One of the current whipping posts of consumers, media and government is the airline industry. Over this summer's July 4 weekend, the government released a report that showed consumer complaints against airlines have risen dramatically during the preceding 12 months.

Two friends of mine, a husband and wife, were traveling the same weekend that the scathing report on commercial airlines was released. They were traveling on American Airlines, which had been given a poor grade on consumer satisfaction.

My friends, however, had nothing but praise for American Airlines - the same American Airlines that the federal government said had one of the worst customer satisfaction ratings of all the major airlines. Here's their story:

They were traveling with their 1-year-old daughter. On their flight home, my friends removed their daughter's shoes and placed them in the seat pocket in front of them.

The father told me that he consciously thought when he took off his daughter's shoes that there would be no way he would ever forget to retrieve them. He was wrong. Because he carried his daughter off the plane and placed her in her stroller, he didn't notice that he forgot the shoes.

Driving home, my friends realized they had left the shoes on the plane. They became upset because the shoes were their daughter's very first pair.

Immediately when they got home, they called American and explained that they had left some precious cargo on the plane. The individual at American who answered the phone pulled up their record on the computer and confirmed the flight the family had been on and their seat location. Then, the employee put my friends on hold for several minutes.

The employee came back on the line and told my friends the plane was headed to Phoenix and that he had talked to the gate attendant there. The attendant agreed to board the plane and see if the shoes were still in the seat pocket. "I'll monitor this flight and call you when it lands," the employee told my friends.

As promised, the American employee called my friends back with some good news. "The gate attendant in Phoenix has your daughter's shoes," he said. "Hold on and I'll transfer you to him."

My friends were then talking to the person who had retrieved the shoes. Arrangements were made to overnight the shoes to my friends. Sure enough, they arrived the next day.

Can you believe that a corporation as large as American Airlines would go to the trouble to find those shoes and have them returned the next day?

I don't care what the government report says about customer satisfaction, my friends are two customers who are totally satisfied. It took just two employees from one of the world's largest corporations to completely change their perception of the airline industry.

What can you and your employees do today to improve someone's perception of your business and the automotive service industry?

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