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It’s Only Common Sense: Care About Your Customers and They Will Love You for Life

Years ago, when I lived in Milwaukee, there was an excellent airline by the name of Midwest Express. I loved that airline. I was proud to be one of their frequent flyers. There were many reasons why I thought Midwest Express was a great airline.

First, it was based out of Milwaukee with only direct flights. If you wanted to go to Boston? No problem. You could get on a flight in Milwaukee and be in Boston two hours later; the same was true with Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, or anywhere you wanted to go. To this day, I still have the leather travel wallet they gave out when you hit the 100,000-mile mark.

Second, the planes were all DC 10s with first-class-sized leather seats. And get this—there were no middle seats. Can you just imagine that? No, I am not making this up.

And that’s not all. Hold on to your seat because I swear that this next part is true. In fact, some of you might have heard this legend: Midwest Express served warm chocolate chip cookies to every passenger on every flight. There was no class distinction; all passengers were created equal.

All of these features made Midwest Express better than any other airline in the United States. But the direct flights, leather travel wallets, high-quality seats, warm cookies, and other perks were not the primary reason why people like me loved the airline. The No. 1 reason I loved Midwest Express was their phenomenal attitude; they actually cared. And they showed that they cared whenever there was a delay or a rare cancellation. The agent at the ticket counter tried to accommodate you and help you get to where you needed to go. I once saw a flight attendant sit down and hold the hand of an elderly woman who was having an anxiety attack as we flew through a sudden storm late one night.

You could here it in the voice of the pilots when we were held up from taking off by confusion in messed up airports like Boston's Logan International Airport or LaGuardia Airport in New York. I was on a flight from Boston to Milwaukee one day when the tower would not let us take off for one reason or another. Now, don’t get me wrong; controllers do a great job usually, but in places like Logan, there can be delays caused by less than ethical reasons, such as union work slowdowns.

Every time our pilot came on the speaker to make the latest delay announcement, you could tell that it was taking every ounce of his self-control not to let us know what he really thought about the situation. Have you ever felt the power of an aircraft peeling out? Well, that’s exactly what it felt like when that Midwest Express flight took off. The way the pilot pushed that plane into the sky was all the evidence we needed to understand their frustration at being held up and not being able to get their passengers to where they needed to be as had been promised them when they bought their tickets. Man, it was zero to 500 miles an hour and 10,000 feet in six seconds!

Again, what mattered most was that the people at Midwest Express cared deeply about doing an outstanding job, servicing their customers, and getting them to where they needed to go. As far as I am concerned, Midwest Express was the last of the great service airlines staffed by people who had an affinity for always doing the right thing for their customers.

A few years ago, Midwest Express was swallowed up and ruined by Frontier Airlines, and their caring service for customers was lost forever as well as the warm chocolate chip cookies. The only thing left of this airline is their example. If you want your company to be admired and loved by your customers, take a page out of the Midwest Express playbook and care about your customers; if you do, you will keep them for life.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.