Free Advice

How do you treat your customers?

A lot of small businesses say their goal is to provide wonderful, out-of-this-world customer service. Because, they say, it's just not all that common. Usually they're right.

Travel is a huge industry. Billions and billions of dollars, millions of people employed in the industry and just too darn easy to pick on when you need examples of poor customer service.

Which way would you do it?

Two recent airline flights offer a wonderful contrast in service. First, a domestic flight my dad and I had. When making the reservation, they didn't ask and I forgot about seat assignments. When I got the confirmation I noticed they gave us an aisle and a middle. I always want two aisle seats as I'm tall and like the leg room and my dad is in his 80's and he needs to stand up and move a bit to prevent stiffness, clots, etc.

The second flight is a trip to Europe. The travel agent assigned us four seats in a row and again, I want at least two aisle seats.

So I called British Airways and asked for a change. They responded that they had filled all the seats they could pre-assign, but would she put in a request and explain my situation. Would I please call back in 24 hours. When I called back it was all taken care of. A window-aisle and aisle-inside seat. Just fine with us.

The domestic airline took a different attitude. They told me I that all the pre-assigned seats were full and I would have to wait until we got to the airport the day of. I begged, pleaded and cajoled to no avail. Didn't matter what my reasons, that's the way they do it. Get there early I was told. Didn't matter, even though we were quite early they wouldn't or couldn't do anything the day of the flight.

How would you do it?

I'm not a big believer in "the customer is always right" (unless I'm the customer). Customers can be wrong, right or in the middle. But rules were made to be adjusted if not broken. Situations occur and have to be dealt with. That's the advantage a small business has. Since they don't have a horde of employees who can't or don't want to think for themselves, they can offer flexibility.

I know that just about everybody reading this would look at the first example and say, "I'd show some goodwill and make the seat change." If you're customer oriented, of course you would do that. But would you give your employees the latitude to make decisions (like this)?

One airline determined that it was better to keep their employees from making a mistake than it was to have them help the customer. The other airline decided that certain employees could make certain decisions and they would have a process for situations outside of those boundaries.

Do a little more

One of our favorite restaurants is Royal India in Kirkland (WA). We go there more than once a month. The owner has come to know some of our favorite dishes. I recently went there for lunch with a friend. After going through the buffet, the owner came over with a plate of one of my favorites. He said they were preparing it for a banquet and since he knew I liked it, he wanted me to have some.

This is called "knowing your customer." Do you have the opportunity to know your customers? Do you use that to provide that little extra service? To give some goodwill they won't get anywhere else? If you have the type of business where this is possible, do all you can to exploit it. Give your employees the latitude to make sure the customer has a positive experience.

Common Sense always prevails

How much of the above is nothing more than common sense? Yet common sense is something that seems to be missing more and more from our business community and our society. I'm constantly amazed by some of the PR blunders executives at big companies make. Don't they think first?

When it comes to working with customers, the simplest, and best, advice is to pretend you're the customer. How would you like to be treated? Would you feel taken advantage of if you were charged extra for a simple request? Would you take your business elsewhere if your reasonable demands weren't met? As a customer you want a fair shake. Make sure your customers get one.

© Copyright John Martinka 2003. All rights reserved.