President's Corner

Dear PoliteChild family, supporters, and friends:

Did you know that September is Children’s Good Manners month!? What a great thing to recognize along with the start of most kids’ new school year. It’s always nice to start things off on a positive note.

And, to that end, why don’t we celebrate the positive? As one idea, how about sending an e-card to a child you feel has shown good manners recently or has contributed to the overall theme of good social skills and conduct. Here’s one e-card that’s really cute and you can customize your message:
http://www.egreetings.com/display.pd?path=8486&bfrom=1&prodnum=3010381&

On the not-so-positive, I’ve personally (and our office staff as a group) have really been exposed to a number of rude incidents lately. We moved our offices this month (more on that below) and had the “pleasure” of dealing with several different organizations, including banks, phone companies, alarm companies, etc. And, while I expect a certain amount of apathy on the part of these companies when they deal with their customers, I wasn’t ready for the level of rudeness that these so-called “service organizations” exhibited. In one case, a phone company I dealt with actually auto-answers their call with “…in order to ensure our customers are receiving excellent service, your calls may be recorded…” and the customer service rep answers with something like “I’m here to make sure you get excellent service today.” After which, she proceeded to say, in so many words, that I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, that my requests were unreasonable, and when I tried to recap our conversation to make sure I’d gotten it right, she hung up on me. “Excellence in service?” Hmm.

It seems as though more and more customer “service” organizations have completely lost track of who the customer is. Real “service” is getting harder and harder to find. You wonder why, then, people are unhappy about a company that contacts them through telemarketing during the dinner hour, but treated like an irritant when the “customer” calls back during the day to make a request for service.

I think there are enough people unhappy with rude “customer service” companies that it might be eye-opening to see how many of you have had trouble. If enough people complain, sometimes changes are made. Look at Qwest: their lack of customer support became absolutely legendary to the point that government had to step in. Now they are working very hard at regaining the ground they lost through their treatment of customers.

What so many companies don’t realize is that, in this on-line age, brand loyalty is at an on-time low. Since everyone else has essentially the same product, the decision to buy or not buy, stay or go will be based on the lowest price – that is, unless the company has something else to offer. Like real service.

It used to be that the “customer was always right.” Now it seems that the new motto is “business would be great if it weren’t for the customers.” I think it’d be great to be able to applaud the companies who DO provide good service. How about you let us hear about some that you think have gone out of their way to be courteous and to show that you, the customer, do matter. You can reach me at corinneg@politechild.com. I’d love to hear about your positive experiences.

Corinne Gregory
President and Founder, The PoliteChild, Inc.

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