My wife and I were having dinner at one of her favorite spots, Tucci Benucch. A couple was seated very close to us, so it was hard not to notice what was happening at their table. Near the end of what I presume was a fabulous meal, the woman spills her wine into her plate of food. She was done eating anyway and the wine was nearly empty, so no harm and no foul.

The waiter sees this and immediately offers her another glass of wine, "Can I get you another glass?"

"Oh, no. That's fine. I'm good," she responds.

"Are you sure? I can get it right away, it's no trouble!"

"No. Really, I'm fine. Thanks for asking!"

In this circumstance, the waiter makes one critical error and follows it up with another.

First, he fails to see that the correct action is not to ask if she wants more wine—of course she does! He should simply have seen the spill, excused himself and returned with another, full glass of wine. Being a polite Midwesterner, she would have attempted to refuse the glass, to which he could have responded with, "Please. It's my pleasure and it's on the house. Enjoy!"

Instead, he gives her the choice. She has to choose to take something from the restaurant and even then, she's not entirely sure that the offer is for free wine, which is his second mistake. Is the waiter saying, "I'll get you another glass of wine right away, but you'll pay for it," or is he offering it for free? He didn't make that clear, probably because he wasn't sure if he was out on a limb or not. Maybe the company never told him to give stuff away in this situation, so now there is this awkward semantic dance around the words "get it right away," where the waiter is kind of offering something and the customer isn't sure and is too polite to ask if the wine is free and has probably had enough wine anyway…

Smart companies see a customer's problem as an opening. They recognize that when their customer is in trouble, it is a rare oppportunity to make a customer for life and take no chances in seizing it. Every employee should know that the right answer is always to do whatever it takes. What you would do for a friend, you should do for your customer.

Sometimes the fault is with the company and here again there is an opportunity. Two stories come to my mind for this situation. The first was told to me by a new dealer that we've signed. He was telling me of an experience with one of my competitors where they had installed a digital signage system into a huge client of his. After installation, their network was having problems and their IT staff traced it to the new equipment. Back and forth this dealer went with the manufacturer, trying to get the support that he needed to keep this key account from suing him.

Finally, my competitor sends out two of his top experts and traces the problem back to a hardware issue. They fix the problem and the account is saved! The dealer is relieved and everything seems good… until my competitor sends the dealer a bill for the travel and labor for his two techs.

Now, anyone can see how unfair this is. I can also see the thinking behind my competitor's actions, as well. Who knows who is at fault? They didn't buy a service plan that has techs on airplanes for free, so why should they have to send them? But, they did not do whatever it takes. The dealer felt that this situation called for the manufacturer to go above and beyond and not only were they reluctant to do it, they charged full price for it. As you can imagine, this dealer no longer does business with them. Now they are doing business with me and I can tell you, I would have been on that plane.

The second example comes from my good friend and independent rep, Steve Valenti. He was telling me about a time that he was selling security cameras to a casino. His manufacturer's products were working great and the customer was as pleased as could be. No problems at all.

While his cameras were going in one part of the casino, due to some crazy circumstance, another manufacturer's cameras were going into another part. In that installation, the cameras weren't working at all. Problems were happening everywhere and at one point, that manufacturer's technicians were in the ceiling pulling cameras and replacing them with new ones. Anybody observing that situation would call it a disaster where everyone lost money.

When it came time for that same casino to build the new hotel, which company did they go with? The one that had all of the problems. They felt like they owed them for all of the trouble and they knew that they had a history of doing whatever it takes. There was a stronger relationship there than with Steve's company.

In some ways, it's better to screw up and do whatever it takes than to get it right the first time.