Because you trust so much in you, like you trust in yourself. It's a very interesting thing for organizations. I haven't felt that way so much and consumer as a consumer basically. Like I don't know if there's that many businesses that made me feel that way as a consumer. Yeah, I think that's a very fair thing.

I think most businesses have very little trust in their customers, in their consumers, users, whatever they want to call them. And in the relationship. Like if you look at more social media, their thought processes, if we do not keep our algorithms alive, people will leave. And there's almost this insecurity about the value of the relationship, insecurity about the value you're delivering to your end customer. Like there is very little trust in that whatever you have built is going to stand.

I feel like the brands I can think of that do have some of that feeling tend to be luxury brands. And it's interesting because I think you and I have been talking a little bit about having more specific offerings for luxury brands. And I think it's really interesting because I like being in that place personally, right? I like being in a place where we can operate from a place of trust. But like the few I could think about like Nordstrom is this retailer out of Seattle.

That infom there's all these stories about how Nordstrom will let people return anything, right? I think we may have talked about this on the podcast before. So there's one story about Nordstrom is like an urban legend, but it's actually true that once at Nordstrom came in where there used to be a tire shop. And so one day a year after the store had opened, someone came and wanted to return a tire and Nordstrom is a clothing retail store and they took it. And this is like kind of like Nordstrom's attitude about its customers, right?

Is that like, you know, we want to try and find a way to like make it work for you. And a lot of times in their world, that means letting people return things even when, you know, they may have won something may have happened. That kind of sounds like what was that shoe brand Zappos? Yeah, they would say they're from a similar similar mentality. Like their customer service was almost at that level as well.

Yeah, where they were like, we will do everything for you, but not in a patronizing way, but in a we care for you kind of way. Yeah. And I feel like some of the like the really fine dining or or high end hotels. They really come from that place. But I think it's not necessarily from the same.

It's like a more cold, more cold calculus, I feel in that world. Maybe to some degree. But like, I remember, for example, we had gone for dinner with a friend in the Oberoi. And there was in Bangalore. And we were looking at their menu.

We were in the Thai restaurant. We were looking at their menu. And there wasn't any desert that appealed to us. And after some time of us being like, this isn't good. This isn't good.

The guy just came to us, whoever was serving there. And he was like, what kind of deserts do you like? And we were like, okay, we like a tiramisu and we like this. And he just got those for us from the different restaurant. And he didn't have to, we didn't call him.

We didn't think that would be an option because generally your mental model is whatever is on the menu is going to be served to you. But he saw our willingness to have a desert and he saw that as the queue. So I'm sure that there is calculation there because like now I remember this thing. But at the same time, like I also feel like it's very cultural because I'm sure those moments arise for them. For me, that moment is maybe going to happen one or two times.

But for them, those moments are going to arise multiple times a day. And are they able to leverage it every single time? Yeah. In some ways, this reminds me about what we were talking about last week. Though there we were talking about in the context more of financial controls.

What I was saying is I feel like you can kind of percolate through an organization like, oh, you know, we value every dollar we need to make sure that everything can be accounted for. Similarly, I think like for Nordstrom, right, the fact that they have this story of like, yeah, we will accept a tire being returned like that sets a tone for the organization that then everyone understands like, oh yeah, this is the kind of story that tells us how we should behave. That is a really interesting thought. I just had stories are what tell us values. Like the stories of an organization and the stories that people choose to retell the stories that people choose to cherish those are what are the values and what tell the values of an organization.

That also feels more right for what we are trying to do because like this has been now that you've said it, it has been a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. They're not leaning enough into the storytelling or like the, I don't know, that build whatever that like brand building is like just the wrong word for it, but like that side of things. But if we are thinking so much about values, then there has to be something quote unquote fluffy but concrete. Yeah. Huh.

I have a different question. Have there been moments when like, your trust was, I would say you had a lot of emotional trust in a brand, but it got depleted because the practical trust broke. Like, have you had those kind of moments and it can be from both sides, right? It could be from just like slow building up of trust can happen. Slow depletion happened or slow or a rapid one event happened and you were like, okay, I'm done with this.

Yeah, I can think of quite a few. Actually. Yeah, I feel like I can think of several. I was there for someone like the bigger idea ones, like I feel like I had a lot of trust in my kind of Ayurveda that like I think I built by like a lot of people who are telling me about Ayurveda, like just people I really respected kind of shared their opinions and I wouldn't say that it's like, like, in road, I mean, I would say it's a road it a little bit because I had some experiences, which have just not been successful.

Right. Like, kind of I had, I guess, and this is what you're saying, right, because the practical trust got eroded, the emotional trust got a little bit of road it as well. And I think now I've like, because I still have a national emotional trust, I qualify it where I'm like, Oh yeah, I think it was just that doctor, right, I'm willing to like try again. And I have had some experiences that have been positive. So I'm willing to kind of say like, Oh yeah, you know, maybe there's just like, I'm clear what's happening, right. But I think right so I think when things don't fulfill the thing you've hired them for.

It can be tough. Now I'll give you a different example. I'm going to have a nice stayed in an Airbnb at the end of Cape Cod in this place called Provincetown. And when we stayed in the Airbnb, we realized that there was not, it was not on suite there was no bathroom. And we were like very surprised, right. Because it said that there was a private bathroom but it was a private bathroom down the hall with a label being like this is for this room. And like other people had a shared bathroom and you did have a private bathroom technically.

It was like, it's not in your room. But it actually was kind of fine. And I think it was, it was because when we got there, there was like the innkeeper was really friendly and he really made this point of like, you know, taking us around and like, he did all these things to kind of like build emotional trust right. He was telling us about like places to go and like how. And so because of that, like here was something that that could have eroded it because it was like our practical expectation was not there. But we kind of managed to get past it. But I think the most interesting example, at least to me about myself is that I had a trainer this past year and I think some members of our early listeners or our podcast me remember we talking about it.

Most of last summer, I had a trainer. And that despite me kind of talking to the trainer about how I have a history of injury. I kind of was very injured at the end of three months. Not very injured, but I like, you know, my range of motion was much less than I think when I started I think my I had my means and strength but my ability to kind of just, you know, function in day to day life had been have been affected in a negative way. Yeah, I would say like even though I liked him a lot personally and

this I was training at a place that I actually used to swim for. So when I was young from about the age of six to I think I was 15 I swim for a club and the club was called the pro club right so this is a place I have a long history where a lot of trust has been built over the years. Someone when I like came back as an adult was like, Oh, sir, were you like a member 15 years ago and I was like, Yes. And those little things make you feel seen they make you feel like this is a place for you. So, but even then right like you do. And I again, like I find myself I'll always make excuses I'm like, Oh, maybe they're hiring kind of went down during coven and it was hard for them to have as many physical trainers and so many people retired and less the profession. Maybe that's why they did a bad hiring job here.

Because even as I as I think about it I made an excuse for it because I have so much emotional trust, right that even though they practically failed me. Sure it's a road and some right but I have my, my excuses in my head. Do you feel like that removed your trust from the space itself, the fact that you didn't like your trainer. No, no, so that's what I was saying right that even as I think about it I've already made excuses in my head, right where I'm like, Oh, you know, maybe because of coven all their trainers retired and they had to hire in a hurry and so they're hiring capabilities were less, and they weren't able to kind of to put in as good policies in place also I created a whole story in my head that like maybe trainers in the US are just not as well trained as in India. It seems possible but also I'm, I don't know I don't have much basis for that.

But right because I have so much or trust an institution. I have assigned blame to other places. So as humans we generally do not like to reject people things like getting rejected is bad, but giving out rejections is also horrible we have talked about this on an earlier podcast episode where we were talking about experiences of firing people are getting fired and so stuff like that. And I wonder if it's one of those things where we find it easier to give excuses but practically we are never going to go there again or practically we're not going to engage with the brand again even if we want to maintain a positive relationship emotionally in our minds.

That is interesting because I don't feel like I would get another trainer there. Like I would join the club again right and I still love the club but I won't don't know if I would get another train. At least there. You know, it's one of those things. If I were to say it in terms of human relationships it's almost like when people say post breakup, oh we're going to be friends. But then like, you're not like, let's be honest, not always, but there are certain cases where you say that you're going to be friends, and you want to be friends, but also a very solid part of you is like no I'm so glad I'm away from this person and I don't want to be friends with them anymore.

Yeah, and not to go too far down this aside, but I do think there's a thing around how so like when I had my like big breakup like I think the motivator for when I was saying that we were going to be friends was not the same as when we actually were like now we are friends, right like there's a there's a desire to like hold on to something that's pushing you. It's not a desire it's a it's a it's a past motivator not a future motivator. Like it's a loss in motivation motivator not like a few not like a. Yeah. It's also very interesting because like what you are saying is also making me think about.

I had a new therapist conversation today, like the first time I started with this therapist and towards the end so she like is someone who is more emotion focused in her work and my previous therapist was very cognitive focused and I had started feeling like I don't think more cognitive work is helping me. The analogy that I gave gave this therapist who like laughed a lot at it and was like yeah I agree with this is like I feel like my the cognitive side of my brain has been going to the gym for 10 years while the emotional side has been sitting on the sofa and eating potatoes. So, like now I need to send the emotional side to the gym also and like it starts crying very quickly so I need a better trainer for it. Like this therapist asked me that what is going to be your long term motivation for this because as much as you're motivated right now and I can tell that you'd be able to do this right now. What is going to keep you doing this in the long term things actually get hard.

And I think when people say like bringing it back to rather than relationships but more towards brands and stuff like when people say oh yeah I had one bad experience but I will not leave this brand. But over time what they end up doing is they find more and more reasons oh it's just inconvenient to use this brand right now. Oh the wait times are too long. Maybe I don't want to spend this much right now. They're a little bit inconvenient in the location I'm in and by like you know in a couple of years or months or whatever is the cycle for the use of product or service you stop using it. I wonder if we do something similar to what what the old maxim is about about managers and organizations right that people get promoted to their point of incompetency. Okay, talking about have you ever heard this. Yeah, it's like some old expression. So I wonder if something similar happens with brands right where we we have this tendency to kind of

especially when we like them connect with them more and more and more until we find something that we're not happy with. And then it's like if only we weren't trying to look for this thing from that brand, then we would have always been fine when I just thought about this brand is fulfilling my detergent needs. It was fine but as soon as I started saying that like okay you know my detergent brand needs to also be fulfill my like my my need to save the world. Well, now that you're starting to like lean into or starting to understand more about like you need to save the world and detergent now it's like oh I can not use this to turn it. You know I'm saying that was a bad example because. No, no, no, I get what you're saying but I also I have slight disagreement. Of course, sometimes you can be greedy about the relationship, but sometimes also your needs change.

Or your values change. Like think of it like you know some people have friends from high school. And like let's say you had like you know 10 friends and you were in high school. You might retain one of them by the time you are in your late 20s. And I'm not counting you because you have a lot of friends from school but like I have one friend from school.

A lot of my friends who were friends in college I'm not in touch with anymore. No, it's not. This is I hear you though this is not what I was trying to say. No, I think like if you think about some brands like maybe I'll take like Apple as an example right that what can happen is that you are like oh this computer is great or this phone is great and now you buy the next thing right so now you buy the watch or then you buy the Airpods or the earphones right now. Now what I feel like can happen is there's these quirks to a brand or quirks to a person or quirks to a thing right that like they didn't bother you when you are engaging with them only at one level but now that you've started to have you know you're having so much of it in your life.

Now it's goes from there like oh like this is just so annoying. I wish that Apple would just let me edit the you know change the gain on my microphone. Why do you never give me settings in any of my products and something that was just like it was just like a small little thing that was almost kind of cute. When it was one thing when it becomes around you all of your life you look at the brand and you're like god damn it this is annoying. But then I don't think like if it was in terms of relationship right I would say how maybe taking a step back is a better idea but in terms of brands I don't know if I even agree with the fact that it's the customers over expectations like the brand has set it up as like for example I think like

Apple in case of Apple it has set it up as a one stop solution for all of your electronic needs the entire ecosystem you will have and pride themselves on their convenience and they pride themselves on their user centricity. Windows has so many problems people complain about it and they keep using it because they do not expect that because Windows has not created that expectation. As an Android user I don't expect 100% compatibility with things I expect it's going to be a little bit buggy at times. But like used to be way I used to be way more tolerant of bugs when I was on Xiaomi than when I am now on OnePlus because I have paid more for it and OnePlus has promised me more. A lot of times when this discord starts happening between brands and customers I feel like it's because brands are trying to get away with more than they're able to deliver.

I hear you on that so there's this like great coffee place I went to today and I find it's a lovely place to go and catch up with a friend. Now I don't try and do interviews there and I suspect if I tried to do interviews there I would get frustrated with like there's no power plugs like it kind of feels like people are like everyone's kind of watching. They're watching each other because it's kind of that kind of place a little bit right and it would just be like there's not enough privacy and I feel like it would erode my enjoyment of that place right it would be very subconscious but I would just be like you know I went from like always having 100% great experiences. I have like 80% great experiences. Okay, I have a question.

I have a question. Is the coffee shop positioned as a coffee shop or is it positioned like just in the ambience of what it is. Is it positioned as a chill time or is it positioned as a could be chill could be efficient time. Like Glutokai for example has could be chill could be efficient kind of. No, no, it feels very Joe right all of the way the plants are the seating is it's all set up either if you're there.

With someone you're there to chat for an extended period or there's some seating in the back but that's really designed for you to read like it's meant like you're coming with a book and you're coming to do something quietly. But no it's all expecting that you're there for 45 minutes an hour or two hours. It's not like are you coming in and getting a coffee and leaving there's not even a bill like you can't even see the coffee when you walk up you have to sit down get a menu then only you see. So then I would say that like they have branded themselves correctly they have positioned themselves correctly right. Like it's not a coffee place it is a place for you to chill and hang out.

But like not hang out hang out like with a lot of friends. It's for like you know coffee and conversations but with a relaxed space. Yeah kind of a vibe right. So I feel like that's not. I mean then I would say it's wrong on you as a customer to expect that it should also be your interview.

But if they let's say placed. So this is a good example if they placed power plugs everywhere. But the tables are too close by you really can't have a conversations in that scenario. Yeah. Yeah I think I think that makes sense and I think it's just kind of some ways and being intentional in how you're creating the experience right so that then people do have the right expectations and so like in some ways you yeah like you could be building more trust or fulfilling more kinds of needs for your customers.

But if you I think I think what we're saying is like there's a practical aspect and an emotional aspect whenever you fulfill a need and if you start fulfilling practical needs without thinking about the emotional needs and therefore emotional expectations you're creating from it. It can really lead into this difficult situation for the brand because the customers have a have an expectation because you're practically fulfilling something for them but you're not you're not expecting that expectation so you don't fulfill the emotional need that's come with a practical fulfillment. Hmm. And I would also imagine that like if you just fulfill practical needs you will end up I would say in a position where you are quickly replaceable like if a better option comes along people are going to replace you because all they have is you are doing things reliably well. And if someone else gives them doing things reliably well and then some they're going to go there.

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Hmm. I feel like we arrived at something interesting here.

Yeah. I think this is interesting. I think it's given me some some interesting thoughts I'm going to try and write up a little bit as as we add more content to our website and keep publishing. So good chat. Yes.

Yeah. Good chat. Take these. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of thinking on thinking.

Our theme music is by Steve Gomes. If you found any of the topics we talked about interesting this week we'd invite you to get in touch with us. We'd love to invite you on the podcast or just have a conversation about how these topics apply in your business and in the decisions and problems that you're struggling with. You can get in touch with us on our website. Joya.studio or by reaching out to the via army directly.