A local cafe near work had a broken card machine this morning.
Scrappily printed “Cash Only” signs were stuck to the entrance door and to the tills.
Realising I had no cash on me, I slowly began to turn around and leave when the manager asked me, “Do you work around here?”
As I nodded, and he replied with, “Well, why don’t you take what you need and come back later to pay?”
No questions asked.
When things go wrong, someone gets to allocate responsibility and risk.
Today, the manager could have passed the broken card machine burden to me. However, he chose to assume responsibility and take the risk that I wouldn’t come back to pay. The funny thing is he earned more trust from me today than if the card machine was working perfectly.
Even if it’s broken, there are still opportunities to build trust.
This links back to a previous post about taking it on the chin.