A couple of weeks ago I took my family on a ski holiday to Aspen. In the space of a one-week trip I ran into sufficient customer service gaffes to confirm my suspicion that all too many American companies are giving up on the idea of customer retention. Their business model turns on actual transactions. It's gravy if they get the customer to come back a second time.

Our family of six flew United Airlines from San Francisco. We landed in Denver fine and made our way to the gate for a flight to Aspen. Just about the time we expected to board our plane, a message flashed on the board that the flight was cancelled. I went to the service desk, and was told that due to snowy weather, our flight was cancelled.

The next flight scheduled to go later that evening was full, so we were out of luck. [Note: Those of you still operating under an outdated model of customer service might wonder why the airline would not delay our flight until the weather cleared. Silly you, why inconvenience a whole series of passengers on a stack of delayed flights when you can inconvenience one airplane full and put a containment field around the customer pain?]

The United agent was courteous enough to give me a sheet of paper with hotel numbers, saying that United took no responsibility for weather problems. We were on our own for a hotel, in other words. When I asked about shuttle or bus transportation, she gave me a second sheet of paper with phone numbers for shuttles - again, it would be on our dime. If we stayed in Denver for the evening, she would put us on a flight sometime the next day. We decided to rent a car and drive to Aspen that evening.

We did make it to Aspen that evening and had a terrific week of powder skiing. My good news is that the Aspen Skiing Company excels at customer service. Whether on the ski lifts, a hotel, or restaurant owned by the Aspen Skiing Company, we experienced extraordinary employees; so much so, my junior-high-age kids remarked, unprompted, how friendly and helpful everyone was.

At week's end, I had drinks with the company's CEO, Pat O'Donnell. He told me that when he came to Aspen from the top post at Patagonia nearly a decade ago, the opposite attitude permeated the company. Customers regularly complained about surly attendants, and the locals despised the way the senior execs ran roughshod over the local ethos of the town. Over ten years, O'Donnell and his team drilled a sense of pride in the company. A key element of this culture shift took place when O'Donnell challenged the employees to find ways that the company could become environmentalists, real lovers of the mountains upon which they do their business. That hard-earned pride was evident in the new spirit of Aspen Skiing Company.

Ok, back to United Airlines. On our way out of Aspen, the scenario was repeated. Low clouds caused our flight to be cancelled. We once again were left to our own wiles and rented a car to drive to Denver. Finding our own hotel in Aspen another night and wait for a non-guaranteed United flight at least 24 hours later was not an attractive option. When I made the point to the United agent that my family had now lost out on two United flights, he gave me a piece of paper where I could call to apply for a refund. Of course, he himself was not empowered to deliver on that offer. The ball was in my court.

The service failure did not end that evening. We rented a vehicle from Thrifty Rent-a-Car, drove to Denver and made a hotel reservation near the Denver airport at The Red Roof Inn. I called the hotel as we approached Denver, to ask for directions. The front desk clerk answered the phone, then told me that she was too busy to give me directions; I had to figure it out on my own. I kid you not.

By the time I got to Thrifty to turn in the car, I was exhausted from driving the mountain passes at night. By that time, however, I was not shocked when the customer service agent at Thrifty could not process my contract for the car. She explained that her software could not read the reservation codes made at the Aspen office. How did she resolve the dilemma? You got it, she gave me an 800 number to call so that I could figure out my billing at some later date.

Next time I take a week holiday I guess I better build into my time off an extra day to call the 800 numbers and clean up the mess. We have entered a new economy of do-it-yourself customer service. Makes sense, I guess. Get customers to take care of their own service problems and the company can focus on the real bread-and-butter of business: making sales.