It started out as a series of return flights from a business conference in the Caribbean. It ended up as an object lesson in how to treat — and, more important, how not to treat — clients when problems emerge.

After speaking at the conference, a colleague and I had an 11-hour trip ahead of us: a 7 a.m. flight from Nevis to San Juan, Puerto Rico, another flight to Boston and then the last leg to Toronto. The fact that all three flights were on the same airline appeared to make the trip smoother.

The first two flights were uneventful — exactly what you want when you’re flying. Arrival in Boston, however, was a very different story.

Our 4 p.m. flight to Toronto was cancelled because of mechanical problems and the customer service representative at the American Airlines counter, who seemed only marginally interested in our problem, told us that the later flight was full. No efforts had been made to make other arrangements and she seemed surprised that we were interested in exploring alternatives. After the typical endless punching away at her keyboard, the best she could do was a 4:30 Delta shuttle to New York and then a 7:30 Air Canada connection to Toronto.

At the Delta terminal, where we went through another long lineup to get our boarding passes, we discovered that our 4:30 shuttle was delayed.

Unlike our previous encounter, however, the Delta staff seemed genuinely sorry for the inconvenience. On a number of occasions, staff members apologized and said they were going to do the best they could.

Delta put the passengers of our scheduled 4:30 flight on the 5:30 shuttle, bumping people with 5:30 tickets to a later flight. The airline apparently preferred to annoy everyone a little rather than half their passengers a lot.

Our flight arrived in New York at 7 p.m., too late to make our 7:30 flight home.

While on the phone to Air Canada to change to a later flight, I was told that because we had gotten the ticket from American Airlines, American Airlines would have to change the ticket.

“Where’s the American Airlines terminal?” we asked the gate attendant. We were directed out the door to catch a free shuttle to the main terminal. Outside, there was no sign of any bus — or anywhere to wait for the bus.

As we were pondering our next step, a National Car Rental shuttle bus pulled up and the driver asked where we were going. “American? I’m going right there. Hop in!” was his solution to our problem. During our drive, he told us about immigrating from Haiti and a bit about his life in New York.

We left the driver a generous tip and arrived at the American Airlines terminal to see, for the first time that day, no lineups. So far so good. At the first counter, we explained our problem at length.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening and I am busy on something else,” the customer service rep replied. She directed us to a counter at which two American Airlines staff were talking to a young man in his teens.

After two minutes of waiting, it became clear that the teenager was not a passenger but a relative of one of the staff.

Having been studiously ignored, I piped up: “Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt but we have a problem that we were hoping you could help us with.”

“That’s Delta’s problem; they were the ones that were late,” we were told.

Asking if they could help regardless drew deep sigh and a sense that we were clearly imposing, but with more punching of keys, new boarding passes emerged for the next flight on Air Canada, fortunately located just down the corridor.

After a dash to the counter, we told the Air Canada attendant about our story. “I think you’re in luck,” he said. “The 7:30 flight’s running a bit late and is just boarding. I’ll call to tell them you’re on your way and, if you hustle, I think you can make it.”

A short sprint later, we arrived just as the plane’s doors were closing — and got into Toronto only three hours after our originally scheduled time.



There are several clear lessons for financial advisors from this experience.

@page_break@> Absence Of Communication. First, in and of itself, the three-hour delay was not a big deal. What was a very big deal was the absence of communication and lack of concern we encountered, and the sense that no one else was really worried about our situation, so we had to be.

In the financial advisor’s world, when there’s a major hiccup in the markets, many clients want to hear from their advisors, if only to know that everything is okay and that their advisor is on top of the situation. You can reduce this anxiety by telling clients that you will contact them if market events warrant a change in direction.

Even if you have that conversation, however, when clients read anxiety-provoking headlines in the paper and don’t hear anything from you, many conclude either that things must be very bad indeed or that they aren’t important enough for you to contact.

That doesn’t mean you should respond to every blip. But it does mean you need to bear in mind what clients take away from a communication void.

If they feel you’re on top of things, many are reassured that they don’t have to be. The opposite also applies: if they don’t feel you’re monitoring the situation, then they feel they should.

There is a lot to be learned from the way we were treated while going through a highly stressful experience — with consideration and concern by some of the people we encountered, and with mild indifference verging on complete apathy by others.

At the end of the day, what I’ll remember about the trip was not that we were three hours late but the signal that was sent by the attitudes of one airline’s staff vs those of two others (not to mention a shuttle-bus driver from Haiti who emerged as the true hero of the day).

> Recognize The Problems. Another big lesson relates to what you do when clients run into problems.

First, recognize that problems are inevitable, in life and in business. The issue is not the problem but how you deal with it.

The first thing to do when dealing with a client with a problem is to demonstrate empathy and concern.

The fact that the Delta staff seemed to be generally sorry about the flight delay from Boston to New York did a great deal to diffuse the tension and hostility among the waiting passengers.

And when I called Air Canada to find out the status of my missing baggage (which, of course, had no chance of making it through the cancelled and changed flights), the first thing the service rep said was: “I do apologize for this inconvenience.” That made it hard for me to get upset when she told me that they had yet to track down my bags.

Second, once you have a problem, you need to be proactive — you need to demonstrate that the problem is as big an issue for you as it is for your client.

Think how different our response at the American Airlines counter in Boston would have been if the service rep had said: “Here’s what we’ve already done to deal with this issue” — rather than seeming stumped as to what to do next.

> It’s The ’Tude, Dude. And, finally, attitude truly matters.

When I went through the process of reporting my missing bags at the airport in Toronto, the Air Canada rep was first-class.

After listening to my tale of woe, he said: “Boy, sounds like you’ve had a really rough day” and asked me for my baggage tags. I had to confess that I had tossed them as I was getting rid of some of the paper I’d collected.

“No problem, I’ve done that myself,” he said. “We can track your bags down by searching on the flights you took.”

At the end, he gave me a form with a number to call and a Web site I could log onto to track the progress in finding my bags.

“Missing bags almost always turn up within 48 hours,” he said. “It may take a few days, but I can only remember a few cases in which luggage failed to make it.”

Think about what he’d done:

> Listened first to understand the problem.

> Empathized and expressed sympathy.

> Outlined the solution to the problem and provided reassurance that the situation would almost certainly be resolved.

Research shows that customers’ loyalty actually increases after a problem — if it’s been handled well and the problem is a one-off rather than an ongoing or repetitive problem.

Think about your own strategy for service recovery, and how to apply the “listen, empathize and fix” model the next time a client you’re dealing with runs into a problem.

That way, you, too, can turn service problems into service recovery opportunities. IE



Dan Richards, president of Strategic Imperatives Ltd., can be reached at richards@getkeepclients.com. For other columns in this series, go to www.investmentexecutive.com.