Inside a Telephone Answering Service

Systems, Again

The cool months are coming to Bend, Oregon and  this morning is a harbinger: It's chilly and damp out there after a week full of what we skiers call "blue bird days."  This morning's task has been to work the website, making it more congruent with our...

...newfound, self-anointed title of "The highest quality answering service in the United States." Maybe that statement's a bit bold but tooting the horn is my job and I am not shy.

My latest web entry had to do with why our quality of service is  high and, here, I must go back to the foundation: No great ideas, profound principles or collection of great people can perform to the max without an organizational structure that is meticulously documented, carefully executed, constantly tweaked for efficiency and ruthlessly focused in one direction. It's the overall organization structural system that makes it all work. The other, above-mentioned elements are vital parts of the formula but the system itself is what makes the elements relate to each other, build, and get somewhere. Without an organizatioanl "system of systems," one gets chaos and wishful thinking

Derek Jeter of the NY Yankees, a very cool guy, was on 60 minutes last Sunday. He spoke of the contract his father asked him to sign, year after year. It was handwritten by his dad and had 18 points. One of the 18 that I noticed was "treat women with respect'" another was, "do your homework." A contract between two people is a system all to itself: guidelines for performing and getting somewhere.

The contract was shown briefly on the screen, and I didn't see this point, but am guessing it was there in some form: "Don't ever give up. Move relentlessly in a straight direction and don't be scattered." It seems to me that this is the "principle of principles," incorporating a plan and then going after it with ruthless tenacity.

Here's the mother of all business books for this stuff: The Emyth Revisited by Michael Gerber. If that's book's the mother, here's the son: From Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Idiotic Business Slogans from the World Of Ice Cream

It was a good weekend here. Actually, great…cool and sunshiny with not all that much traffic. We’re between the summer tourists and the winter skiers…the best time to live in Bend, Oregon…

It's another day to be annoyingly self-righteous -- the last day I will do so this week, I promise.

I will blather quickly about this: Here's a slogan from a local ice cream shop that we patronized yesterday: “Only Too Much is Enough!"  And, that reminds me of another annoying catch-phrase, this one from Ben and Jerry’s: “If It’s Not Fun, Why Do it?”

What’s with these sugar-vendors? Just stupid, I'm thinking, or...maybe brilliantly in-touch with our culture and masters of marketing? Each phrase epitomizes the worst of our culture…the desire for more, more, MORE! And…"I am entitled to have fun ALL the time. Why? Because I’m groovy and special (and you’re not!). And, if I’m not having fun all the time, it’s your fault and YOU SUCK!”

I am a recovering 60’s generation guy and am not amused with the entitlement legacy of my generation. It's a thick scab that obscures all the things we did right. Thank God the fan-base for the above mentioned garbage is shrinking. Why? Because my peers are either finally growing up or, sorry about this: dying off.  Try instead Ockham’s law for simplicity, and/or the no nonsense, meat-and-potatoes of the Great Generation: discipline, contribution and gratitude.

Time to Look Into the Eye of the Tiger?

It's early Saturday morning at Dilusso again. Yerba Mate and my laptop, and a few other early morning souls...

As I watched the reporting on hurricane Rita over the last couple of days, it was clear that those who had responsibility for protecting people and property were ON IT. Why? Katrina. Katrina was the latest...

....large scale management wake-up call. So, yes, Katrina was the cleansing agent, lining up people and removing them, putting new people into power, taking others out of power, but for everyone, waking them up. From George W. on down, there were thumped heads and apologies, promises, tangible action and real-time changes. I love that about adversity, how it can clean things up and take the folds out of the fabric making things better in the here and now and down the line.  Adversity is a cleansing agent.

I was having a conversation with a friend last week regarding his struggling business and the new problem he was having as a quarter of his workforce resigned within a two week period. He was clearly shaken and tired, worn thin. His position, completely understandable, was that he didn't need this additional nightmare on top of everything else.  As he hunkered over his computer spreadsheet, he told me he was going to try to "manage himself" out of  this very serious problem. Instead, I suggested, he should take this gun-at-the-head moment and milk it; to look at his business in a more profound way; to not just continue managing as before but to analyze the very basis for his operation and take the time to  consider really dramatic, fundamental change. It was maybe time to look into the eye of the tiger...

I told him of my numerous experiences with Centratel over the past twenty years. My gun-to-the-head moments usually involved seeing a payroll on the horizon that was not going to be made: No paychecks on payday meant no employees meant THE END OF EVERYTHING. Back then, I thought that since it's like this, what's to lose? In those cases, I made dramatic what the Hell changes...large rate increases for customers, layoffs of staff members that no one could understand, and/or major reorganization moves that I would never have considered unless the ship was going to go down anyway.

Funny thing, without exception those dramatic moves were among the best moves I ever made and should have been made anyway, without being hung over the brink. Thank you God for hanging me over the brink. Earl Nightengale once said that one should "look at your life and consider the profound, at-the-time negative changes that have happened. Isn't it true that these changes turned out to be positive in the long term?" Look back on your own life and my bet is that you will see the uncanny truth of  it.

What a satisfying thing, to be able to make a bold move and see it work: to save jobs, to continue to serve your customers, and to preserve everything that's been accomplished...to boost one's own self esteem. And, if you do fail after a gutsy move, at least you'll go down in a glorious ball of flame and not with a whimpering...

So,  the lesson here is to always consider dramatic and courageous change, and without a death threat as a catalyst. And, if there is a death threat, to see the death threat as a wake-up call; an opertunity. Learning the hard way is still learning, as long as one takes action.

For me ,maybe the greatest gun-at-the-head change was to adopt some principles and tools for my business. Foundational principles and tools that I would never question but that I would constantly tweak and improve. In this PC world it's become accepted that everything should be questioned. Is this or that fair? Is this change going to offend someone? Is this idea jsut wrong and stupid? Those considerations make one's life neutered and soft: The realm of the non-action hero. So often courage is just taking a firm eye-of-the-tiger position, day after day.

More Kick Me's

I mentioned a couple of kick-me telephone protocols the other day and at the risk of turning into one of those whiney journalists one experiences in the "alternative" newspapers,  here's another couple of items to avoid. Before I start, note that my definition of a telephone protocol kick-me is an action that unknowingly draws negative attention to oneself. Remember the kick-me signs that adorned the back of unsuspecting high school classmates? Remember that these poor souls were seen as a bit out of touch, self conscious and not at all cool. Easy targets.

So, the first kick-me is easy and too damn prevalent:  Don't return your telephone calls when you say you will return them. If you tell me you will call me back, CALL ME BACK or I will lose respect for you and label you as one who takes the easy way out instead of keeping your word. Fail to call me back when you say you will and then, when you need something from me, you will have a higher hill to climb to get it.   

Here's the other kick-me for today:  Your voice mail greeting should overflow with sentiment about how much you care about my call.  Do you really think your callers want to here this drivel? What they really want, 100% of the time, is to leave you a quick message and get on with their day. Your caller has better things to do than to listen to how caring you think you are.  Even worse, do you truly think each and every one of us cares about your opinion of your self? Just state your name and that you will call back soon. KEEP IT BRIEF. In a voice mail greeting, a sign of caring is that your greeting is short.

One process that has worked for Centratel is to create a list of dos and don'ts that all staff members will follow. Try this link for our 30 Principles and this one for communications guidelines.

The Product and Subsequent Customer Service: Finding Congruency

In my life, I have simultaneous affections with numerous objects and systems: Tivo, iPod/iTunes, this Blog provider (TypePad),  Moveable Type, my Specialized mountain bike, the hardware that I use to climb in the local Cascade range and elsewhere. Add to this my Subaru sedan and this laptop...and this coffee shop I am sitting in in downtown Bend (Dilusso, on Bond and Franklin)..

As I use these items, both hardware and software, I ruminate on the contrasts among the various organizations that sell and then support them. I think especially about my own business, Centratel, and how we match up.

Here's something interesting:  Over the last twenty four hours I had trouble with some of the mechanical functions of this Blog. I sent a trouble-ticket email to WordPad customer support and got a response within four hours. Subsequent advice from Colleen at TypePad tech support, out there somewhere in the neitherworld, was not just timely but was focused and cogent (it turns out the problem is with my computer, not the Blog software. But that's not the point here).

Concurrently, I had trouble with my iTunes which spontaneously lost the 32 songs that I downloaded last night. So, I sent a trouble-ticket email to the iTunes folks, too.  I noted on their customer support page that I should expect a response "within 72 hours."

Here's what I don't get: Whenever the assistance from a service provider is actually given, it will take a certain amount of that service provider's staff time to attend to the problem. Whether they get to it now, or in three days, it will take the same amount of staff time.

Why would iTunes, essentially the same people who created the brilliantly conceived and executed iPod, do that to me? Why would they do that to themselves?  I sense vestiges of the buyer-beware philosophy of 40 years ago that suggested that once you bought something, there were no guarantees about what followed when it came to support or replacement...

Really. It was like that back then.

In business as it is in life in general, congruency is critical. If I was the creater of  the iPod I would FIND a way to give awesome support for the product: timely support quality that was congruent with the quality of the product itself.

For any organization leader, it's a matter of deciding what is congruent with fundamental philosophy and then just figuring out how to do it no matter the obstacles. It's a matter of deciding, on paper, for once and for all, what is important and how things will operate.

Notwithstanding whatever bureaucratic excuses are causing the delays, I am assuming iPod leadership must have the goal of providing awesome after-the-purchase care to the customer.  So, it seems to me that per the corporate pecking order, response time should be dictated by what company ownership wants it to be, not by excuses from some customer service vice president who has all kinds of technical reasons for a three day response time. I am sure there are reasons for iTunes' 72 hour delay. But, that delay is completely incongruent with the quality of the iPod product itself and this is the result: the negativity that the long delay engenders in product users like me far outweighs whatever benefits the delay provides iTunes' customer service staff. Fix it and damn the excuses! If  I were in charge down there, I would bring this 72 hour response time down to a few hours at the most.

And, good job, TypePad

For This Problem, I Say Thank You

So. Here’s my theory:  In any business, a critical key to creating clock-like mechanical functioning of a multitude of interacting systems -- and subsequent clean and smooth personal interaction among staff  -- lies in how we make the best of the day-to-day problems and inefficiencies that crop up.

Yes,  of course we immediately fix errors and inefficiencies as they arise, but we also go a couple of steps further as we use these glitches as starting points to examine our system  protocols.  This is about viewing day-to-day setbacks in a different light. It’s really very simple. First, ask the question "what created this problem?"; second, ask "what system or procedure can we create (or improve) to prevent this problem from happening again?"; third, we implement the new (or newly revised) system or procedure NOW.

Yes, systems and procedures are always documented via written soft and/or hard-copy. 

Note this: Before we even start down the above path, we ask "is this a recurring glitch?" Creating a system or protocol for an occasional problem is a problem in itself as one’s business can become bogged down in its own burdensome structure. If a glitch is a one-time thing, we simply correct that particular imperfection and take no further action. And, truth is, I take great personal delight in eliminating a system or procedure that has outlived its purpose: Control the bureaucracy by keeping it simple and streamlined!

Now, after 8 years of seeing things this way and witnessing the results, it has become second nature at Centratel to not just kill a fire, but to use the fire as a starting point to create or improve a protocol. Problems are gifts: It is a wasted opportunity if we just solve the problem and end things there.

In a system of systems, there must be concise and simple master systems that direct the entire enterprise. I've mentioned this before: To maintain Centratel's focus, there are two documents. First, our Strategic Objective which is the basis for all decision making (it’s proprietary: our goals and how we will reach them, listed on a single page); second, our Principles For Operation (non-proprietary: the fundamental guidelines for how we operate. It’s documented on our Resources page on our website, www.centratel.com). 

Finally, remember to keep things simple because, as Ockham said, “the simplest solution is invariably the correct solution” 

-sc

White Socks with Your Best Suit

Forgive me for being fiesty this morning. It's the mood I'm in and I'm going with it. Maybe it's the full moon, but I doubt it.

Last night I read something from a men's magazine about the importance of wardrobe and style in order to be more successful in finding the perfect woman. The author suggested hiring a "style consultant" who would certainly throw out 90% of one's wardrobe before suggesting something more Madison Avenue...for the record, a tough sell here in Bend Oregon. Anyway, I get it: Avoid white socks when going out on the town, etc.

At any rate here is a kick-me! telephone communications faux pas equal to the above mentioned white socks with a suit: When leaving a voice mail message for someone, state what day and what time it is (to the minute, for good measure). While you do this, understand that every voice mail system on the planet automatically gives the voice mail user time/date info for every message deposited in his or her voicemailbox. So, if you want to make SURE the recipient gets the time and day right, go ahead and leave that information. And, to be congruent in pointing out your thoroughness, groovyness and total-caring personna, you should also paste a "dummy" sticker on your forehead as you leave your house for work in the morning.

No kidding. I don't understand why people persist in doing this. One other thing, for crying out loud. If you are calling me, always leave your phone number so I can return the call right then and without having to look it up. My bet is that you are a nice person but do you really think I carry your number in my head?

Try this link to the Resources page on our website for other unravelings.

The Great Mistake

Time to get back to my Blog after months of legalities...

...that sucked me pretty much dry. We came out successfully – reacquiring 40% of Centratel stock from former minor partners.  So back to "normal." For me,  good indications of normal are when I have the time and energy for this Blog and when I have the desire to get out into the mountains.

Somewhere I recently read one writer’s “theory of everything for human relations.” The writer said simply this: The largest mistake we humans make is that we try to get other people to do something when they don’t want to do it.  So simple it seems dumb. But, think about it…how we can do this too often and as a result are habitually disappointed as we don’t get what we want and we create friction with the people around us.

Of course the key element in avoiding the above conundrum is negotiation. For instance, we pay our employees enough so that they want to do the work;  for our clients, we offer great service at a good price so they want to stay with us;  for our friends and S.O.'s... we give them what they need and want and, in return (theoretically!). they give us what we need and want.  Pretty neat. We get what we want;  they get what they want...

That’s it.  As a true believer in Ockham’s law, which states that the simplest solution is invariably the correct solution, I have to go along with this unremembered but much appreciated author.