I’ve been trav­el­ing the past two weeks for work and noticed some small con­ve­niences that air­lines, hotels, and rental car com­pa­nies have pro­vided and a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties they have to go the extra mile for their cus­tomers with­out a lot of effort.

Restau­rants

That’s con­ve­nient. Why doesn’t every ser­vice every­where that wants a tip have this? I’m instantly inclined to tip more because of this sim­ple lit­tle table. I think they could take it fur­ther and have the tip added in so I could just cir­cle what total I want and sign. Peo­ple love when they don’t have to think. Wait­resses, bar­tenders, valets, and other peo­ple expect­ing tips love big­ger tips. It’s win-win.

Rental Cars

Most peo­ple who rent a car are in a dif­fer­ent city and don’t know any of the local radio sta­tions. That’s why Sir­ius XM radio is so great. The sta­tion title gives away the genre, there aren’t any annoy­ing com­mer­cials, and the music selec­tion is bet­ter so you don’t have to hear the same 10 songs while you’re in town.

A fea­ture most cars come with these days that’s often over­looked is an aux­il­iary audio input jack. It allows you to play your MP3 player through the car stereo, but not a lot of peo­ple pack the $4 cable when they travel so they can’t uti­lize the fea­ture. It’s like a hotel room hav­ing an iron­ing board with­out an iron. Would it really be that hard for rental car com­pa­nies to throw one in the glove box? If some­one takes it or loses it, charge them dou­ble so you can buy two to replace it.

While they’re throw­ing stuff in the glove box why not include nap­kins, tis­sues, or a pen and pad? Some basic things every­one keeps in their car just like a hotel gives you sham­poo, tow­els, and a TV.

Hotels

I stayed at the Renais­sance Hol­ly­wood Hotel last week, and they had some­thing I had never seen before. The only way I can describe it is as an A/V box with HDMI, VGA, and RCA con­nec­tors. Then, in the desk drawer there was a VGA cable and an audio cable so you could hook up your lap­top to the 36″ LCD TV. It was pretty well thought out and would allow for vis­i­tors to watch DVDs or stream Hulu or Net­flix in their rooms.

The box was unique because it encour­aged guests to plug in their own stuff. They obvi­ously didn’t want guests get­ting behind the TV and mess­ing with the cable and pay-per-view devices. The box even had a power out­let built into it so I wouldn’t have to get behind the dresser.

Before I move on, why does it cost a min­i­mum of $10 for 24 hours of inter­net access in a hotel? Hon­estly!? It’s 2010.

Air­lines

Like I said, I’ve been trav­el­ing for busi­ness which means tak­ing the same flights every week, which also means see­ing the same in-flight movies. They change out every cou­ple weeks and are dif­fer­ent going east and west, but still not a lot of peo­ple watch them even with free head­phones from the airline.

So I came up with a fun idea to get more peo­ple engaged in the movie select­ing process. Before each flight when you are check­ing in at a kios or online and pick­ing your seat, why not also vote on which movie you’d like to watch? The movie with the most votes gets played. Sim­ple as that.

Of course, I still pre­fer JetBlue’s DirecTV in each seat along with the option to watch a num­ber of movies (for a price). I wouldn’t care what’s on if the air­line has Wi-Fi. That is the ulti­mate in-flight convenience.

Con­clu­sion

I love con­ve­nience because it saves time, energy, and frus­tra­tion. It’s sim­ple. Some­times that comes at a price, but other times it just takes some cre­ative think­ing. It’s true I have come to expect the lit­tle things as a cus­tomer. I want my snack bags to reseal so they’ll be fresh later. I want my cases of beer to have the same fridge packs as my Diet Coke. I want oth­ers to stop over­look­ing all of these every­day con­ve­niences that would be so sim­ple to implement.