Field Notes

November 2026

Start with what a customer can see

Before we ask a business for anything, we look at what its customers can see. The website on a phone. The path from a search result to a booking. What happens to a contact form someone fills out at nine at night. The reviews, and whether anyone answers them.

None of that tells us what’s happening inside the business. A slow reply could come from a missing notification, an inbox nobody owns, or a team that’s simply busy. From the outside we can’t tell which. So the first conversation is a question, not a verdict: here’s what we noticed, does it match what you see?

That’s why STREA doesn’t open with a service list. A list assumes the answer before the problem is clear. Looking first keeps the conversation honest on both sides, and it lets us say early when a problem isn’t ours to solve.

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