Do Your Customers Actually Care About You?
Here’s a question that I think most business owners won’t want to sit too long with:
“Do my customers think about our business when they leave our space?”
Of course we’re not asking ourselves this question in a sort of desperate way, but asking because you’re genuinely curious about whether or not your business is meaningful to them when they leave your establishment.
Maybe it’s an uncomfortable thought you’ve wondered about or a question you’ve never even thought of but it’s something worth analyzing, especially when you’ve poured so much of yourself in what you’ve built.
You’ve invested in the space, the product, and the experience, but does any of that translate into something they carry with them?
Here's the honest answer: for a lot of businesses, it doesn't. And it's probably not because your product isn't good or the space isn't worth coming back to. It's because caring about your customers and actually making them feel cared for are two different things. One lives inside you. The other has to show up in the way your business operates, consistently, every single day.
The good news is that the gap between the two is closeable. But it starts with being honest about which side of it you're currently on.
The Metric Trap
When most businesses think about whether their marketing is working, they look at numbers. The amount of followers, reach, likes, impressions, click-through rates, etc. And although they are not meaningless, they can become a substitute for the question that actually matters.
“Are the people we’re reaching becoming people who genuinely care about this place?”
There’s a version of marketing that optimizes entirely for the metrics. Their strategies are to post more, reach more, convert more, and treats the audience as a number to grow. And if that’s the operating logic behind a business’s social media presence (even unconsciously) people can and will feel it.
Maybe not intentional, but you show up with content that feels generic, engagement that feels scripted, and a presence that looks active but doesn’t feel alive. When a business feels like it’s performing rather than living it, people disengage. They might still buy, but they don’t become regulars, they don’t invest, and they won’t advocate for your business.
Metrics don’t lie, but they also don’t tell the whole truth.
A business can have thousands of followers and almost no one would genuinely miss it if it closed. That’s the trap.
What Genuine Care Looks Like: Pachamama Coffee Roasters
I want to share with you one of my FAVORITE coffee house and roasters: Pachamama Coffee Roasters.
My partner and I are regulars, not because a campaign convinced us to, but because Pachamama keeps making decisions that are worth coming back for.
We buy their beans at the Davis farmer’s market (also a big a fan) regularly and one of the reasons why we keep supporting them is because they’ve made their beans available to those who need to pay with EBT. If you’re not familiar with EBT, it’s a food assistance program that help lower income family and individuals gain access to groceries. And to someone who has actually grown up with needing such assistance, their commitment to providing great, specialty coffee to those who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it, says more about who Pachamama is than any tagline ever could. It’s a value statement made visible through action. And it makes us, as customers, feel like we’re supporting a business that continues to find ways to bring communities together.
Now let’s talk about their physical stores.
Inside their shops are cards and small displays telling the stories of where their beans come from like the farms, the regions, and the people involved with growing the coffee you’re about to enjoy. There are local newspapers and magazines laid out for people to read, bulletin boards for the community to post things on and the staff is always knowledgable about drinks and beans. They have a seasonal menu and limited time beans that give regulars a reason to come back for.
None of these choices are accidental.
These aren't just nice touches. They're deliberate choices that turn a great coffee shop into a place where people feel genuinely connected to something. Pachamama didn't build loyalty by asking for it. They built it by giving people a reason to invest.
Decisions are the Marketing
The choice to show up every Saturday at the farmer’s market, the way they offer signature beans to those who use EBT, and having displays that tell the origin stories are all deliberate decisions that give people a genuine reason to care about the brand.
Your social media presence can be visually stunning and consistently posted, but if the decisions made inside the business don’t reflect the real care for the people in it, your customers will feel that gap.
The inverse is just as true. When the way you operate and show up online say the same thing, people will start to invest and become part of the community.
So what are some signals worth paying attention to?
Well how do you know if it’s working? Here are a few things to look out for!
Regulars that bring people in.
When someone loves a place, they brings their friends and family along with them. Sharing something good is a natural human impulse. Your regulars are your advocates.
People who defend your business.
There are going to be off days, and when someone leaves a less than desirable comment or review, loyal community members will be let them know that their experience or give their own positive review because the relationship has earned it.
People notice changes.
They’ll notice when a regular staff member leaves, or you close for a week, or they’re happy to see a seasonal menu item back. These are signs that your business has become part of their life and that their visits aren’t occasional.
Conversations, not just transactions.
People who care about a business talk to the people inside it. They ask questions, they share things, they treat the space like somewhere they belong. If you’re noticing that your customer interactions feel genuinely relational, you’re building something worth much more than a new Instagram follower.
None of these signals show up in your analytics dashboard, but are real indicators that actually matter. These are some of the factors that predict whether you business will still have a loyal community in five years.
What can you do with this information?
If you’re reading this and feeling a little uncertain, fear not! There a couple of things to look at.
Start small and take a good look at your business. Ask yourself “What decisions are we making that give people a reason to invest in us? Not just a reason to visit once, but reasons that make them want to come back, tell their friends and family about us, and feel like this space is theirs too.”
And then look at your content. Does it reflect the realty of what you’ve built? Does it feel like the inside of your space? or does it feel performative?
When those two things are aligned, your business and your marketing will say the same thing. Your customers will feel it and that feeling is what their loyalty is built on.
Your customers can care about you and most of them want to! Give them something worth caring about and the metrics you’ve been chasing will follow naturally.
🍊Farnsworth Street Marketing helps hospitality and lifestyle businesses build the kind of social media presence that reflects the community they've already created and attracts the people who belong in it. If that sounds like the kind of partner you've been looking for, let's connect here.
