Ironically enough, my entire company spent the entire morning Tuesday at a "customer service workshop." The keynote speaker was John DiJulius, a self-made businessman turned motivational speaker and author. He was a very charismatic speaker, although I'm not sure his hospitality-based solutions will transfer well to our business.
One of his customer service axioms that stuck with me was "It's not our fault, but it's still our problem." It's really easy to point out where the customer is wrong -- you can even be validated by "the rules" -- but the successful companies try to appease the customer anyway.
He gave an example about his trip to Disney World with his son -- they waited in a 45-minute line, only to be told his son was too short to go on the ride. Now, they disregarded several signs at the ride's entrance and throughout the ride's line (You must be X inches tall to ride "Twilight Zone"). A lot of companies would say "tough luck, you should have read the signs." Well, the fella running the ride gave DiJulius' son a offical looking ticket that read "Future Twilight Zone Traveler," redeemable for a free trip to the front of the line as soon as the kid was tall enough. The thing was even signed by Mickey Mouse himself. Way to brighten up a bad situation, eh?
Those bastards at Disney are smart, because now this kid will be bugging his dad to go back once he gets a bit taller, and BAM -- repeat customer.