The Best Get Better

American Airlines’ best customers had it figured out. They learned that in a culture of "the customer is always right," the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. That grease was amounting to an annual multi-million dollar hemorrhage in unpaid upgrades to first class, uncollected excess baggage fees, and reservation run-arounds. American turned to us for help: How do we say no to our best customers and still retain them as customers?

We used a hidden camera in AA’s hubs around the country to catch their people doing it right. Then we interviewed those agents, asking them what they were thinking during the transaction, and why they did what they did. The result was a half-day, video-driven seminar for 20,000 ticket, gate and baggage agents around the world. This is normally a resistant audience – people who have heard it all – but the power of hidden camera, and the power of letting them help each other to learn new skills had this crowd on its feet. We received standing ovations across the globe. Relevant, real, powerful – this was training that hit the mark. The multi-million dollar hemorrhage shrank dramatically in one year.