How To Annoy Everybody

I’ve long since argued that a well managed company benefits everyone and a poorly run business frustrates and annoys everyone.

This week I have experienced it first-hand again. I needed to contact a national domestic emergency repair company to get my heating fixed. 10 phone calls and 11 emails went unanswered on day one. After copying in complaints and anyone I could think of I finally got a call back on day two.

Then out of the blue I got a call from the engineer who was sitting on my drive asking where I was. No one had told me to expect anyone. When I got home the engineer was furious. He had driven for 2 hours to get to my house and his supervisor had not had the nouse to check the customer would be there. I had to rearrange some clients to allow me to go home and let the engineer in.

Who was annoyed? The customer (me), the engineer- apparently the same thing had happened to him the day before-, the supervisor, who had already had customer service in his ear and who was about to get it from the engineer, any of our contacts who had to hear us complaining about the situation and, of course, my clients who had to be reappointed.

What might be the consequences? Well I might never deal with them again. I suspect the engineer might find an organisation that doesn’t cause him so much professional embarrassment in future, similarly the supervisor and the customer service team – it can’t be any fun facing a barrage of complaints every day.

The interesting question is who should be feeling the pain most? In my opinion, that should be the manager(s). it is the manager who has either set up or developed the system that clearly fails to do its job of providing value to the customer and a safe and supportive and fulfilling environment for the engineer, supervisor and service team.

I wonder if he even knows.

So the questions for this week are;

• Could this be your organisation?
• How closely do you measure what your clients think of your service?
• How closely do you measure what your team members think of your service?
• What is the level of pride or frustration your colleagues have working in the system you preside over?
• How do you know?

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