I had a car accident last week. I was stopped at a traffic light when a landscaping truck pulling a piece of heavy equipment plowed into the rear of my car. I was on my way to a funeral so it was the perfect end to what was already a bad day.

Company 1: Unnamed

After making my way home after the accident, I called my insurance company. I received a recorded message before a person got on the line asking if I would participate in a survey following my interaction. My company specializes in cross-channel marketing, and we have to develop questions for respondents who visit Web pages in order to respond to a direct marketing initiative. Hoping to turn the terrible experience of my accident into a learning opportunity, I volunteered to take the survey. I looked forward to comparing their process to one of ours and perhaps even uncovering a best practice that we could incorporate into our projects.

A pleasant woman answered the phone and started to capture my policy information. Within the first two minutes of conversation, she had to put me on hold to look something up. She was clear about what she was going to do and asked me if I minded holding while she retrieved the needed information. Unfortunately, when she put me on hold, I was immediately transferred to the automated survey. It asked me if their associate had been pleasant and polite, I answered yes by pushing 1. It asked me if all of my objectives had been met, I had to answer no. It asked me if the information provided had been helpful, again I had to push the number for no. Finally, it asked me if I was satisfied with the interaction and again I had to enter no. I hoped that there would be an opportunity to provide more comments and provide them valuable feedback about their telephone system, but alas, that was not an option.

I called back and began the process anew. I was asked again if I would take part in the survey and once again, I answered yes. This time my objectives were met and although it took almost 45 minutes to make the claim, I stayed on the line to take the survey and balance my previous negative responses with positive ones. Here’s the thing though, I waited on the line as instructed to take the survey but it didn’t come on. I waited three minutes and finally hung up.

Company 2: Enterprise Rent-A-Car

I have been interested in Enterprise since reading a Harvard Business Review case several years ago on turning customers into promoters. I refer to it regularly when working with clients of ours who are not capitalizing on the good will of their passionate customers to reduce their marketing costs. I rented a car from them several years ago after a run-in with a deer. I witnessed their customer promoter strategy from the trenches, and it was fantastic. I immediately called them again and lined up a car.

Now pay attention here because this gets really good. Enterprise actually went beyond making me a promoter to making me a passionate promoter this time. Not only did I walk away an even more passionate promoter of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I picked up those best practices I’d been hoping to find.

I pulled in to the body shop the following day, multi-tasking as usual. As I got out of the car, cell phone firmly attached to my ear, I saw the body shop manager come toward me on foot. He had a look on his face that told me to get off the phone. I did, and he very calmly asked if I had a rental lined up. Then, he calming told me that my car was basically on fire. Apparently, some of the wiring dislodged in the accident was now lying on the exhaust system and on fire. I told him that I planned to go to Enterprise. He asked me to join him inside while he wrote things up. I dawdled a bit getting my purse out of the car, but made it inside in no more than a couple of minutes.

Seeing me dressed for work he told me that he would get me on my way and call later in the day with the estimate. So far, this is going along quite well, I thought to myself. The only hitch in the giddy up being that I would need a rental car a few days longer than planned. I went outside to retrieve my briefcase, camera, dry cleaning and plethora of sports equipment required by my kids later in the day. Before I could get all this junk out, another gentleman appeared and told me he would take over and finish collecting my belongings. To my astonishment, it was the Enterprise associate – Christopher Wiseman. It could not have been more than five minutes since I had arrived at the body shop. Chris quickly loaded my belongings, and we headed to the Enterprise office.

He had come to pick me up in a car similar to mine, but knowing that my rental coverage would lapse before my car was probably fixed, I asked if I could downgrade. Somehow, he was ahead of me on this one and was thinking about the smaller options available before I could ask the question. When we arrived, he took care of the transaction, had the new car pulled around, loaded my belongings and apologized for taking so long - in no more than 10 or 15 minutes. When the body shop had told me I was going to need a rental car immediately, I pictured a process that would take the greater part of the morning. I had already started worrying about making my daughter’s award ceremony by 11am. Instead, I was out and on my way by 8:45am. Total elapsed time between the two stops was 30 minutes.

Chris explained the contract, walked to the car with me and gave me the overview of its operation. No corners were cut; they were just done efficiently. It was as if they knew I had a million things to do, another million on my mind, and they handled everything. A normally stressful situation was turned into a very positive experience.

As a business owner, I strive to provide this level of service to our customers. My employees know that they are to put themselves in the shoes of our clients, to think at least one step ahead, to think of things the client may have missed or hasn’t imagined is possible and to focus on his or her objectives first. We focus on finding clients who are willing to pay for this level of care. This is how we will be successful.

Enterprise is the largest car rental company in the US, ranked 49^th on the list of Most Respected Companies in the US and number 16 on the Forbes list of Top Privately Held US Companies. They got there by believing that providing a customer experience like the one I received, this week, to customers who value that type of interaction and will pay for that experience, will result in profitable growth. It has, and I will follow their lead!