When molehills are worse than mountains s+b Blogs Small, persistent customer service failures may pose a bigger threat to customer retention than large, isolated incidents. Illustration by Omar Osman Service industry missteps are inevitable, but not all are created equal. For example, if an airline loses a passenger’s luggage or denies a passenger a seat on an overbooked flight, it’s a serious enough problem that the passenger will probably complain, allowing management to apologize or issue a refund. But for smaller errors — if, say, a seat doesn’t recline fully, or an outlet doesn’t work — passengers might not think it’s worth summoning a flight attendant. As a result, management never gets the chance to register the problem and enhance the airline’s reputation through exemplary customer service.