Our post Your Signage Sends a Message: Make Sure It’s The Right One received such a good response, that I thought it would be fitting to share a brief follow up.

In that post, we pointed out numerous examples of business signs and showed how important signage is in communicating with customers.

The shining example of the post was a business called Natural Grocers that used creative store hour signage on its front door to stimulate a conversation with customers and to reinforce its customer-centric philosophy.

Ironically, barely a week after writing about this sign, I was presented with perhaps the worst store hours sign I have ever seen.

Now Open, Maybe?

We had walked over to a frozen yogurt chain after dinner for a quick dessert. When we arrived at the front of the store, the lights were on inside, but the door was locked. There were two college-aged girls standing out front, trying to figure out if the yogurt shop was closed or if the person working had stepped away from the counter.

Naturally, we immediately looked on the front door for the store hours, and that’s when we noticed the ridiculously unhelpful “Open Daily” sign. My wife and I had a good laugh at that, since I had just posted about the amazing store hours sign from Natural Grocers.

Now, only a few days later, I was confronted with the polar opposite — perhaps the worst “store hours” sign I had ever seen.

How did this poor signage affect our customer experience?

Well, we sat outside for a few minutes joking with the girls (and when I say joking, I mean making fun of the business — never a good thing). Then, just as we were about to walk away, a young kid came out from the back of the store wearing a backpack. The store was closed he mouthed through the glass. Mystery solved.

Whether or not any one of us would patronize that establishment again if we were nearby, I do not know. However, I doubt any one of us would ever make a special trip just to go to that business.

At best, we might still be customers of convenience, but we will likely never be regular customers and certainly not raving fans.

Your signage sends a message. Make sure it’s the right one.