Recently I was on an evening airline flight, and they had a pretty nice dinner – as far as airplane food goes. The flight attendant was serving warm chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I made the comment, “I love it when they serve these cookies. It’s too bad they have just one per passenger.” A few minutes later she came back with two more for me to enjoy.
So, this doesn’t seem like a big deal. So, she listened, had a few cookies left over and thought she would take care of one of her passengers. So, what is so special about this?
Everything! Here is why. I make the same comment to every flight attendant that serves me the cookies. You may or may not know that I fly a lot – at least once or twice a week. That is a lot of opportunities to eat cookies! Do you know that this is the first time a flight attendant has ever offered me an extra cookie? Most of the time there are extra cookies. I know because I see the flight attendants throw them away at the end of the flight.
The point here is that part of delivering great service is paying attention. Be proactive. You shouldn’t wait until a customer asks for something. If possible, do it before they ask. Wasn’t my comment about the cookies enough to make the flight attendants think that I might want another one? Perhaps I should have been more direct and said, “Since you usually have leftover cookies that you usually throw away, would you mind if I had a second one?” Enough said.
Shep Hyken, CSP is a professional speaker and author who works with companies who want to develop loyal relationships with their customers and employees. For more information on Shep's speaking programs, books, tapes and learning programs please contact (314) 692- 2200. Email: shep@hyken.com Web: www.hyken.com