Most of our products had a switchbox with a cover attached with four screws. Every time Mike had a switchbox apart for service he would make sure the slots of the four screws were exactly aligned horizontally. He would tell everyone nearby that "the customer may not see that the screws are lined up, but he will know it." Mike would remind us that those little things tell a customer that he is getting a quality product and that we care about him.
I learned a lot from Mike and he helped shape our quality conscious culture.
Squarely aligning shipping labels and carefulness of sealing tape application can telegraph some notion of product quality even before the customer opens a box. Then the proper alingment of decals on the product itself sends another message. The customer may not really "see" it, but "it counts."
The John Deere tractor manufacturing factory is only a few miles from us. In the early 1980's I was told by a supplier to both Deere and some of the car manufacturers that Deere was more concerned about fit and finish than US car makers. This became obvious in the reputation for quality (or non-quality) both had over the next twenty or more years, when "Detroit" began to catch up to their Japanese competitors (and Deere) in quality.
You can apply the concept of "what they don't see" to anything.
My friend Paul is an executive chef and consultant in the restaurant industry in Florida. He points out that the little things that you may not actively see in a restaurant can shape your opinion as much as the taste of the food itself. Incidently he confirms that whatever you do see in the restroom is usually what you would see if you got to look in the kitchen. (If the restroom is dirty, Paul suggests that you may not want to eat in that restaurant.)
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