Published: September 09, 2007 12:58 am            

Customer Service, Part 2

Four weeks ago, I dedicated this column to customer service. I also said I would take my own advice and work on customer service right here at the Meridian Star. Today, I want to follow up on what we have done so far to improve our customer service at your newspaper.

As it turned out, I had a leadership session already scheduled with my department heads the week after the customer service column ran. This gave us the perfect opportunity to address some customer service ideas and talk about future training to continue our pledge of better customer service.

Near the conclusion of the session, I asked the department heads if they would be happy if every employee gave an effort of 99.9 percent every day they came to work. Even though they knew there was probably going to be a catch, they were in consensus that 99.9 percent would be an excellent goal to achieve. After all, what manager wouldn’t take a productivity rate of 99.9 percent … right?

I found this exercise in The Big Book of Presentation Games by Edward Scannell and John Newstrom. If 99.9 percent is good enough, then….



12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped each year.

18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled every hour.

2,000,000 documents will be lost by the IRS this year.

2.5 million books will be shipped with the wrong covers.

2 planes will miss their landing at Chicago’s O’Hare airport every day.

315 entries in Webster’s Dictionary will be misspelled.

20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written this year.

880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strip.

103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly during the year.

5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced will be flat.

291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly.

3,056 copies of tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal will be missing one of the three sections.

Suddenly, 99.9 percent doesn’t look that attractive anymore, does it. Customers want 100 percent accuracy, and who can blame them. When I fly, I want the pilot to land the plane with 100 percent accuracy, and I’ll bet that the person who has to wear the pacemaker wants perfection as well.

Of course, the purpose of this exercise is to show that outstanding customer service takes 100 percent effort, 100 percent of the time. It also takes 100 percent dedication of 100 percent of the entire company. That is, we as managers have to provide our co-workers with the right tools, the right training, and the right supervision to help achieve outstanding customer service.

Of that, I am at least 99.9 percent certain.



Crystal Dupré is publisher of The Meridian Star. E-mail her at

cdupre@themeridianstar.com.

        

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