About a year ago, we were shopping for a white suit for our little Tobin. It was a painfully morose thing: we were looking for something to bury him in. He’d not yet passed, but every day was more difficult and it was clearly imminent. It’s the sort of thing that is made markedly easier by doing it beforehand, although you’d rather not do it at all.

If you’ve lived in Utah (or Provo, in particular), you know there is no shortage of “white clothing” stores, selling white suits, dresses, veils, tuxedos, belts, shoes, or anything else you could ever want to wear that is white. Except no one seemed to have anything sized for a three-year-old.

We visited three or four specialty stores and the LDS distribution center; the only thing we found was a white jumpsuit. On a whim, we stopped by Men’s Wearhouse (in Orem, on the corner of University Pkwy and State St). The sales-people there know me, as I do much of my shopping there. We explained what we were looking for. They didn’t have anything his size, but suggested several places we might look. We’d visited each of them. The salesman then asked if it would be alright for him to call around to other stores. We agreed, and gave him my cell phone number.

Across the parking lot there was (yet another) white clothing store. They didn’t have anything in stock, but had a (frilly) tuxedo in his size that they could bring down from another store. After looking at a similar one in a different size, it was clear the tuxedo was much too flashy given the solemnity of our purpose.

While we were there, the gentleman at Men’s Wearhouse called—he and another worker had been scouring the phone book, and suggested a couple of other places we might try. We thanked him for his work, but we’d already visited the places he was suggesting.

Fifteen minutes later, he called again. After dialing every listing he could find, he had tracked down a store in American Fork called Little Things Mean a Lot, which not only had a suit in the right size, but was holding it for us.

When we arrived at Little Things Mean a Lot, the salesperson there expressed her condolences, and showed us the suit (which was waiting at the front). It was perfect. Clean, simple, and white. She said she’d spoken with the manager before we arrived, and given the nature of our circumstances had agreed to offer us a discount. We were grateful and impressed, and ended up buying suits for our other children as well, in part because the service was so good.

As a customer, I’m not afraid to boycott a company for lousy service, or support a local company that’s filling a local need. It’s experiences like this that make me a customer for life. I wish more companies were like these two.

I booked on Priceline.com. I needed to be in Atlanta for a day, so flew in late last night via Frontier Airlines.

On the first leg of the trip (with Frontier partner, United), the flight left 20 minutes late because a computer failure required all baggage to be processed manually. Fortunately, the pilot was able to make up the time (and then some) on the way to Denver.

On the second leg of the trip (Denver to Atlanta, on Frontier), the flight was delayed more than an hour for “weather reasons,” although no other flight into Atlanta, both from the same airline and from any other airline was delayed out of Denver. When questioned, Atlanta locals admitted there was some light rain that morning, but nothing that should have caused delays. After boarding, we sat on the tarmac for another hour waiting to take off while the pilot got clearance from the tower. We got in about two-and-a-half hours late.

Frontier Airlines cancelled my return flight, and didn’t tell me until I arrived at the airport. The agent at the counter said it was due to mechanical reasons. They claimed to have contacted the hotel I was staying at, but I had checked out in the morning—I was staying only the single night, after all. Although I had provided my contact information to Priceline.com, the airline was only given my hotel number. Frontier had no later flights, and they refused to provide a ticket on another airline that was leaving a couple of hours later. I was not offered any compensation for likely hotel charges caused by their inability to properly run an airline.

Checking with Delta (the other carrier who did have a flight running), a one-way ticket would have cost me in excess of $750, due to exorbitant walk-up prices (+ taxes; no love from Delta either). No wonder airlines are never profitable. The marginal cost to get me on that flight would have been negligible, but it seems they would rather do without the extra money than actually provide airline service.

The Frontier Airlines representative gave me the phone number to the airline’s “customer service center.” She neglected to mention they’d closed already. (5:00 pm Mountain. Really?) I had the option of leaving a voicemail to tell them what I think of them, and how I would very much like them to give me money back for not providing the service I paid for. I hung up without leaving a message rather than break into uncontrolled swearing.

I figured maybe Priceline.com might be willing to help out. Nope. After entering my eleven-digit confirmation number and home phone number, the answering agent asked for it all again. (I despise when companies do this—and many companies are guilty. If you require information be keyed in, provide it to the answering agent and stop wasting my time!)

I explained my problem to the agent, who put me on hold for 10 minutes while he “logged the details of my problem into the computer.” Uh-huh. He then came back on the line and told me the hotel fee was non-refundable. WTF? That had nothing to do with my problem. I explained again I was stuck in Atlanta because the airline was clueless, and would like them to find me a way home. More waiting. I finally got a warm hand-off (at least he got that part right) to a guy who told me the entire thing was non-refundable (even when it was the fault of the airline—federal consumer protection laws be damned), and that they would do nothing for me, not even check to see how much a flight on the other airline would cost me (it might be less than the walk-up rate). At no time did the fact that I paid for a service they were unable to provide factor in to his thinking.

The trouble with this story is that it could have easily been prevented or solved by either company.

Priceline.com: (1) Forward my contact phone number to the airline. The say they tried calling me. They could have only gotten my hotel’s phone number from you–go ahead and give them my actual contact information. It would have been easier. I would have have to cut my meetings short by a few hours, but at least then I might have had some options. It would have prevented the entire snafu. (2) Implement a useful automated answer program. The last thing you want to do is make a frustrated customer irate, and that’s all your system seems to do from my end. (3) Take care of your customer. The airline’s cancellation was beyond my control. Bend over backward to get me out of Atlanta, and not only am I your customer for life, you get a heartwarming story told to everyone about how cool you are. A permanent customer, and some free word-of-mouth publicity for a couple hundred dollars. Instead you get this. I hope it costs more.

Fronteir Airlines: (1) Again, would it really have been that difficult to have put me on another airline? This was your fault, after all. The customer desk agent was polite, and surprisingly helpful, although she maintained a somewhat condescending attitude. Again, is the cost of losing a customer and bad publicity worth the little bit extra it would have cost you to put me on a different airline? You already have my money, after all. (1b) As a second, half-baked make-up attempt to win me back, you can refund my money for the second flight (or provide some other consideration for the inconvenience), but I won’t hold out hope. I have no expectation you will respond with any sort of integrity; you are in the airline business, after all. (2) You may want to consider waiting until after all of your domestic flights have left (or, even better, arrived!) before closing your customer service center. Really.

UPDATE: Frontier cancelled another of my flights on the way home (no explanation), keeping me in Denver for several extra hours, and forcing me to (again) reschedule my transportation home from the airport. It was in Denver that I saw the first smiling Frontier employee of the trip too.

• As customers, we search for someone to blame, but only because we want a problem fixed. The person who caused the problem may not be the one to fix it. When working with customers, take ownership; connect the customer to the solution.
• Uncorrected little mistakes can become big mistakes. Responsibility lies with those who made the little mistakes at the beginning.
• Don’t try to hide mistakes. Take responsibility—)but more than that, take ownership of finding a solution.
• Capitulating early won’t provide the emotional win, but in real terms it may be cheaper than arguing. Even if we don’t consider intangibles like a positive brand image, word-of-mouth, repeat customers, or opportunity costs, our time and our employees’ time is valuable. Understand the cost of covering mistakes.
• Empathize, don’t patronize. We do this by taking ownership, sharing information and providing options.

You can see the recurring theme: take ownership.

I had problem with a major telecom when I last moved. (The other major telecom had caused me some significant trouble, so I switched.) I still had no service one week after it was to have been hooked up. It took eight hours on the phone (much of it on hold) over the course of more than fourteen calls to about five different customer service lines (all with horrible phone trees) before was I finally connected to a manager that promised he would personally make sure it was fixed. I was pessimistic, but willing to trust him. I wanted to trust him. He couldn’t, of course, fix it over the phone, but he did promise to call me back. (Which he did after it was fixed that evening.)

The simple act of someone taking ownership was enough to ease my frustration. I finally felt as if someone cared (empathy), he promised to call me back (information), and he followed through (trust). Why did it take so long to find someone willing to do that?

If you ever have to deal with customers, or manage people who do, head on over and read the whole thing.

Before you ask, yes, I know he’s using a knock-off of my design. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, he asked politely.