The $100 Masterclass in Proactive Service

I was on a Unit­ed flight from Den­ver to Mex­i­co City recent­ly, grate­ful to get upgrad­ed to busi­ness class. That flight turned into a cir­cus about ten min­utes into boarding.

The cab­in became a total war zone. A fam­i­ly with five young kids was hav­ing a simul­ta­ne­ous, mul­ti-direc­tion­al melt­down. Cry­ing, yelling — pure chaos. As a par­ent, I under­stood the sit­u­a­tion and didn’t feel the need to com­plain. I just put on my noise-can­cel­ing head­phones and accept­ed the real­i­ty of this flight.

I was fine. I did­n’t say a word. But then, the flight atten­dant did some­thing amazing.

Act­ing Before the Strug­gle Becomes a Complaint

In my expe­ri­ence, the sim­plest things always work best, but they are often the hard­est for a com­pa­ny to exe­cute. Most orga­ni­za­tions wait for the cus­tomer to reach a break­ing point. They wait for the anger, the bell-ring­ing, and the offi­cial com­plaint before they try to make things right.

This flight atten­dant didn’t wait. She read the room. She dis­creet­ly let us know we’d be receiv­ing a $100 vouch­er each for the ​“chal­leng­ing flight.”

By act­ing imme­di­ate­ly, she neu­tral­ized any poten­tial frus­tra­tion before it could even begin. She did­n’t just give me $100; she rein­forced my alle­giance to the brand by acknowl­edg­ing a prob­lem before it was voiced — if it would ever be voiced.

Ser­vice is About Remov­ing Friction

Too many we design sys­tems to deflect issues rather than delight peo­ple. We focus on min­i­miz­ing costs or reduc­ing the vol­ume of com­plaints. Then we end up spend­ing 95% of our time in the ​“lit­tle cir­cle” of prob­lems rather than the ​“big cir­cle” of opportunities.

Unit­ed suc­ceed­ed here because they had an A‑player on the front lines — some­one who is excep­tion­al at their job and a joy to work with. She was empow­ered to:

• Iden­ti­fy the Fric­tion: She saw the fric­tion and knew it com­pro­mised the expe­ri­ence I paid for.
• Take Action: She did­n’t ask for per­mis­sion; she exe­cut­ed a solu­tion immediately.
• Pro­tect the Rela­tion­ship: She turned a poten­tial neg­a­tive mem­o­ry into a rea­son for me to stay loyal.

The Bot­tom Line

Great ser­vice isn’t about being hero­ic dur­ing a cri­sis. It’s about being human enough to notice the fric­tion before it leaves a mark. You don’t build a loy­al cus­tomer base by fix­ing things as they break. You build it by remov­ing the obsta­cles to your cus­tomer’s expe­ri­ence before they ever have to ask you to.

The Chal­lenge:

• How can you engage and empow­er your peo­ple to do the right thing for the cus­tomer in the moment?

Addi­tion­al Resources:

Arti­cles

• Use the Prin­ci­ple of Two Cir­cles to Make Bet­ter Choices
• The CEO’s Job: Build­ing Rela­tion­ships & Secur­ing Future Resources
• Scal­a­bil­i­ty and Ele­gant Simplicity
• Unin­tend­ed Leadership

Pod­cast 

• Ep 164: Using the Sand­box to Stop Dumb Decisions
• Ep 149: My Gross Mar­gin is Drop­ping What Should I Do?
• Ep 124: Five Things That Lead to a Bad Strate­gic Plan

Case Study 

• Push Oper­a­tions: How a Pur­pose-led, Peo­ple-cen­tered Busi­ness Achieved 5X MRR
• The Lit­tle Pota­to Com­pa­ny: Lessons from a Nat­ur­al Entrepreneur

Book: The 4 Forces of Growth 

• 4 minute Overview
• 45 Minute Webinar
• Buy on Amazon

Book: Scal­ing Up

• 45 Minute Webinar
• Arti­cle: 10 Years After Scal­ing Up: What I’ve Learned About Growth

Book: Your Oxy­gen Mast First

• Assess your­self
• Resilience Webi­nar