Every other airline had a screen like this. But at the Airtran counter they had something that had more in common with one of these. And over the course of our three hours in line it became clear that the board wasn’t being actively updated. So we stood there for a frustrating afternoon in an information vacuum, not knowing if we could make our connection or would have to be booked on a later flight. Only at the counter did we learn that our flight had been cancelled and we’d have to return the next day for a rerun of the same.

Aside from all the practical help that just a small bit of information would have been–giving us time to make other travel arrangments, sparing my parents extra round-trips to the airport, allowing us to skip dosing our dog up with the sedative he takes before flying–simply taking the step of updating the status board would have measurably decreased the stress level of the planeful of passengers in line.

Here’s a point of contrast: After our second go of it was unsuccessful, we ended up getting a refund and booking the next day on US Airways instead. And, as it turns out, that flight was pushed back quite a bit too. But we weren’t left guessing about it because I woke up to an automated call that told me the duration of–and even the reason for!–the delay and offered a path to follow in case I needed to make alternate arrangements. And at the airport, the first thing the representative told us was, “It looks right now like you’ll be able to make your connection. But keep your eye on the status and come back here if it changes.” So, though the flight was delayed an additional two hours, we made it home because when we saw that the status had changed they were able to help us fly standby.

Clients sometimes tell us that we’re the most responsive vendor they’ve worked with. And–though Tonya schedules our deadlines with something approaching clairvoyance and Alex is known for lightning-fast coding–it’s not that we have a superhuman ability to get work turned around. It’s just that we know how frustrating it is for our clients to be in the dark if their website is broken or the Dean needs something on the homepage as of yesterday. It only takes a few seconds to say, “Hey, that looks like some bad records in the faculty database. We’ll take a look at it first thing in the morning.” Or to slide the little plastic FLIGHT CANCELLED into its appropriate slot.