Happy Tuesday everyone!
Today, we are dusting off an old post (with some edits) asking the question, is your desire for efficiency and process killing your customer experience?
Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News/Updates/Events
Feature Content: Are SOPs Killing Your Customer Experience?
Heavenly Hustlers
Highlights
[read time: ~7 min | word count 1, 548]
Events:
Guild members: our first-ever Town Hall is next Tuesday, Oct 27, at 6 PM CT. Guild updates, open Q&A, and intros. Bring your wins and your questions. You can also catch the recap of our Oct 13 call on building community across family, parish, and business
Last week’s pod with Garren DiPasquale: he’s taking on Replit by building human-centered technology.
Over the weekend, I hosted a CF Breakfast in DC. Check out the next DC event on the 29th. Dallas also has one on the books. Check out all of our upcoming in-person events on our Luma page.
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Are Standard Operating Procedures Killing Your Customer Experience?
We’ve all experienced a rigid ‘rule’ that spits in the face of a perfectly human ask. Maybe it’s the restaurant rule allowing only one check only for parties over eight, leaving someone holding the bag (and playing Venmo banker for a week).
Or perhaps it’s being told “no tickets sold after X time,” despite empty seats staring you in the face. These aren’t malicious rules; they’re born from a desire for efficiency.
The restaurant wants to avoid splitting checks chaos; the ticket seller has a system. I get it. Streamlining is the name of the game.
Strict Systems = Short-Sighted
When systems are rigid, they negatively impact the human experience.
That restaurant policy, designed to make the waiter’s life easier, breeds frustration and resentment among your customers. That “no ticket sales after” rule, intended to create order, turns away a paying customer for an arbitrary reason.
It’s a short-sighted victory for process, but a loss in the long run.
Nowadays, the relentless pursuit of operational efficiency is praised. After all, it’s what those private equity guys do.
Shaving seconds here, pinching pennies there—anything to increase that ROI by a few points.
But at what cost?
Sure, short-term profits might be up. But what is the long-term impact on your customers?
Maybe you can justify a few lost customers per year for greater short-term returns overall. If you’re lucky, maybe they don’t even spread the word about poor customer treatment.
Everything appears good on the surface.
Empowered Employees
What is the inverse of this?
Some companies have standard operating procedures, but also understand that rigid rule following doesn’t empower their employees. Sometimes, breaking the rules is the best way to serve your customer.
Imagine a scenario where a staff member says, “You know, usually we can’t do this, but let me see what I can do for you.” This is good customer service — but more than that, it turns the experience into a memorable moment between the business and the customer.
The person on the other side feels seen, understood, and valued. Think about the word-of-mouth marketing that kind of interaction generates. And what was the real cost? Likely not much.
But these little things actually have a great impact because customers who are well-taken care of become your biggest fans.
Building a Culture of Customer Love
When you’re building a family-owned business — focused on longevity and generational success — those genuine customer connections are the compounding interest you truly want to see. If you commit to them, they will commit to you. And that relationship will get stronger every time it goes around. All you have to do is maintain that commitment.
Think how powerful that advantage is compared to a private equity-backed competitor laser-focused on a 3-5 year exit strategy.
They play a game of years. You play a game of generations.
Who do you think is going to win?
This approach isn’t just good for customers; it’s good for your employees too. No longer are they cogs in a machine, robotically following protocols. They learn to think critically, take ownership of situations, and to find creative solutions.
Imagine a crisis situation — which team will perform better? The one that has been beaten into following the rules. Or the one who has been empowered to make decisions on the go?
Picture this. It’s the night before your quarterly taxes are due. You’ve got three browser tabs open, a bank statement that doesn’t match your spreadsheet, and a growing suspicion that you paid for the same software subscription twice. Sound familiar?
Running a business means wearing a lot of hats, but bookkeeper doesn’t have to be one of them. That’s where Bonaventure Bookkeeping comes in. They take the day-to-day work of managing your books off your plate: tracking income and expenses, reconciling accounts, and producing monthly financial reports you can actually understand. When tax season comes around, everything is already organized and ready for your accountant.
And it’s not just about avoiding headaches. When your books are current, you can make better decisions, like knowing when you can afford to hire, where you’re overspending
So picture the night before taxes again, but this time you’re relaxed, because Bonaventure already has it handled.
Visit Bonaventure Bookkeeping’s website at www.bonabook.xyz or reach out to them via email at accountant@bonabook.xyz
Love Your Customer: Christian Charity
Ultimately, it all boils down to loving your customer. As Tim Connors said on the podcast in the past, the companies with the highest Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are the ones that love their customers the most.
That sounds a lot like the core idea of Christianity… Charity. Desiring the good of your brother.
Of course, empowering employees to bend the rules isn’t without its challenges. It requires trust, a different kind of training, and a commitment to clear communication about when and how to make those judgment calls.
But don’t forget.
As they learn, they will become more valuable to you and to the world. Perhaps it prepares them for an elevated role. Either way, it’s also loving your employees to help them level up. And you have even more responsibility to your employees than to your customers.
The reward for all this is fiercely loyal customers and engaged employees.
You Choose
You have a choice in front of you. Will you build your company on the foundation of rigid rules aimed at maximizing short-term profits, or will you cultivate a customer-centered culture of trust and service that builds something meant to last the test of time?
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
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Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
🎙️ Reagan Stock and Hudson Bonetti are building Better Apps. A software studio behind DebateTV, where AI trained on Thomistic principles judges three-minute debates. Washington, D.C.
☀️ Dan Misleh is building Catholic Energies. Helps dioceses, parishes, and schools cut energy costs through efficiency audits, solar, and storage. Washington, D.C.
🥔 Matthew Mach is building Fat Thins. Potato chips cooked in 100% beef tallow, with no seed oils. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
✝️ Michael Gentile is building The Apostles Fund. Venture philanthropy that brings investor discipline to scaling Catholic evangelization apostolates. Montreal, Quebec.
📡 Larry Dunleavy is building Modelithics. RF and microwave simulation models and lab services used by circuit designers in 30 countries. Tampa, Florida.
🛍️ Andrew Burow is building Aisles. An app that shows shoppers real-time inventory at nearby local stores. South Bend, Indiana.
🌿 Emmalee Banks is building a homeopathy practice offering web consultations worldwide, plus classes and marriage and relationship programs. Quebec, Canada.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow.
$500 upon hire and $500 if you’re still happy in 30 days.
Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com
Highlights: Family Business Consortium
This past weekend I attended the Family Business Consortium hosted at CUA. And I highly recommend any of you building family businesses attend their next gathering in April. It was a really impressive group of people, and we had a lot of hard to face conversations about succession planning etc.
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).