The Journey Begins

A client asked me recently which platform his journey had been booked through. I told him, and he smiled. "I had no idea," he said. "My PA booked it. I've travelled with them before, but I've never had a journey quite like this." It was a generous compliment, but it wasn't the compliment that stayed with me.

His PA had organised the journey. At some point it had appeared on my phone as another booking, ready for me to accept. What happened between those two moments, I couldn't tell you. Somewhere there had been conversations, emails, confirmations and all the work needed to make the journey possible. Every part of that process mattered, yet none of it formed part of his experience.

By the time he arrived at the collection point, all he'd been told was to look for a black Mercedes. It made me realise that, from his perspective, the journey hadn't begun when his PA made the booking. It hadn't begun when the booking appeared on my phone either. It began the moment I opened the door.

Preparing the car has never been about following a checklist. It's about creating an environment that feels calm, comfortable and quietly welcoming from the very first moment we meet. If someone notices the individual details, that's always gratifying. More often than not, though, they simply notice how the journey made them feel.

That conversation stayed with me because I suspect it's true of many service businesses. Long before a customer arrives, an enormous amount of work has already taken place. Systems, planning and logistics quietly create the conditions for everything that follows. Eventually, though, there comes a point where all of that fades into the background, leaving one person responsible for delivering everything the customer believes they've bought.

That's quite a responsibility when you think about it. If the experience is exceptional, that's what people remember. If it falls short, that's what they remember too. They rarely remember the process that made everything possible. They remember how they were treated and, more importantly, how they felt.

Before becoming a chauffeur, I spent more than twenty years working in advertising. One lesson from that world has never left me. The hardest part wasn't producing good work; it was avoiding becoming a commodity. Once every agency described itself as creative, strategic and innovative, those words stopped helping clients choose. The conversation inevitably turned to price. It makes me wonder whether that's true of service more generally.

We quite rightly talk about punctuality, discretion, presentation and luxury vehicles. They're all important, and they're the foundation of professional chauffeuring. But foundations are rarely what people remember. People remember the feeling. They remember arriving at a meeting calmer than when they left home, finally switching off after a long flight or simply feeling that everything had been quietly taken care of.

Looking back, I doubt my client will remember which platform his PA used that morning. But I hope he'll remember the journey. Because, in the end, that's all great service really is: one person looking after another.