10:52

I noticed the big store on my left first. My phone company, the one I've paid every month for longer than I can remember.

But the windows didn't speak to me. There was a vinyl sticker that said something about a “data prize”, but it was too faded to read, and besides, the store across the way was calling me.

Chocolate.

Ribbons of gold and red balls, all in baskets I could get lost in, and a free tasting offer that made me want to go right now.

I hovered at the chocolate vision and took half a step towards the phone store. But the sight of two employees guarding the entrance like a watchtower made me pause again, and consider the chocolate.

I could get some for Benji. He's been working really hard at school lately and deserves a treat.

Into the Willy Wonka Wonderland I went.

10:56

The shop was bright and welcoming, and while there was no chocolate river, the sheer variety of displays gave me something new to look at every few steps. Was it time to buy the advent calendars? They always sell out. I glanced at the date on my watch: 10 October. Still seven weeks before we'd need that particular gift.

The Oompa Loompa who wasn't, a tall, slim lad in his early twenties, said “Good morning” cheerily, then carried on fussing over the displays. No pressure, no hassle in this particular Wonderland.

I tried a sample, still unpressured, and chose a gift bag for each of us: dark and white mixed for me, and strictly milk for Benji, as is his wont.

A cheery chat about the weather, an effortless payment, a closing word about when the advent calendars might sell out, and I turned towards the phone store and the start of my mission.

11:05

The guards at the front had retreated by now, so I walked across the concourse and tried to work out where I could get my screen fixed.

Maybe I couldn't. It wasn't clear where to go.

There was a screen, though, asking me to take a ticket. Another lady was already using it, so I waited patiently, then jabbed at it a few too many times when it asked me to decide: was my visit for service or sales?

I wanted my phone fixed, and I had a question about that TV advert. Both? Neither?

The store was busy, and I almost hot-footed it straight back out. Too many things to do. This was too difficult.

11:06

I was sick of my cracked screen. It was the only reason I stayed.

There wasn't even a chair to wait in, so I wandered over to the “Home” display to check on the fibre offer I'd seen on TV. Ten per cent off for new sign-ups, if you were already a mobile customer.

Which I was. “If they don't hurry up, I might not be for much longer,” I thought, irritated and hot.

I spotted a plastic box, probably the fibre router, though I didn't really know what a router was. I just knew I was sick of Benji complaining that the wifi wasn't good enough in his bedroom. “We need superfast fibre, Mum,” he'd plead religiously, usually right after losing a game and blaming the speeds.

I drifted over to a sleek table with phones on it. No prices. How was I supposed to tell which was which?

Then a man at the other end of the table picked one up, and the screen in the middle of the table, the one I couldn't quite see, suddenly changed. “Oh, I have to lift it,” I thought.

They all looked the same to me. I shrugged, and made a mental note to bring Benji along if I ever thought about an upgrade.

11:21

Fifteen minutes of wandering later, my number came up. A loud BOING told me to go to table 4. I only knew it was table 4 because it sat between 3 and 5, which had numbers on the front. Mine had obviously fallen off.

I sat in a chair so low my knees were nearly at my chin. “Why is this so formal?” I thought, as the advisor introduced himself. “I only want to fix my phone and ask a question.”

Apparently my phone is out of warranty, so they can't fix it. But I can pay for a new screen at one of those kiosks in the middle of the mall, if I want to.

I briefly thought about asking for a new phone. Benji is always telling me how old mine is. But honestly, the irritation at how much time I'd wasted took over.

So I asked about the fibre advert, and was bombarded with technical questions. Broadband or fibre, giga this, giga that. I had to give my address and so many other details I felt like I was being interrogated by the FBI.

Apparently I'd need a mesh system, or something, which means three or four extra boxes dotted around the house, and an appointment. But first there'd be a credit check and all that hassle. My blood was boiling. Once again I shuddered at the complexity of the modern world, and the hoops you have to jump through just to live.

My advisor wasn't really paying attention, either. Every two minutes a different colleague interrupted him with a question. I was sat with the store genius, and he was only helpful to his colleagues, not the customer in front of him.

11:44

I made my excuses and left, munching another chocolate to get me over the stress.

On the way to the car I passed one of those little kiosks in the middle of the mall. Paying for the new screen took two minutes. “Leave it with us and go and grab a coffee,” they told me, “and it'll be fixed by the time you're back.” It was.

19:40

That evening Benji asked, as he always does, whether I'd sorted the fibre.

So I looked it up on the sofa. A different company, a website that asked me three questions rather than thirty, and an installation date next Tuesday. Done before the kettle boiled.

I'm still a mobile customer of the big store on the left.

For now……

She isn't real

Everything that happened to her is.

I saw every one of those moments on a single trip. The faded window. The greeters at the door. A ticket screen asking a customer to diagnose her own visit. The missing table number, the chair, the advisor pulled in five directions. And across the concourse, a chocolate shop doing everything right without appearing to try.

Now look at her visit through the store's own systems. A ticket issued. A customer served. A service query closed. Almost forty minutes of dwell time, which some dashboards would celebrate.

In reality, an operator paid for a TV campaign to bring her in, then lost her fibre sale, her upgrade and a good share of her loyalty in under an hour. None of that will ever appear in a report.

None of it needed a refit.

•       A window that said one clear thing, as loudly as the chocolate shop did.

•       A sign that said “Help and repairs here”, so she knew where to go before the ticket screen asked her.

•       The fibre offer at the entrance, in the same words and at the same price she saw on Thursday night.

•       A chair she could actually sit in, beside the advisor rather than below him.

•       Fifteen minutes of one advisor’s undivided attention, and an answer to “can you fix my screen?” that wasn’t “go somewhere else”.

The chocolate shop didn't have better technology, a bigger budget or a cleverer queue system. It had a window that invited her in, a person who was pleased to see her, and a reason to come back for the advent calendar.

That's the job. The store is the stage, and every customer is deciding, scene by scene, whether to stay for the show.

I'm walking through each of these moments on LinkedIn every weekday until early December, in a series called “The Store Is the Stage”.

Next on the blog: that forty-minute visit, and why dwell time might be the most important number in your store, and the easiest one to get wrong.

Amplify: straight talk on telecom retail, every fortnight, from someone who’s worked in 75+ countries.

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