The 2 Most Important Components of Customer Service

About a week ago, I shared a customer experience that seems to have resonated with several people. After doing so, someone pointed out something similar that I shared several years ago, after getting temporarily stuck in Boston en route to visiting family in Maine.

This experience focuses on customer service and how to respond when something goes wrong. Early in my career, Kenny Kahn reminded me that things will go wrong. He said that when they do customers remember how you respond. His mantra was to Recover Remarkably.

That's exactly what happened here, and something that everyone, and every business can learn from. Regardless of the cause (it was weather-related here), you own the response. Do something beyond what the customer expects, and they will often be amazed. That amazement pays future dividends.

I'm continually astonished at how many businesses get customer service wrong. That's absolutely not the case with Cape Air .

I had two flights canceled due to poor weather along the New England coast.?Cape Air proactively called, emailed or texted me to ensure I knew what was happening. When I didn't respond via one method of communication, they tried another until they reached me.?Then they provided me options and even offered to call and pay for a taxi to transfer to another means of transportation.

They could have easily directed me to the partner airline that I had booked my flights through to get a refund. I'm sure that this is what most small regional airlines would have done. Heck, it's who I would have gone to if they hadn't beat me to it.

Instead, they took the initiative and made it right by contacting me directly, assisting me with arranging alternative travel arrangements, and coordinating with me to quickly return the money I had spent with them.?

After doing so, they called me again, to apologize for the inconvenience and to verify that I had received the refund and that it was accurate. It was clear that they wanted to do the right thing and for me to feel as though I was treated fairly.

So what are those two components of customer service? Empathy and Ownership. Take a moment to understand the situation from the customer's point of view. Then own the solution. When you do so they will recall that you recovered remarkably —?as I do several years later.

Empathy + Ownership = Customer Service

We can all think of companies that could learn from this regional airline. Some will say that they can do this because they're small. It doesn't really matter why they did it. What matters is why I think they did it. And I think that they did it because they cared.?

Cape Air hasn't lost sight of who their customer is, and what is important to that customer.?I'll definitely look for options to fly with them again in the future.