Rain check, please
In the late 1800s if a baseball game was cancelled due to rain, you had to buy another ticket. You weren’t paying to see the game like you might’ve assumed, you were paying for the chance to see it.
Baseball leagues continued operating this way until the frustration and outrage over unfairness from patrons demanded that they make a change. It started with a handful of leagues making a simple commitment: your ticket guarantees you will see a full game. If it rained, you could grab a ticket — a rain check — on your way out that would allow you to attend the next game at no extra charge.
The rain check was their way of making things right.
This wasn’t a short-lived fad in baseball history and no league went bankrupt from reissuing tickets on rainy days. Quite the opposite, the practice of issuing rain checks and making things right for customers became widespread in the major leagues. In exchange, customers continued to buy tickets to their games with the peace of mind knowing that they would get to see (eventually) the full game they paid for.
Sometimes being of service is as simple as making sure that things worked out — that a whole game is seen or that a working refrigerator is installed.
Other times, when things break or go wrong, it’s about offering the rain check — acknowledging that the experience didn’t meet expectations, promising to make things right, and delivering on the promise.
When the ability to deliver and make things right isn’t in question, coming back for more becomes the frictionless and obvious choice.
