Earning a strong grade feels good, but the real value of education appears when a student can take a concept out of the textbook and apply it to an actual situation.
Throughout my BMG 205 Customer Experience course at Washtenaw Community College, instructor John Mira consistently encouraged students to understand the material, participate in discussions, think critically, and connect customer-experience principles with real organizations.
His feedback on my quizzes, discussions, and journals confirmed that I was doing more than memorizing definitions. I was beginning to recognize how customer experience, employee engagement, communication, service clues, continuous improvement, and business culture work together.
Most importantly, I was applying those lessons to Dee & Dee Brown LLC.
Small Points Can Produce a Meaningful Result
One recurring message in my instructor’s feedback involved consistency.
Practice quizzes may not carry a large number of points individually, but those points accumulate throughout the course. A few points can eventually affect the final grade.
The same principle applies to business.
One product photograph may not transform a brand. One customer message may not build a company’s reputation. One carefully packaged order may not produce immediate growth.
However, when those actions are completed consistently, they create a pattern.
Customers begin to notice that:
- Product descriptions are dependable.
- Questions receive thoughtful answers.
- Orders are packaged carefully.
- Items are shipped promptly.
- Problems are handled respectfully.
- Appreciation feels genuine.
Small actions become a reputation in the same way that small academic points become part of a final grade.
Preparation Creates Stronger Performance
My instructor also noted that my quiz performance reflected the time I spent preparing and retaining the course material.
Customer-experience concepts may sometimes sound like common sense. Most people already understand that a business should listen to customers, communicate clearly, and provide dependable service.
The challenge is applying those principles consistently—especially when the business is busy, a customer is upset, technology fails, or an employee feels overwhelmed.
Knowing that communication matters is easy. Remaining patient during a difficult interaction requires preparation and emotional control.
Knowing that customers want accurate orders is obvious. Creating systems that prevent errors requires planning, training, and review.
Education helps turn general common sense into specific practices that can be measured and improved.
Moving From a Product-Centered to a Customer-Centered Business
One of the most important parts of my instructor’s feedback addressed the cultural change required when a company shifts from focusing mainly on products to focusing on customers.
A product-centered business may concentrate on what it wants to sell. A customer-centered business also considers what the customer needs, expects, experiences, and remembers.
That shift affects the company’s entire culture.
An outdated attitude might sound like:
- “If customers do not like it, they can go somewhere else.”
- “That is not my department.”
- “We have always done it this way.”
- “The sale is complete, so the experience no longer matters.”
Customers have more power to share their experiences than they did in the past. Social media, online reviews, photographs, and videos can quickly expose poor service or harmful behavior.
Companies can no longer assume that one negative interaction will remain private.
However, the lesson is not merely to avoid being embarrassed online. Businesses should create respectful customer experiences because that is the right and sustainable way to operate.
A customer-centered culture must be built before a crisis occurs.
Customer Experience and Employee Experience Are Connected
My quiz feedback also reinforced my understanding of customer experience and employee experience.
Organizations sometimes attempt to improve profits mainly by reducing labor, limiting training, or asking employees to accomplish more with fewer resources. These decisions may create short-term savings, but they can also weaken service.
Employees cannot consistently provide excellent customer experiences if they are:
- Poorly trained
- Disrespected
- Overworked
- Afraid to make decisions
- Missing important information
- Unsure of the company’s standards
- Unable to resolve reasonable customer concerns
Customer experience begins inside the organization.
When employees receive clear expectations, useful training, accurate information, supportive leadership, and appropriate decision-making authority, they are better prepared to help customers.
Even though Dee & Dee Brown LLC currently operates as a mother-daughter business, this principle applies to us. We need clear responsibilities, respectful communication, shared information, and realistic expectations.
If we eventually hire employees or contractors, the culture we build now will influence how those people are trained and treated.
Functional, Mechanic, and Humanic Clues
My instructor specifically recognized my use of functional, mechanic, and humanic clues to explain how customers form impressions.
Researchers Leonard Berry, Lewis Carbone, and Stephan Haeckel explain that everything connected to a buying experience sends signals to customers.
Functional Clues: Does the Service Work?
Functional clues reveal whether the business delivers its core product or service competently.
For Dee & Dee Brown LLC, functional clues include:
- Whether the item matches its description
- Whether measurements are accurate
- Whether the correct product is shipped
- Whether the order arrives within the expected time
- Whether customer questions receive useful answers
These clues build confidence in our reliability.
Mechanic Clues: What Does the Customer See and Experience?
Mechanic clues come from objects, environments, and sensory details.
Our mechanic clues include:
- Product photographs
- Listing organization
- Website design
- Packaging materials
- Printed promotional cards
- Brand colors
- Labels and thank-you notes
Customers use these visible details to judge professionalism and quality.
Humanic Clues: How Do We Make Customers Feel?
Humanic clues come from people’s words, tone, attitude, appearance, and behavior.
In an online business, customers may not see us face-to-face, but they still experience humanic clues through:
- Message tone
- Response time
- Patience
- Honesty
- Willingness to help
- How we handle complaints
- Whether our appreciation feels sincere
Customers combine all three types of clues to form one overall impression of the business.
“Work Is Theatre” Changed How I View Every Interaction
My instructor highlighted my application of the Work Is Theatre concept.
This concept does not mean employees should be fake. It means that every customer-facing action contributes to the experience being presented.
For an online seller, the performance begins before the customer sends a message or makes a purchase.
The listing acts as a stage. The photographs, product description, price, seller communication, packaging, shipping, and follow-up all become parts of the customer’s experience.
At Dee & Dee Brown LLC:
- Product photographs are part of the presentation.
- The description becomes the script.
- Packaging becomes a physical prop.
- Customer communication becomes part of the performance.
- Shipping and delivery become part of the final scene.
Every detail should support the same message: this business is organized, honest, dependable, and appreciative.
Going the Extra Mile Builds Trust
My journal included examples of how we go beyond the minimum requirements of a transaction.
When customers request more information, we may:
- Take additional measurements
- Provide more photographs
- Examine an item again
- Explain a product’s condition carefully
- Answer questions about fit or features
- Add thoughtful touches to an order
These actions may appear small, but they can reduce uncertainty and help customers make confident decisions.
Going the extra mile does not mean promising what the business cannot deliver or giving away so much that the company becomes unsustainable.
It means recognizing reasonable opportunities to provide additional value.
The best extra effort solves a real customer concern. It should feel thoughtful rather than performative.
Using PDCA for Continuous Improvement
Another concept my instructor praised was my application of the Plan-Do-Check-Act process.
The American Society for Quality describes PDCA as a repeating four-step model for implementing change and supporting continuous improvement:
- Plan: Identify an opportunity and prepare a change.
- Do: Test the change on a manageable scale.
- Check: Review the results and identify what was learned.
- Act: Adopt, adjust, or replace the approach based on the evidence.
We can apply PDCA to our Poshmark listings.
Update the title, photographs, description, price, or keywords.
Monitor views, likes, questions, shares, and offers after the change.
Keep the improvement if it produces better results. If it does not, test a different approach.
This is more effective than changing several things randomly and never measuring what worked.
The PDCA cycle also applies to packaging, social-media content, customer communication, digital products, inventory management, and weekly financial reviews.
Improvement should not be treated as a one-time event. It should become part of how the business operates.
Professional Experience Strengthened My Academic Work
My instructor noted that incorporating my experience with Ann Arbor Public Schools and Dee & Dee Brown LLC added credibility to my discussion.
After approximately 30 years in office management, I understand that customer and employee experiences are shaped by more than official policies.
People remember:
- Whether communication was clear
- Whether leaders were consistent
- Whether employees felt respected
- Whether concerns were acknowledged
- Whether departments worked together
- Whether stated values matched actual behavior
My professional experience helped me recognize that culture is created through repeated actions, not slogans.
Returning to college after more than 40 years has allowed me to connect that experience with current business concepts. I am not simply looking backward at what happened during my career. I am using what I learned to make better decisions for the future.
What the Feedback Really Demonstrates
The most meaningful part of my instructor’s feedback was not the praise itself. It was the evidence that I am developing several important abilities:
- Preparing consistently
- Retaining course information
- Supporting claims with research
- Applying theory to actual business decisions
- Connecting professional experience with new knowledge
- Evaluating customer and employee experiences together
- Using structured methods for improvement
- Reflecting honestly on what still needs to change
These are not only academic skills. They are business-leadership skills.
Our Next Steps at Dee & Dee Brown LLC
Based on what I have learned, Dee & Dee Brown LLC should continue to:
- Review the complete customer journey, not only the product.
- Establish clear standards for listings, messages, packaging, and shipping.
- Track customer questions and feedback for recurring patterns.
- Use PDCA to test improvements.
- Protect the employee and business-partner experience.
- Respond to customers with patience and honesty.
- Ensure that functional, mechanic, and humanic clues support the same brand promise.
- Recognize that every customer interaction can strengthen or weaken our reputation.
The goal is not to create one impressive experience. It is to build a business capable of providing dependable experiences repeatedly.
My Final Takeaway
Instructor feedback can do more than confirm whether an assignment was correct. Useful feedback identifies strengths, reveals progress, and shows students where learning has become practical.
My BMG 205 feedback confirmed that I understand the concepts, but it also gave me a greater responsibility: I now need to continue applying them.
At Dee & Dee Brown LLC, customer experience is created through every listing, message, photograph, package, shipment, and problem we resolve.
The small details add up.
That is true for practice-quiz points. It is true for a final course grade. Most importantly, it is true for the reputation of a growing business.
Learn more about managing the total customer experience and the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.
About Dee & Dee Brown LLC: Dee & Dee Brown LLC is a veteran-owned mother-daughter business focused on e-commerce, entrepreneurship, education, digital content, and creating opportunities through resilience and lifelong learning.
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