Going the extra mile starts before you even have a customer.

The phrase “going the extra mile” is most often associated with exceptional service after the sale, or doing something special when performing a service.

We believe there’s another way to look at “going the extra mile” which starts in the development process. We think of it as pre-solving problems. Of course it’s important to solve customer issues quickly and efficiently after the sale, but could extra effort have prevented the issue altogether? 

By way of example, we tested hundreds of hook & loop combinations on the attachment system for our aviation blankets. We looked at different materials, different sizes, different strengths. We tested for the number of uses before failure. We even determined whether the hook strip should be on the airframe or the blanket (yes, it makes a difference). 

We tested hundreds of hook & loop combinations on the attachment system for our aviation blankets.

We didn’t stop testing until we knew we had an attachment system that would truly work. It was time-consuming and required both patience and persistence. However, we knew that going the extra mile in the development stage would allow us to anticipate problems and pre-solve them.

Going the extra mile in the early stages may be less visible than something like exceptional service after the sale, but it may also be even more important.