Extending my last entry on “BadWord” values – one of my favorite sayings when talking about staffing is “everyone works for marketing”.

It’s true.

Every member of your organization represents the company, and thus has the power to foster great experiences and word of mouth, or poor experiences (and word of mouth).

In the last 24 hours I’ve seen several examples of both approaches.

Consider:

• Hotel Parking Lot Attendant: I’d left my room key back in my room. The lot attendant could have charged me, or delayed me while calling the desk, but chose to simply smile and say “go ahead, please remember it next time”.  Could I have been scamming them? Absolutely. I could have owed them as much as $40 for parking. But the lot attendant just earned them much, much more than $40 of positive PR and goodwill.

• Health Club Attendant: I also left my room key in my room when visiting the fitness center. I’d shown up barefoot and in swim trunks, signed in, and waved at the pool attendant who knew me (I’m there rather frequently) – but the person at the front desk insisted I go to the front desk and get a new key (a 15-20 minute process at prime time, as they’d need to visit my room for ID, etc).  I only had 30 minutes to spare. So much for my workout – I changed into street clothing and left, super-annoyed. Again, incremental liability or value in letting me in?

• Restaurant:  The owner walked over and said some nice things, smiled, made some suggestions on the menu. Cost to him? Nothing. Positive feeling generated? Lots. (Ironically, the online reviews of the venue commented on the “surly owner”, which had originally given me pause. Maybe he’s hearing the feedback?

• United Airlines:  On a fairly empty flight, people were stretching out and sleeping, 1 per row of 3 seats.  The last 6 seats (two banks of three) had one flight attendant sitting in them. I asked whether I could stretch out on the other bank. Her response: “No, they’re for the crew”.  Given that there were only 3 flight attendants staffed in that class, and they have jump-seats. I found her explanation absurd. Thanks, Ms. Cooper, for engendering such goodwill… again, JetBlue, here I come.

• American Airlines:  I wrote to customer service after a particularly (shockingly) poor experience involving a stewardess, an air marshall, and me. (Not nearly as salacious or fun as that sounds, really). Not only did I get an email apology -- they dumped 5000 frequent flyer miles into my account. I'm not even a Platinum member!