B.L. Ochman had an experience with UPS – and she has shared it via Twitter and her blog.
When you come right down to it, it’s almost always the hourly employees who have actual contact with actual customers who create your bottom line results. It makes great economic sense to empower them to solve a problem with one phone call.
Yet day after day, poorly paid employees, who are not empowered to make even their own simple decisions, handle the most important thing any company has – customers. It’s really time for that policy to change.
In case some companies haven’t noticed, we are in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Customers count. Treat us like you know that. We’ll all be a lot happier. And more prosperous.
I had a similar experience at my doctor’s office which is located on the campus of a local medical complex. Seems they pay for parking but don’t accept plastic so when I came up with my typical $2 cash in my pocket (I never carry cash), I was told that I had to pay my $3 parking tab with cash.
Over the next 10 minutes I looked under my seat for coins while traffic lined up behind me. All the while, the parking lot attendant read a book and waited for me to come up with the coin. I eventually found the change and when I got home I called my doctor, explained the situation to him. I got nothing in response except a good reason to change doctors.
