Making your problem my problem

You know you're on the wrong airline when the pilot wearily announces over the intercom:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're in for a grueling 3-hour flight today."

He was speaking about the 100mph headwind that we would encounter throughout the journey from Memphis to Phoenix but given our experience thus far, he could well have been commenting on the expected level of service and competence of the airline.   This comment, you see, was after we were  late taking off because:

• the plane arrived late to Memphis; and, better than that,

• we were too heavy!

It seems that nobody paid any attention to the weight of the plane with passengers, luggage, and fuel.  While the attendants were going through the safety demonstration, an alarm kept sounding.  After some confusion, the captain, who is now standing in the cockpit doorway looking every bit as beleaguered as his words,  informs us that since we will have this 100mph headwind we need a lot of fuel and fuel weighs a lot.  As such, we're just too heavy to take off. 

All the passengers glance at one another looking for, I suppose, the heaviest folks on the plane to summarily dump back into the terminal because it seems as if we ALL had tight connections and no one was interested in being magnanimous.  We were, instead, ready to get in the air and hoping that we would stay there until our scheduled landing.

The airline pulled the last two standby passengers and their luggage off the plane and told us we were good to go.  Okay.  At least the alarm stopped sounding.

To top it all off, since so many of us had tight connections now, the lead flight attendant announced that there would be a gate agent in Phoenix when we landed to either tell us where our connecting flights were or to give us new boarding passes if we had missed those connections.  All was well we thought as we settled in for the "grueling" 3 hours. 

Once we got to Phoenix, we deplaned only to find no gate agent and the monitors that display departures and gates broken (we weren't surprised).  With ten minutes to make my flight that was departing from another concourse, I hurried over and, to my amazement, they were holding the flight for us. 

I made my connection and the 3-hour flight wasn't particularly grueling for me so I can laugh about it now.

However, the lesson in all this is don't transfer your problems to your clients.  I know it can't be fun to work for a major airline right now but that's your choice, not mine.  Don't take it out on me.  I'm giving you my money and my business. 

• So, if a client project  is difficult and tedious, don't tell them that.  Be respectful of the business they are giving you.  If you don't want the business, don't take the business in the first place.  But if you take it, provide great service and quality. 
• If you promise something, deliver. 
• If you promise something on someone else's behalf, make sure they deliver. 
• And be certain to keep the lines of communication always open.

Why do these things, which are really pretty easy, seem so hard to so many?

Comments

[Debra Helwig]

Great post, Barbara.

Internal problems, whether brought on through negligence or act of God, should never be the customer's problem. All that customer will remember is the bad experience she had -- and she'll tell 20 friends about that bad experience as soon as she possibly can! Even in your example, if you'd mentioned the name of the airline, that story would ring in my ears the next time I was booking a flight...and I'd probably think twice about flying with them.

My husband is a professional musician and artist. His favorite thing to say is, "It's not important that you be asked to do a job. It's important that you be asked to do it AGAIN." He tells the story of great operatic soprano Kathleen Battle, who was banned from the Metropolitan Opera, not because her voice was fading, but because she was a prima donna who engaged in "unprofessional actions...profoundly detrimental to artistic collaboration".

The best marketing and networking in the world can't overcome sour grapes passed through in the transaction process. Great stuff to remember as we skate downhill into the holidays and then, for those of us in the accounting industry, into busy season.