safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airlineDoes your company have ‘company policy’? You know, the policy that lets you say, “I’m sorry ma’am, we don’t offer refunds, exchanges only”? Or the policy that lets you say, “Here at ABC Bank, we only have teller services until 3:00 pm daily”? Or the policy that says “Check-out time is 1:00 pm – later check-out will be charged accordingly”?

When your company was new, someone (maybe even you) said, “We need some guidelines about what we will and will not do for our customers. Let’s make those guidelines so that our customers don’t take advantage of us. And let’s call those guidelines Company Policy – that way, there’ll be no mistake about how serious we are about maintaining our integrity!”

Well, I have a really good suggestion for you. Take your company manual, find the pages that cover ‘company policy’, rip them out of your manual and throw them away. Then you’ll be able to start looking after your customers with common sense and doing what’s best for them, rather than doing what’s most convenient for you and showing common distrust (both of your own staff and of your customers).

The company where I previously worked, like all airlines, had company policy. One part of that policy was based on a hugely important safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airline,

will be charged accordingly”?

When your company was new, someone (maybe even you) said, “We need some guidelines about what we will and will not do for our customers. Let’s make those guidelines so that our customers don’t take advantage of us. And let’s call those guidelines Company Policy – that way, there’ll be no mistake about how serious we are about maintaining our integrity!”

Well, I have a really good suggestion for you. Take your company manual, find the pages that cover ‘company policy’, rip them out of your manual and throw them away. Then you’ll be able to start looking after your customers with common sense and doing what’s best for them, rather than doing what’s most convenient for you and showing common distrust (both of your own staff and of your customers).

The company where I previously worked, like all airlines, had company policy. One part of that policy was based on a hugely important safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airline

ere’ll be no mistake about how serious we are about maintaining our integrity!”

Well, I have a really good suggestion for you. Take your company manual, find the pages that cover ‘company policy’, rip them out of your manual and throw them away. Then you’ll be able to start looking after your customers with common sense and doing what’s best for them, rather than doing what’s most convenient for you and showing common distrust (both of your own staff and of your customers).

The company where I previously worked, like all airlines, had company policy. One part of that policy was based on a hugely important safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airline

th common sense and doing what’s best for them, rather than doing what’s most convenient for you and showing common distrust (both of your own staff and of your customers).

The company where I previously worked, like all airlines, had company policy. One part of that policy was based on a hugely important safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airline

safety factor. With any airline, you can only carry on as much baggage as can be safely stowed away, so if there’s turbulence (or worse), the carry-on baggage won’t harm you or other passengers, or block your way out of the aircraft if you have to evacuate. This policy is not for the convenience of the airline, but for the safety of their passengers. And so, you would think that this policy would be pretty rigid, right? Well, listen to my story and see how I bent ‘company policy’ to accommodate a customer.

I was at New York JFK airport waiting to board the passengers on our flight back to Toronto, when one of our check-in agents came on board in a real tizzy. She said, “We have a celebrity, rock star Sheryl Crow, checking in with 6, count’em 6, pieces of carry-on baggage and she just insists she has to bring all this on board, even though we’ve been telling her and telling her that company policy only allows 2 pieces or whatever will fit under her seat. What am I to do?”

I told the agent to relax and let Ms. Crow come on board with all her carry-on baggage and I’d deal with her. The agent, relieved to have her problem solved, ran back to get rid of Ms. Crow.

However, by the time Sheryl Crow came storming on board, she too was in quite a snit – with good reason, however; don’t forget she’d just been through a real confrontation with the check-in agent! I let her bluster for a few minutes, “I’m never going to fly with this airline again, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da”, and then I sat in the seat beside her and explained why that