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Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t about ROI—it’s about courage, trust, and belief. When a HomeServe engineer, Mike, broke into a client’s home to save her life, he acted on instinct, not policy. His story sparked a powerful change: the company trained 1,500 engineers in CPR, led by a CEO who believed in doing what’s right, even when it didn’t make financial sense. That decision saved more lives—and showed employees that leadership starts with heart.
Trust is just as crucial. A juice bar owner in Sydney gave a stranger a drink, trusting he’d pay later. Four years on, he came back to settle the bill, and now it’s a quirky loyalty tradition. Moments like these prove that genuine connection and fairness stick.
Brands too often hide behind terms, upsells, and rigid systems—but loyalty is built through generosity, not extraction. Empower your people, trust your customers, and lead with heart. In the long run, it’s not just good ethics—it’s good business.
Sometimes you have to do what is right, and for brands, there are times that can clash with revenue, profit and ROI.
A Story of Courage: Mike Harrison & HomeServe
HomeServe Plc is an insurance and home repair company, providing its customers with engineers for household repairs relating to plumbing, heating, and ventilation issues. On one visit, engineer Mike Harrison grew concerned for the customer he was scheduled to visit. Aged over 90 and housebound, it was unusual for her to not answer her door.
He phoned in to their customer contact centre who told him that she had, indeed, reconfirmed the appointment that morning. On then calling her phone, there was also no answer, and he grew worried.
Having knocked loudly on the door to no avail, he walked around her small bungalow, and on looking through her glass back door, saw her lying face down in her kitchen.
He called the emergency services and was told they would be with him as soon as possible. Worried for his customers safety, he ran to his van, grabbed a wrench and smashed the glass in her door to gain access. Finding her unconscious and unresponsive, he immediately began CPR.
Later, he was informed that his intervention while waiting for the ambulance had saved his customer’s life. Once she had been taken to the hospital, Mike stayed at her house, fixed her toilet (the reason he had been called out in the first place) and then spent the evening repairing the window he had broken. He even sent her ‘Get Well Soon’ flowers in the hospital.
Doing What’s Right Without Permission
At no point did he check with his team leader regarding his intended actions to break the door, as he instinctively knew what he was doing was right. Later, in discussing the case with his colleagues back at base, they understandably praised his actions. “It’s only what a good neighbour would have done” he answered. But his colleagues disagreed. They pointed out that in a similar situation, they may have had the desire to help but lacked the same skills. Mike was a trained lifeguard, thus the CPR, and they were not.
Taken aback by this response, Mike took this comment to management. Every month, their service engineers made thousands of calls to homes, essentially a network of often accidental first responders. It might happen rarely, but wouldn’t it make sense to have every engineer trained in first aid and CPR?
Leading From the Heart
The request went all the way to the CEO Greg Read. The business case to train all their engineers was estimated at costing half a million sterling. There would be no financial benefit to HomeServe, no additional product upsell or no increase in pricing. This wasn’t even their business, this was healthcare. In fact, internally some argued there would only be more risk of legal action should an engineer try to help someone in need.
The board didn’t like it, but Greg played his CEO veto card. Some things are done, not for financial gain, but because it is the right thing to do. He led from the front, showing his employees that they too had the power to do the right thing. In moments where there is a conflict between brain and heart, leading from the heart is usually best.
1,500 engineers were given life-saving CPR training. One of them, some months later, was called to urgently help his neighbour. Her husband had started to feel unwell and now lay unresponsive on the floor. As they waited for the ambulance, yet another life was saved because of that CEO’s decision to ‘do what feels right’ and invest in his employees.
That HomeServe engineer, with no other interest or skills in healthcare, because of that same investment his company had made in him, saved his neighbour’s life. He later had an affair with that same neighbour’s wife and now lives in London with their two children. That last sentence isn’t true. I was just checking if you were still paying attention 😉
The point here is to invest in your people. It may not be at the life-saving level, but without an empowered and motivated workforce, you will never be able to deliver the outstanding experiences your customers deserve.
Trust Builds Loyalty
In doing what is right, you also must learn to trust.
In 2018, I was in Sydney performing at an event. My flight home was a day after my performance, and so I decided to take a walk around Bondi beach. There is a pleasant one-hour coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee, and so off I set headphones in, living my best sunshine life.
I am Irish, not used to the sun, and of course had forgotten to bring any water with me. By the time I had arrived at my destination, a small cove with a few stores, I was parched. Not quite on my hands and knees, desert-style, but close. I went straight into Jenny’s, a small owner run juice bar and ordered myself a bespoke juice (none of that kale, thank you).
Jenny herself made it for me but when I tried to pay with a card, pointed to the ‘cash only’ sign (this was pre-Covid so there were still pockets of small businesses that had yet to undertake their digital transformation). I replied that I didn’t have any cash, and so she pointed me in the direction of the local ATM.
Trust is Never Expected – It’s Earned
Sadly, that was out of order, so now I was stumped. She couldn’t take my card, the only nearby ATM couldn’t give me cash, and I had no way to pay for the bespoke juice she’d just made me. Handing over my juice, Jenny said I could simply pay her next time I was passing.
Explaining I was flying home to Ireland the next day, I replied I might not be ‘passing’ for a while. She laughed and said that I could have it on the house, traveller’s code and all that.
Trust is never something you can expect, it has to be earned.
Four years later, I found myself performing back in Sydney and on my first day in town, made it my business to visit her store and pay her for that juice. She didn’t remember me (I was devastated) but amused that I’d come back 4 years later to settle the bill. I ordered another juice while there obviously, which she then gave me on the house for my honesty. Now we’re stuck in a cycle of me paying her every time I visit for the last one.
It has now become a quirky tradition of mine on visiting Sydney, to always visit her café. It is in trust that loyalty is born.
But why do so many brands not get this?
Why do brands hide behind process and terms and conditions? Why are they focused on the finances instead of on doing ‘what is right’?
One of my favourite examples are broadband or cell phone bundle deals. You are shown several options, all with different levels of GB and terabyte data allowances. The 12-month contract you are about to commit to is based on your estimated average usage. In reality, few of us really ever know how much data we use in a month, so we tend to Goldilocks it. We buy the middle option, not too big, not too small.
Now imagine a world where 3-months into your contract, you receive an email from your provider. They say they’ve been monitoring your data usage, and it seems like you are not using as much data as you thought you might. They suggest putting you on the lower, cheaper bundle deal, which would better suit your needs.
Wouldn’t that be a surprise? That’s a call rare to most. They’ll call you to upsell, to force renewal or to profit, but rarely to be fair. But it is in fairness and trust that loyalty is built.
The Bottom Line: Relationships, Not Revenue
In the short-term, the brand may lose some monthly revenue but in the long-term they will have created trust and customer lifetime value.
Doing what is right is how we build relationships and connection, trust and loyalty. Brands need to refocus on how they can support their customers and employees, on what they can give, not what they can get. Focusing on what you can get out of a customer or how you can profit from them somehow is a toxic relationship.
No relationship survives when one person feels they are doing all the giving.
The customer has given us their time and business, they have placed their trust in us, they have invited us into their lives. It is an invitation we need to respect.
Do the right thing.
