When a friend told me about the stellar customer service at the hotel on his recent trip to Abu Dhabi and I thought about my own experience at the W Hotel earlier this week, it got me thinking about why patrons aren’t treated markedly better all the time. Low expectations?

Combine that with a memorable post Stanley Fish did in The New York Times a few months ago and Oprah’s preview of the upcoming CBS show called Undercover Boss, and well, another Game Plan was born: Raising Our Customer Service Expectations.