Coverage Is Not Customer Experience
Lessons from a European rail journey (Part 2)
Travelling through multiple countries over a short period does something interesting to your expectations. You stop overthinking. You make decisions quickly. You rely on what’s in front of you. And you become very good at spotting the difference between something that is there… and something that is actually for you.
Food has been one of the clearest examples of that.
I eat a largely plant-based diet. Not militant. Not difficult about it. I don’t expect everywhere to be fully set up for me. If there’s something suitable on the menu, great. If not, I’ll usually ask a simple question — can something be adapted? Most of the time, that works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
In Paris, we went to a restaurant where I asked whether a dish could be prepared without cheese. The chef said no. His reasoning was that it would unbalance the dish. You can respect that. Craft matters. Integrity in what you serve matters. But it’s a very clear choice. In that moment, the priority wasn’t the customer. It was the dish.
And then you see the other end of the spectrum. In Italy, I ordered the only vegan option on the menu. It arrived as boiled carrots, charred slightly on the grill, with a handful of spinach and a very salty sauce. No real substance. No protein. No attempt to create something you would actually enjoy eating. The price? Roughly the same as everything else on the menu.
That wasn’t about integrity. That was about compliance. “We have an option.” That’s all.
The gap between offering and understanding
These two experiences look very different on the surface. One is about protecting quality. The other about going through the motions. But they reveal the same underlying issue.
A lack of genuine customer understanding. In one case, the assumption is: “We know best.” In the other, it’s: “This will do.”
Neither is especially customer-centric. In both cases, the business has technically done what is required. They’ve made a decision. They’ve put something on the menu. But they haven’t stepped into the customer’s position and asked the more important question:
“How will this actually be experienced?”
When businesses claim coverage
This happens all the time, particularly in B2B.
A business identifies a requirement.
It builds something to address it.
It adds it to the portfolio.
And from that point on, the assumption is that the need has been met. But it hasn’t. Because coverage is not the same as usefulness. And customers can tell the difference instantly.
They can tell when:
- something has been thought through
- something has been adapted properly
- or something has simply been added so it can be listed
They may not articulate it in those terms. But they feel it.
What good looks like
Not every experience on the trip was like this. In Innsbruck, we ate at a restaurant serving traditional local dishes. On the menu, they had taken the time to create a plant-based version of a regional dish. Not as an afterthought. Not as a compromise. As a considered reinterpretation.
The result was simple. My wife, who eats everything, could experience the local cuisine. I could eat something that was clearly designed to be enjoyed. And we both came away thinking the same thing: this place understands its customers.
We recommended it.
We reviewed it.
We talked about it afterwards.
That’s what happens when a business moves beyond coverage and into consideration.
Inclusion is not a checkbox
There’s a wider lesson here. Customers don’t reward you for having something. They reward you for making it work for them.
If you’re targeting broader markets, different needs, or emerging segments, the question isn’t:
“Do we have an option?”
It’s:
“Does this feel like it was designed for someone like me?”
That requires effort.
It requires thought.
It requires empathy.
But that’s where the value is.
A simple shift
Looking back at those experiences, what stands out is how obvious the difference felt.
One felt like a compromise. One felt like a tick-box. One felt like a deliberate effort to include. Same requirement. Very different outcomes.
In business terms, the lesson is straightforward:
your customers know when you’ve gone just far enough — and when you’ve gone further than you needed to.
They respond accordingly.
In the next post, I’ll look at something less visible but just as important — what happens when customers don’t complain, don’t give feedback, but quietly change how they think about you anyway.
