Cashier one rang up an order, read the total on the machine’s readout and took her customer’s cash. To make change, she first worked the register’s keypad, read the total to be returned and then counted out the change before handing it over in a pile to her customer. The customer then checked the change before leaving the line.

The second cashier went through the same steps, but did not look at the machine until she did the math while counting out the change to the customer. The customer thanked her and left the counter.

Not only did the second cashier do her work faster, but her customer had more confidence in her ability to give him the correct change. It was a quick, collaborative effort, in which the cashier engaged the customer in doing her work.

Which approach do you think would work best when engaging a company to improve your business processing?

So here’s an idea for avoiding this situation. Write your email first and put the recipient’s “To” name in last. This will give you time to think about your recipient. Any other ideas out there?