Improve My Business

background:  It’s 1979.  I’m sharing an office, and a phone, with a co-worker.  A vendor calls up for my office mate, Gary, who’s not in.  I say that he’s not there, and ask if I can take a message.  The caller asks where he is, and when he’ll be back.  I say I don’t know (to both), but again offer to take a message.  The caller says that I “should know where my boss is” and then leaves a message for Gary to call him back.  As a woman, I’m sorta used to being considered the admin help rather than the engineering staff, so it’s no biggie for me.  Gary, however, is incensed that “this jerk” assumed I was his admin (back then we called them ’secretaries’) and calls up the vendor, telling him [in no uncertain terms] that I am an engineer - just like him - and I deserve his respect - just like him.  He then goes on to say that I got better grades than he did in college, and that I was probably a better engineer.  He then “offers” to let the vendor speak to me to apologize - which of course the vendor does - profusely.  I’m more amused than anything else by the whole exchange.  As a woman, in the ’70’s workforce, it was not uncommon for folks to assume that I was in an engineering meeting to take notes, make coffee, etc. rather than to actively participate.  I knew it would get easier, as more women entered the professional/scientific/engineering ranks - and it has.  I’m rarely mistaken now.

Fast forward 30+ years later, to 2011:  I get a phone call on my business phone.  Because we have the phone roll over to the home phone after 5 pm, and this call is at 5:11 pm, my daughter answers the phone a split second before I do on a different extension.  The caller asks for “Mr. McDonald”.  [My husband, though part owner in my business, is not an active participant.]  While my daughter is getting my husband on the phone, I (on another extension) ask what this is about.  Just then, my husband answers the phone.  I again say, ‘This is a business phone and Mr. McDonald is not a part of this firm; may I ask what this is about?”  and the caller has the poor instincts, and the gall, to say, “I’m calling for Mr. McDonald - and you’re interrupting!”  [You could almost hear him muttering something derogatory about the "Little Missy" interrupting him...]

…

at which point my husband states that “MRS. McDonald owns this company, you are calling on HER business line, and I suggest that you tell HER what this call is in reference to.”   The caller half-heartedly apologizes and quickly hangs up.  Now, we’ve got caller ID and are smart enough to use reverse lookup, so we know EXACTLY which company is hiring Neanderthals.  We’re not stupid.

My message to the caller?  Get into the 21st century, bucko.  Women own companies.  Women make decisions.  We are NOT interrupting when we are inquiring about inbound sales calls - we are making decisions (including a decision to block any calls from your company).  And the fact that you’re trying to sell us something?  As Julia Roberts, in Pretty Woman, says to a sales clerk who originally refused to wait on her - “You work on commission, right?  Big mistake.  Big.  HUGE.”

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Business, Business Relationships, communication, customer satisfaction, customer service, julia roberts, pretty woman

It’s been a while since I’ve posted… because work has gotten in the way.  In a big way.  Let me explain a bit…

A nice Request for Proposal came out that I thought would be a good fit for McDonald Consulting Group. It had a pretty short turnaround time; made even shorter by a potential partner who bailed out 1/2 way through the process. After scrambling to find a new partner, we put in long hours getting everything ready for the submission. [If you've ever prepared a government RFP, it will not surprise you to learn that we had to build 3 ring binders, with seven tabbed sections, and submit an original and six copies, each clearly labeled... so once we were finished writing, we still had hours and hours AND HOURS of administrivia to deal with...]

OK, got that submitted, and thought I could get back to my other work - but No! A long-time client got in touch with us to let us know that, instead of calling us ahead of time to help with a submission to their customer on a standard they had no prior experience in, they “thought they could do it on their own” and didn’t pass muster with the customer, who was asking for an action plan to address the shortcomings.  So now, instead of getting back to what I’d put on hold to get the RFP out the door (including writing some blogs to get ahead of the curve), I’m helping them dig out of the deep trench they’ve gotten themselves into - which requires my rearranging calendars and priorities (because of COURSE it’s a rush job) to meet their customer deadlines; undoing the damage that the initial submission did, and working with Asia (where the customer visit took place) to understand what that factory has, and what we have to create, to support them to address the requirements (what we should have done initially).

It’s a grueling job (7 pm phone calls to China sound familiar to anyone else?) and very time-consuming due to the dual language issue. [I have all the respect in the world for them working with me in English; my Chinese is very rudimentary/touristy and I couldn't work with them in their language...]

Which brings me to the point - when am I supposed to blog in all of this? I’m already juggling and dancing just to find time for my family and myself; when am I supposed to carve out time away from them to blog?

My answer: I’m not. I’m supposed to be doing exactly what I’m doing. And blogging will just have to wait.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogging, customer satisfaction, emergency, rush

When I ask someone what they understand what the term ‘improvement’ means, I often get back the response “make it better and faster”.  However, improvement needs to be defined up front, before the project starts in order to ensure that customer needs are met.  As an example, a call center may want to improve their customer satisfaction rating — and this may mean that we need to slow down the customer interface process in order to improve customer perception of satisfaction.  A customer will tell you that it’s annoying at best, and irritating or aggravating at worst, to be rushed off a call without having your questions answered in a way that you understand; by instructing customer service representatives to slow down, actively listen to the customer and respond accordingly, and query for any other concerns prior to terminating the call, customer satisfaction can often be improved.  This does not mean “better and faster” in this case; it only means “better”.

Technorati Tags: customer satisfaction, customer service, improvement