The Business-Oriented CIO: A Guide to Market-Driven Management

Chapter 10. In Search of Customer Service

There is no such thing as service industries. There are only industries whose service components are greater or less than those of other industries. Everybody is in service.

—Theodore Levitt

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel, and incompetent comes naturally to me.

—John Cleese

A businessperson was planning to fly from London to New York on Virgin Atlantic Airlines. The plane had mechanical trouble, so the flight was cancelled. Virgin Atlantic then booked its stranded passengers on a British Air flight leaving shortly after the scheduled Virgin Atlantic flight. The lines for the British Air ticket counters were extremely long, this being a Friday evening, so even though British Air was in a different terminal, a Virgin Atlantic agent stood on line for each Virgin Atlantic business-class passenger. When the agent was next in line, the Virgin Atlantic customer was fetched and took his or her place as next to be served by the British Air ticket agent.

Virgin Atlantic offered free limo service to and from the airport for business-class passengers. Because he was no longer flying Virgin Atlantic, the businessperson thought that he would have to rent a car at New York's JFK airport. However, upon arrival in New York, a Virgin Atlantic agent met the businessperson in the British Air terminal. Standing next to her was a limo driver to take him home. That incident took place more than 15 years ago, but he still tells ...