Several years ago my daughter and I were flying through Toronto where we met my mother before flying on together to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. We had purchased the cheapest tickets available and before flying I checked to see whether or not their restricted basic fare was similar to that of their Star Alliance partner, United. 

A number of emails back and forth yielded nothing but frustration—I gained no additional information to what was posted at their website and the customer service person was unable to give me direct answers to my specific questions. In fact, the canned responses seemed to indicate that my emails remained unread.

Two points from the correspondence were especially humorous: One, the signature which included—"Thank-you for your understanding…sincerely,…" and, two, a nonsensical phrase—word for word—from the customer relations person handling my issue—"While I can appreciate this being an inconvenience…"

Now I’m sure the customer relations agent was a really nice person, I’m sure she meant really well, in fact, she probably responded as she was simply trained to do. But she didn’t solve my problem and that was a problem! [Consider also the fact that I now have a slightly less opinion of Air Canada, that I share this story with others in my workshops—hence, negative branding—and that I'll probably be less likely to use their airline in the future or contact them again if I have a problem.]

But there’s an alternative to standardized customer service since that often isn’t service at all. And it begins with understanding the economics of loyalty. We'll pick it up from there next week!