Have you authorized your employees to spend $5 to keep a customer? $50? $100? What investment would you make to keep a customer?

I was on a flight to St. Louis recently. It was a United flight, but it was operated by one of the regional airlines under contract to United. The head flight attendant was young and it seemed like this might have been the first flight when she was responsible for running things during the flight - she read the announcements verbatim from her note book and referred to it often as we prepared for takeoff.

Once we were in the air it was one of her responsibilities to tend to the First Class passengers. Even though it was a smaller regional jet, there were still 6 first class seats in the forward section and I was not in one of them. I was, however, on vacation and looking forward to having a drink to celebrate.

When she and the cart made their way to my seat I ordered a Bloody Mary. I handed her my credit card to make the $5 payment because they can't accept cash on a flight. She went back to the galley to get the card reader and the tiny bottle of vodka and spent a fair amount of time there obviously trying to get the reader to work. After consulting with the other attendant, she finally returned to my seat to apologize and explain that the card reader wouldn't recognize the flight number so she was unable run my card to pay for the drink. She asked if I still wanted the Bloody Mary mix now sitting half finished on my tray table.

What was obvious to me at that moment was that the airline's management had not given her the authority to make a $5 decision - despite the fact that they had put her in charge of the safety and comfort of 40 passengers. It was clearly not an accounting issue because the folks in First Class got their drinks for free. What her management appears to have forgotten is that each of us is a customer, not a transaction.

Do your employees know what a customer is worth to you? How much have you authorized them to spend to keep a customer? Remember, it's not an expense, it's an investment.