A Complimentary Complaint

I recently had a question to ask my bank about my business. I called the toll-free number on the web site and was connected with a gentleman who gave me the answer to my question. While we were on the phone, he also had a look at my business account and offered a couple of suggestions for new services that would help me and the day-to-day running of the business. After his explanation of each of the features, I agreed that they would benefit me. So he set the paperwork in motion.

A few days later I was in the local branch to sign a few papers. It took no more than about ten minutes. Leanne was my local representative. I must say that she didn’t inspire a lot of confidence for a business banking specialist but I gave one to the bank thinking they must know something I didn’t. She got the job for a reason.

A few days after that, while on a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin, my cell phone rang. It was Leanne apologizing but she missed one more place that she needed a single signature. Being out of the country for a few days presented a challenge as the paperwork could not move forward without that single signature. I assured her, reluctantly, that I would come back into the branch for one signature when I returned.

I drove the twenty-five minutes to the branch, made one signature and drove home again.

Three weeks later, I had expected to see some kind of correspondence from my bank but I had received nothing. I called the business banking toll-free number again and was connected with Ian. I told Ian my story just as I have told it to you.

“Who was your rep at the branch?” Ian asked.

“Leanne,” I answered, “but I have to say she didn’t inspire a lot of confidence from me.”

Ian chuckled softly. “I really shouldn’t respond to that,” Ian laughed. “Let me put you on hold and see if I can track down what happened with the paperwork.”

A few minutes later, he returned to the call.

“Well Mr. Burns, Leanne isn’t with the branch anymore,” he chuckled.

“No surprise,” I responded.

“They seem to have misplaced the paperwork too. No one can seem to find your file. But I see here on my computer what was happening. Give me a few days. Perhaps we can just fax it to you for your new signatures.”

A week later, no one had returned my call so I called the business call center again.

“Karen speaking. How can I help you?” announced the voice on the phone.

I told my story again and followed it up with, “Don’t you think that it’s funny that after I have been offered these new services from the bank and I agreed to them that I can’t seem to get them?”

“Mr. Burns,” Karen spoke seriously. “I am on it. The buck stops here. I am taking accountability for this file. It will get it done. Will you trust me with that?”

Karen then proceeded to make arrangements to have the paperwork faxed to me. The difference this time was that no signatures would be required since I did my part already and they lost the paperwork. If there were no questions from the faxed paperwork, it would proceed. We chatted on a personal level for a few moments before we hung up. She had also given me her direct number and email address and told me she would be taking vacation for two weeks.

Two weeks later I spoke with Karen again.

“I just got back this morning from vacation,” she said. “Yours is the first file I checked on. I told you I would get it done and I have. Thank you for your business. If ever you need anything else, you can call me directly. You have my number and email address.”

I wanted to give Karen a compliment on her service and “accountable” attitude. I went to the web site. Here’s where it got funny. There was no place to give a compliment to the bank. Complaints? Oh I could complain all I wanted. There were all sorts of choices to offer a complaint but I couldn’t find a single place to give a compliment. So I called the call center again.

I was given Karen’s supervisor’s name, mailing address and email address. I wrote a letter, mailed it and also sent a note to Karen too, thanking her for the way in which she handled and took charge of my situation.

Attitude Adjustment: Have you made it possible for the people you serve to give you compliments? I realize that it’s en-vogue to complain about the big banks and their profits but how about if someone wants to give a compliment? Is your service worthy of a compliment? If you get outstanding service, is it even in you to give a compliment? Offer people a reason to say something nice and they probably will. Give them only the option of complaining and they will. Take on the attitude of “service” and serve. Customer service isn’t just a department – it’s an attitude.

Wearing Commitment Under Your Sleeve

Her name is Holly and she is what appears to be, a typical seventeen year-old. I first met Holly at a music recital. Children as young as six years-old each took the stage and played at least one solo piece. The audience was a gathering of family and friends of the children who had been taking music lessons. Obviously, this was a friendly crowd for any child who performed.

When Holly took the stage, we could see a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of her T-shirt. She sat herself upon the piano bench and proceeded to “blow the hair back” of every audience member. What this young girl accomplished at the piano was astounding. Needless to say, she didn’t miss a single note and her fingers were flying across the ivories.

After the recital, as we gathered in the church hall for snacks, Holly and her mother sat at out table.

“That was pretty impressive,” I said to her.

“Thank you,” was her shy reply.

It was then I could see the bottom of the tattoo peeking out from under her sleeve. This time I was close enough to read what it said: “Ludwig Von Beethoven.”

“I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone sporting a Beethoven Tattoo,” I smiled at Holly.

With that said, Holly pulled up the sleeve to show the rest of the tattoo. A full picture of Beethoven’s bust with his name inscribed below. The tattoo went up to her shoulder and halfway down her bicep. All tolled, it was about six inches tall and four inches wide. And it was magnificent work – incredibly detailed.

“That’s my commitment,” Holly said with a smile.

Turns out Holly, at seventeen, has been playing for only two and a half years. However, she said she practices about three to four hours a day. Her mother, who also played piano as a child, is very proud of her daughter’s commitment to the piano. Even though, it seems Holly has a hard time finding enough time in the day to practice – as she also helps out the family financially. In addition to contributing to household finances for the family, she is still in school plus she helps her music teacher out with lessons and other ways so that she can exchange for extra lessons for herself.

Holly’s commitment to being the best she can be on the piano is evident. Her heart is in it and her commitment to her music is unwavering in spite of her financial situation. There are no excuses for not being her very best.

Attitude Adjustment: What are you prepared to do to be the best on the job you can be? Are you letting reasons, excuses and justifiers stand in the way of your personal performance? Really, it doesn’t take a lot of time to read a chapter in a book that can improve your performance. If you would one day like to move up into a promotion, are you preparing yourself now by reading everything you can on leadership, management or communications? Why is it that once we have a job, we think we can stop learning? The world is an ever-changing place. Think about the technological advancements that have been made over the past five years. Are you in front of the curve or lagging behind it? If you’re not constantly self-improving, in this day and age, you are falling behind. And trust me when I say this, the people who will be rewarded with perks, bonuses and promotions in the future, are the same people who are self-schooling and self-improving today. So what can you learn today that improves your potential rewards tomorrow? Remember, no excuses.

Older Workers Still Have Value

Perhaps it’s my age but I find the best part of American Idol are the qualifying rounds to see who gets to go to Hollywood. Out of the tens of thousands of hopefuls only a few hundred are chosen as “good enough” to advance to the next round.

It amazes me though, how many of the contestants, even with a lack of talent in the singing department, feel that they deserve a shot just because they’ve worked hard. Now as much as I may work hard at becoming the best basketball player I can be, my height is going to prevent me from getting a shot at the “big-league.” I don’t ceaselessly whine that I deserve a shot at the NBA just because I’ve worked hard. I’ve just come to accept that there are some things that a guy five and half feet tall won’t ever do.

Tone deafness cannot be replaced with hard work. I don’t care how much a person works. Reality says that there are some things some people are not meant to do. I’ve given up hope of sharing a bench with Steve Nash or Kevin Garnett. It just isn’t going to happen. But perhaps we as Baby Boomers have overindulged our little ones into making them believe that they are entitled to anything just because they’ve worked a little for it.

With that being said, there are some older workers in the workforce today who just don’t understand that just because they’ve been with a company for a long time, doesn’t guarantee them a shot at a management position. In fact, in some cases, the amount of time you have been with a company may actually preclude you from getting a shot at running a department. Old ideas aren’t likely to move an organization forward in an economy and marketplace that are making light-speed changes daily. However, there are times when a senior person in the organization should take the reigns and drive the buggy. There are sometimes when a new and younger perspective is exactly what is needed as well.

I recently addressed a group of workers who are in an ever-changing and largely inter-generational environment. There are some people in their mid-twenties who have been with the organization just a few years and now find themselves steering the ship of a department having become managers and supervisors. That has created difficult situations with many Baby Boomers who are just a few years away from retirement. Resentment is an underlying theme for some of the older workers - having to take direction from a kid less than half their age.

For many older workers in today’s economy, many have become complacent just trying to make it to retirement with all of the perks and benefits that come from working a seeming lifetime with the same organization. It’s a shame when many younger workers view this type of employee as “the working dead.”

I admit that as a kid, a strong work-ethic was drilled into me. This didn’t come from my parents, although it could have. This came from my employers – my managers and supervisors. There was a high expectation of quality from my bosses regardless of the fact that I was a teenager. And there wasn’t a lot of hands-on supervision in many of my summer jobs. It was either I come forward and ask for help or figure it out on my own. I spent a lot of time figuring.

In many of my jobs, the work was solitary. I worked alone and for the most part unsupervised. We had no Internet to surf if we had a question. We had no MSN to ask all of our friends at once. There was no union nor was there any positive feedback on a job well done. A job well done was the expectation of employment. Almost everything I ever learned on my summer jobs was learned on the job and mostly by trial and error. Every trial stretched us a little out of our comfort zones. Every error made us wiser. What I learned is that you will never be given more than you can handle and you can handle all that you’re given.

As many managers get set to retire, new people are needed to replace them. The ideal choice would normally be the worker who him or herself has experienced the ups and downs of the organization over a lifetime but still has an open mind and a willingness to stretch themselves to a new position. There are a lot of organizations who don’t necessarily want diplomas to lead their organizational units but instead want life-wisdom. Knowledge you get in school – wisdom you get on the job.

Mentoring through management is a wonderful experience for older workers. Although the official term would be management, the chance to communicate a lifetime of knowledge through mentoring the members of a department should be grasped with both hands by any older worker. The experience would allow older workers to stretch themselves a little and to impart values and work-ethic onto the new generation of workers. And while the older workers are mentoring younger workers, the younger workers will likely be schooling their new managers in the use of technology. It’s a great experiential trade-off.

But not every older worker is cut out for opportunities like this. It requires an admission from older workers that they haven’t learned it all yet but are still willing to read the books, attend the training sessions (which most companies would gladly provide) and do the work necessary to guide others to being the best they can be. It’s hard work. But it’s rewarding work too.

Attitude Adjustment: The young workers of today are willing to stretch themselves. They want instant gratification right now. That’s not such a bad thing. They’re willing to do whatever is necessary to advance themselves as fast as they can. Older workers should taste the determination of these younger workers and stretch themselves too. If, as an older worker, you don’t want to risk stretching yourself right before retirement, perhaps you should ask yourself if you’re doing something meaningful or just taking up space? There’s a big difference between being selfish and selfless. Every older worker has got something of value that others could learn from. The question is: Are you, as an older worker willing to share it or are you just hoping to get out alive?

Fix The Problem Today

As a professional traveler, I visit a lot of airports, ride a lot of airplanes and stay in a lot of hotels. That requires me to spend a fair bit of time being served in restaurants. I have become fairly proficient at eating out. But the problem is that I experience more head-shaking, eyes-rolling-back, you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me moments while being served in some of these same restaurants.

I want to share with you an example of how glaringly obvious the “service attitude” is not being instilled in the so-called service industry.

A new national chain restaurant had recently opened in the town where I live. I had eaten at many other locations across the country prior to their opening of a location in my town. I was satisfied with their fare in past, although if it were an important meal, this would not be the place. (If you’re wondering about which restaurant, think Bruins and Celtics.)

Forty-five minutes had elapsed from the time we placed our order to the time the food arrived. That was unusual for this chain. They've usually been pretty quick in other locations. When my pasta meal arrived, the pasta had been overcooked and was one big, mushy ball of pasta on top of which was placed the sauce. To the touch, the bottom of the plate was lukewarm at best. The first forkful and, yep, you guessed it, it was cold.

“How is everything?” asked the server.

“Um, cold actually,” was my simple reply.

“I can have the kitchen prepare another plate for you if you would like,” she seemed far too rehearsed. It was like it was not the first time she had said it that day.

I thought about waiting another forty-five minutes for another plate for a twelve-dollar meal and decided to just deal with what was in front of me. I took a few more bites and decided I wasn’t hungry anymore.

The manager came to the table with a slip of paper in her hand. She placed it on the table and simply said, “Sorry that your meal wasn’t to your liking. Here’s a ten-dollar coupon you can use on your next visit.” She then walked away.

On my next visit? Seriously?

When I got to the front counter to pay for my meal, I used the coupon immediately. There hasn’t been a next visit.

Attitude Adjustment: At your place of work, do you fix today’s customer problem today or do you fix it the next time they place an order? C’mon, is it really that hard to fix stuff when it happens? It is not your right to have a customer do business with you. It is your privilege. The ‘service attitude’ says you are in service in some way, shape or form to others no matter what job you hold. You provide a service or product and people choose to pay for that product or service. It’s simple really. And it doesn’t matter if your customers are internal or external. A customer is a customer and they deserve your best even when they’re not being their best. Your job, regardless of the title on the door (or cubicle if that’s the case) is service. If you’re the CEO you serve the shareholders and your employees. If you’re the sales or customer rep you serve the external customer. If you’re the janitor you serve the employees who deserve a clean place to work. If you’re the delivery driver you serve the client and the other drivers on the road. If you’re Human Resources, you serve every department within the organization. Everyone is a customer. Serve them well. It will serve you well. Oh, and fix the problem right now. That’s service.

Thirty Years After

This past weekend was my thirtieth high school reunion. Now the truth is, we had not had a reunion in previous years so this was the first. Thirty years is a long time to wait.

Walking into the hotel ballroom on Saturday night was a strange feeling. The first person I saw was my chemistry teacher who, I'm led to believe, has concocted an eternal youth potion. I didn't see one extra wrinkle on his face since high school. He looked exactly the same yet he's been retired six years already.

The men got a little gray, OK some went right past gray to chrome (you get my drift here don't you?). Some had actually become quite distinguished. Some had lost weight, some had gained and these were just the men. As for the girls I went to school with, some got a little gray, some got a little heavier, some lost a little weight and some, two in particular, had aged about a week in thirty years.

My favorite teacher, Mr. Keon, has since retired but is still an influence at the school. It was good to spend a little extra time with him. He was my history teacher, my Driver's Ed instructor and coach of the curling team of which I was a member for three years. It was good to catch up with him but was a little weird calling him by his first name.

Four students are no longer with us, from a graduating class of about thirty. It was a small high school. Four out of thirty is a shame after only thirty years (just over ten percent). Think about how fortunate you are to be reading this today.

From the first night of the weekend we didn't spend a lot of time asking each other what we did for a living. It really didn't matter. We were just picking up where we left off thirty years ago. With such a small school we were all pretty close and everyone sort of hung out with everyone.

"Sister Clare would have been proud," Elizabeth (former classmate and now teacher) said to me upon hearing that I was about to release my seventh book. Actually five students are now teachers - five out of thirty.

Sister Clare was my English teacher. I, in retrospect, was a pain in her behind for the years she had the misfortune of having Burns in her class. But, she managed to get the grammar, spelling and sentence structure basics into me. I guess I was capable of learning something even while being a pain in the butt.

You know, as I look back, I guess I really owe Sister Clare a debt of gratitude and a rather large apology. I'm sorry Sister. And thank you.

Attitude Adjustment: Who has made an impact on your life? Have you ever expressed your gratitude to that person? How much of a difference do you think saying "thanks" would make to one of your old teachers? How would you feel if someone thirty years later gave thanks to you for something you did in their lives? It only takes a moment and very little effort to show your appreciation to someone for something they did. By the way, be grateful for all of the events of your life - good and bad. There's wisdom in all of it. Pay attention and pay respect to your teachers and mentors. That's your "gr-Attitude Adjustment."

Timeout For This Important Message

My friend Ed has just returned from a couple of weeks of holidaying in Egypt. He said it was a great vacation with a full schedule of things to see and do, although as he puts it, “My wife sets up the tour and the things we’re going to see and I just go along.” He says it was a very memorable holiday.

“This is where that James Bond movie was filmed,” Ed exclaimed at the start of a tour of one of the pyramids. The tour guide gave him a rather dismissing look – a way of suggesting that what they were about to see was considered history and culture more than a movie location.

This time though, upon returning from vacation, Ed came back with some stomach troubles. The last vacation he came back with little spider bites.

“It’s always something,” Ed shakes his head with disbelief.

It got me to thinking that summer vacations are approaching quickly so how do you maximize your vacation in order to have a balance of fun and rest? My friend, business associate and mentor, Marty Park, has also just returned from a vacation to Costa Rica. He wrote an article about that very thing on his Blog

In his Blog post, he challenges you to think about what a vacation is really for and how to get the most from it. “In order to maximize your vacation, keep it simple,” Marty suggests. Go ahead and read his Blog post.

Marty is one of those guys that anyone in business could admire: he runs five companies, looks after his home, car as well as rental properties, has a lot of friends, does yoga, plays hockey, has a good sized extended family, piano lessons, etc. He was also recognized as one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 for business success. He conducts training programs and keynote presentations in sales and business growth and is currently working on completing his first book.

“Sometimes it's a race to see if I can fill all the hours in a week,” he says.

Marty knows what it takes to grow a business as evidenced by the fact that he is successfully growing all of his businesses. He writes his Blog entries on business growth as well as a second Blog on how to get more from each day.

Although my area of expertise is attitude in employee engagement, service leadership and corporate safety, Marty’s expertise is business – specifically growth. When Marty speaks, you should listen. He speaks from a depth of knowledge and experience. Many times he and I have had conversations and those conversations have caused me to re-think some of my business strategies – every single one of them successfully I might add.

So when someone as busy as Marty says you need to take a vacation, you should be paying attention. Read his Blog posts. You’ll find good information for not just your own vacation but your business as well.

Attitude Adjustment: Stop listening to the people who say you can’t do it and start paying a lot of attention to the people who are doing it. Make sure you’re reading the books from people who are at the top of their game and not those who hypothesize what it takes to get there. Who is in your circle of influence? As speaker/philosopher Charlie “Tremendous” Jones once said, "You are the same today that you are going to be in five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read."

Taking Care Of The People Who Matter Most

I was recently approached and asked to participate in an on-line book tour for Sybil Stershic’s new book, “Taking Care Of The People Who Matter Most – A Guide To Employee-Customer Care.” The title of the book sounded intriguing enough so I decided to participate.

In reading Stershic’s book, I was impressed at how well she made her case that the more invested employees are at work, the better service they will offer. Her book addresses the concept of “internal” marketing. External marketing is used to bring customers to a business but Internal marketing helps employees better understand the company’s strengths, vision and competitive advantage. In addition, internal marketing helps a company have their employees buy into company’s vision and helps put everyone involved with service delivery on the same page.

“Internal marketing involves the application of marketing inside an organization to instill customer-focused values for organizational success,” writes Stershic. “Most products and services can easily become commoditized, but competitors cannot duplicate the relationship an organization’s employees have with its customers.”

“Managers would do well to remember that unhappy customers are not the only ones who can choose to leave an organization,” she continues. “Just like the cost of customer-churn, the cost of employee turnover can be damaging especially when you examine both direct and hidden costs.”

What I found in this book, in addition to many tidbits of useful information as it concerns the running of a successful employee-engagement program in any business, is that your employees are not only your best customer service representatives, but also your best recruiters of new talent within an organization.

“Here’s a simple way to assess your firm’s internal service culture,” suggests Stershic, “ask this question: Would you refer a friend to work here? … Unfortunately, many organizations do not proactively engage in tracking employee satisfaction unless there are human resources or morale issues. The reality in many companies is that they know more about their customers than about their employees.”

In essence, in addition to reducing attrition rates of both customers and employees, a successful internal marketing program can attract new customers and new employees. The foundation of an effective internal marketing strategy is based on gaining employee commitment – which in turn helps to solidify customer commitment.

In my keynote presentations, I espouse the philosophy that business gets better when the people who are employed in the business get better. This book provides a foundation to achieve several ways to do that. Stershic presents several business cases which illustrate her points as well as a step-by-step guide to creating an internal marketing strategy for any business.

This book is an easy read of 128 pages (not including bibliography and references). Mixed into the research and evidence to support her claims, Stershic has interspersed practical tools that can be used to develop the basis for an internal marketing strategy to develop internal buy-in as well as a commitment to customer-focused and customer-satisfaction driven service.

It’s well worth the read. Even if you choose not to do the exercises, there is still plenty of kindling to light a fire in the brains of human resources and upper management about the importance of some sort of internal marketing strategy.

Bottom-line: improve the culture and the people who deliver service and service will improve as a result. That goes right to the bottom-line of any organization.

Want to own this copy for yourself? Click this link and enter this coupon number "107VBT" to save 20% off the book price. You may also want to check out Sybil Stershic’s Blog page here.

Schedule of Sybil Stershic’s Virtual Book Tour:

• On June 2nd, Kevin Burns of Burns Blogs Attitude will be posting a review.
• On June 3rd, Lisa Rosendahl will be posting a review on her blog HR Thoughts.
• On June 4th, Chris Bailey will be posting a review on his blog Bailey Work/Play: The Alchemy of Soulful Work
• On June 5th, Toby Bloomberg of the Diva Marketing blog will be posting an interview with Sybil.
• On June 7th, Becky Carroll, the blogger behind Customers Rock! will be posting a review and the results of an interview with Sybil.
• On June 9th, Paul Hebert will be posting a review on the blog Incentive Intelligence.
• On June 10, 2008, Phil Gerbyshak will be posting an interview on the blog Slacker Manager.