Planes, Trains & Automobiles! Customer Service & Travel.

By Adam Douba

I looked up from my in-flight menu as two stewardesses wheeled in a food cart. One stewardess, a character straight out of The Stepford Wives, leaned down to take a passenger’s order. The second pulled out a tray and produced a bag of celery and carrot sticks.

Stepford Wife took one look at the bag and sighed. “No, just carrot,” she chided.

“Sorry?” asked the second stewardess.

“He wants just the carrots,” she hissed. “The carrots with ranch dip.”

“Oh, we’re all out of those.”

Another sigh from Stepford Wife. “Fine,” she mumbled, looking away, but still leaving her palm open to receive the celery and carrot sticks. Handing the bag to the passenger, she plastered on a fake smile and said sweetly, “Here you go, Sir. Enjoy.”

As they moved down the aisle, I watched as Stepford Wife continued behaving dismissively towards her coworker, while putting on her good face for passengers (not that they bought it, if the whoo-boy expression from the passenger sitting next to me was any indication).

I found myself examining the customer experience before me. How would I rate a customer service representative who was giving me the appropriate treatment but being disrespectful to coworkers? Not highly, I realized. On one hand, that kind of attitude would give me a lower opinion of the company or organization as a whole, simply for allowing this form of communication to take place between its employees. One the other hand, a two-faced customer service representative would give me the impression that the treatment I was getting wasn’t genuine – that it was all rehearsed and being acted out for me.

How do you treat the people you work with? Do you show customers politeness and put down your coworker all in the same breath? If so, I would re-evaluate the way that you do customer service. You cannot be the face of a company or business and be two-faced all at once.

When Stepford Wife asked me what I wanted for an in-flight snack, I was very tempted to say the carrots with ranch dip