Proactive Customer Service Part 1

I was on two different flights this past week from two different carriers and I think the differences in the stories will help even the lay person understand what it means to provide Proactive Customer Service.

Carrier number one was flying a common route in the US from one big city to another. It was a flight I have taken a number of times and most of the time it is on time without any real major delays. So, I strapped in, got my headphones on (cause I am always scared of the real talkative guy or gal that may be sitting next to me) and pulled out my reading material for the flight. The closed up the doors, pushed the boarding ramp away and we were ready to go. Or were we? 15 min later we were still sitting in the parked position at the gate, ramp now pushed away but no closer to our end destination. 20 min later. 30 min later. 35 min later.

Finally the captain gets on the horn and tells us that there had been a minor issue with a component of the plane and he was waiting on that to get fixed before we could push back. But it took him 40 min to remember that there about 150 people on the plane that were trying to figure out why we were sitting on the plane for 40 min without getting closer to our destination. Everyone was frustrated, upset and angry. Because, of course, by the time he told us were were going to be on our way, we could no longer use our phones to send an SMS or make a call to tell that cab company or that co worker or that loved one that we were going to be 40 min late. Not a lot of happy campers.

Then, later in the week, I was on another flight from a different company. A similar delay apparently was hitting this flight, lucky me. We all sat strapped in and ready to go for about 5-7 min and then the captain got on the overhead and told us that there was an issue with flight control and were going to sit for another 15-20 min before we pushed out to the runway. He said for us to go ahead and turn on our phones and make phone calls or whatever we needed to update people on the other end who were waiting on us.

This is proactive customer service. Our nature as humans is that we desire to understand and to some degree, control the situation we find ourselves in. Typically we gain this control or at least the perception of control when we have information. With this information we can then make follow on decisions that will allow us to move out of the emotional state of frustration and into a mood of acceptance of the situation. All we want is to be "in the know".

Proactive customer service is not all about technology and process and flow charts etc. Proactive service is thinking about how you would want to be treated and then reaching out ahead of time and making sure your customer is informed.

How are you using Proactive Customer Service in your company?