Polite customers lead to good service

No this is not the "let's talk about EasyJet" blog, but I do get a few good examples of customer service (good and bad) from watching Airline.

Last night it was a lady who was taking her 2-year-old daughter, who had just recovered from a major operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital, to France to stay with her grandparents. Daughter, mother and grandparents were all flying to Nice together.

The snag was that the mother's passport had expired, because with all the worry over her daughter she'd forgotten to have it renewed.

The EasyJet customer service desk were extremely helpful. Believing that France doesn't permit travellers to arrive on expired passports, they tried to put all four passengers on a flight to a neighbouring country that did accept expired passports (Spain or Italy) from where they could travel to Nice.

The mother felt that this would mean too long a journey for her daughter, given the little girl's state of health.

So EasyJet rang the French immigration authorities and - with a little help on the French speaking front from the little girl's grandmother - the authorities agreed that, because of the special circumstances, and because the little girl had her own in-date passport, they would accept the mother on her expired passport.

The family - who had been very polite and apologetic to the EasyJet staff throughout - were almost tearful in their thanks.

I think this story highlights two areas.

The first is how important it is, as a customer, to be polite and respectful to customer service staff. Customer service team members are far more likely to go out of their way to help a friendly, apologetic customer who accepts they've made a mistake, than a bolshy, rude customer who expects staff to put right a mistake that wasn't theirs.

The second is the oft-made point that "going the extra mile" for a customer is what will get you remembered. That family will always be grateful to EasyJet for making the phone call and ensuring their much-needed holiday went ahead, and will tell the story to their friends.