A shop window knows how to attract people; the counter teaches whether they feel welcome.

Attracting someone and looking after them are two different skills, and most effort goes into the first. A window can be designed, tested and improved by people who never meet a customer; what happens thirty seconds later depends on a person who may be tired, untrained, or told to hurry. The window brings them once, the counter decides whether there is a second time.

Wherever you have any influence, put the effort into the moment of contact. And as a customer, judge places by how the second visit felt rather than how the first looked.