I flew United last week for the first time in ten years. I gave them another shot because they fit my schedule better than Southwest or Delta.
The flight itself was fine. The crew was competent, we had an on-time departure and arrival, and no issues once I was on the plane. United did the basic job of getting me from Point A to Point B without incident. But I won’t be flying them again for another decade, and it has nothing to do with the flight.
One Moment That Cost Them a Customer
I bought an upgraded seat with extra legroom – the section right behind first class. I figured that would get me earlier boarding so I wouldn’t have to check my carry-on, but I was wrong. I boarded near the very end and had to check my bag anyway.
I asked the gate agent, politely, how I bought an upgraded seat and still boarded near last.
His response, in a rude tone: “Well, if you flew with us from time to time, you’d already know that.”
He proceeded to explain that aisle seats board last, but I could have paid extra on top of my upgraded seat for earlier boarding. At that point, I didn’t care about the explanation because that one comment erased any goodwill that might have come from a competent flight.
This isn’t a rant about one rude gate agent – this is about what happens when companies have power and customers don’t, and why that power never lasts as long as companies think it will.
Your Power Imbalance is Never Permanent
Once you’re at the gate, you’re trapped and they know it. You either board the plane or you don’t fly, and that power imbalance reveals what a company’s culture actually values. United’s culture clearly values compliance over service.
United’s gate agent talked to me that way because he could, and he knows I can’t do anything about it once I’m at the gate. But here’s what United – and every other company that treats customers with contempt – doesn’t understand: When your customers don’t like the way you do business, you will eventually have no customers. It might take a while, but someone always disrupts the business model that depends on captive customers.
For decades, the airline industry operated on the assumption that customers had limited choices and would tolerate being treated poorly. Then Southwest Airlines came along and built an entire business model around being the anti-airline, with friendly employees, no change fees, transparent pricing, and free checked bags. They treated customers like human beings instead of inconveniences, and they disrupted an entire industry.
Southwest became so successful that they dominated domestic air travel for years, and then in one of the most spectacular unforced errors in business history, they decided to become like everyone else. They’re implementing assigned seating, adding fees, and eroding the cultural differences that made them Southwest.
Someone will disrupt them too. Maybe it already exists and we just don’t see it yet, but it’s coming because the fundamental truth hasn’t changed: anytime your customers don’t like the way you do business, someone is working right now to give them an alternative.
What This Has to Do With Your Business
You’re probably not in the airline industry, and you’re not United or Southwest, but the principle applies to every B2B business and it’s actually more dangerous for you than it is for United.
United is big enough that losing me as a customer doesn’t matter to them because they have millions of other customers and massive economies of scale. Your business isn’t United, and in B2B sales, you don’t get away with treating customers like an inconvenience. Your customer base is small enough that every relationship matters, which means one sales rep talking down to a client, one entitled attitude from a service manager, or one “if you did business with us more, you’d know” comment has just cost you years of revenue.
And unlike airlines, your customers probably do have alternatives. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but they’re looking, and when they find one, they’ll leave without coming back.
Your Culture Comes Out When Customers Have No Leverage
I’ve flown Southwest and Delta hundreds of times over the years, and their employees are pleasant, they act like they’re happy you’re there, and if you ask a question, they answer it without condescension. The difference isn’t the employee manual or the training program – the difference is what happens when customers have no leverage.
When your customers are trapped at the gate, locked into a contract, or dependent on your service with no easy alternative, that’s when you find out what your culture really is. Is it service, or is it just compliance dressed up as service?
United’s gate agent revealed United’s real culture – not the marketing version or the mission statement on the website, but the actual culture that shows up when an employee knows the customer has no power.
Here’s the uncomfortable question for your business: When your customers have no other options, how does your team treat them?
Your Customers Are Talking – Are You Listening?
United probably has no idea they lost me as a customer yesterday because one passenger out of millions is statistically irrelevant. But I’m telling this story to everyone who will listen, and thousands of people will read this. Some of them fly United regularly and are nodding along because they’ve experienced the same thing.
Your customers are doing the same thing about your business. When they have a bad experience, they’re not necessarily telling you – they’re telling their peers, posting in online communities, and quietly shopping alternatives. You won’t know about it until the renewal doesn’t happen or the deal you thought was locked up goes to a competitor.
The signals are always there if you’re paying attention. Customers who used to engage regularly go quiet, response times to your emails get longer, and they start asking more questions about contract terms and exit clauses. These are customers who don’t like the way you do business but haven’t found their alternative yet – eventually, they will.
Disruption Comes From Where You’re Not Looking
United isn’t worried about me as a customer because they’re worried about other major airlines – they watch Delta and American and Southwest, tracking market share and route profitability.
What they’re not tracking is the accumulation of customers like me who are just done, who would rather drive six hours than fly United, and who will pay more to fly a competitor. Individually, none of those customers matter, but collectively, they’re the foundation of disruption.
In your market, the disruption probably won’t come from your biggest competitor. It’ll come from a smaller company that’s treating customers the way you used to when you were hungry, or from a startup that’s built their entire model around solving the frustrations your industry has normalized.
By the time you notice, it’s too late because they didn’t just take one customer – they took everyone who was quietly dissatisfied and waiting for an alternative.
Being Competent Isn’t Enough Anymore
United did the flight competently with on-time departure and arrival, no safety issues, and no lost bags. By the metrics United probably cares about, it was a successful flight, but competent execution doesn’t matter when your people treat customers with contempt. I don’t care that the plane left on time – I care that your employee made me feel stupid for asking a reasonable question about a product I paid for.
Your business is the same. You can deliver the product on time, hit your SLAs, and meet the contract terms, but if your service manager talks down to customers, your salesperson ghosts them after the deal closes, or your support team makes them feel like an inconvenience, you’ve failed the only test that actually matters.
Customers don’t leave because you missed a deadline – they leave because you made them feel like their business doesn’t matter to you.
How to Fix This in Your Company
If you’re reading this and thinking “we would never treat customers that way,” you’re probably right consciously and deliberately. But what happens when customers are locked into contracts and can’t easily leave? What happens when your team is stressed and a customer asks a question that seems obvious to you?
That’s when culture shows up – not the culture you think you have, but the culture you actually have.
Start paying attention to the moments when customers have no leverage. How does your renewal process work? How do your people handle service calls from customers who can’t cancel mid-contract? How do you respond when a customer asks a question that your team thinks they should already know the answer to?
Those moments are expensive to ignore because eventually, someone will build their entire business around treating those customers better than you do.
Navigating Your Customer’s Experience
United will be fine without me because they’re big enough that one customer walking away doesn’t matter. Your business isn’t United, which means every customer matters, every interaction matters, and every moment when a customer has no power is a test of whether your culture is real or just performance.
The companies that win long-term aren’t the ones with the best product or the lowest price – they’re the ones whose people treat customers like they’re happy they exist, especially when the customer is trapped and has no other options.
Because eventually, they will have options. Someone is working on it right now.
Make sure they don’t have a reason to take them.
Make Sure to Register For My Webinar on May 28: It’s Not Your Salespeople: The Four Layers That Determine Whether Your Sales Organization Performs.
