InformationWeek

Actually, it is the classic problem of not being able to understand (or not wanting to) your audience's situation. You see it in corporate initiatives, marketing strategies, sales campaigns, customer service, and, yes, even in voice mail.

Take voice mail. Ever had a caller leave a three-minute diatribe while you're in an airport, waiting to board a plane and you find yourself silently screaming "GET TO THE POINT!!!"? My guess is you have. More than once.

I could go on and on, especially on my favorite pet peeve which is customer service, especially at the retail level. To sum up my feelings, customer service is probably one of the most cost-effective actions any company, store, or organization could implement-- and yet, while they pay tons of marketing money touting their "world- class, best-of-breed, none-to-compare" customer service, it is, in the end, only lip service.

As a customer, I am willing to pay for service. I can respect and appreciate it. I just can't find it.

Thanks for your article.
Frank H.

Dear Frank:
The state of customer service is dreadful in many businesses. Telling someone how much you care is no substitute for showing them. What's not clear to me is whether businesspeople recognize the ill will and lower profits they are incurring because of the insufficient training of their customer-service representatives. Dr. James Cash of Harvard University has done some excellent work on the costs of obtaining new customers vs. keeping the ones you have. The comparison is staggering. Any executive who were to pay attention to what Jim has to say would quickly revamp the relative importance of his or her sales and customer service functions.

While the unsatisfactory quality of customer service is probably the pet peeve of many people, I would think that voice mail comes in a close second. Personally, I absolutely hate those long, rambling voice-mail messages about which you are complaining. The ones that astonish me are those that part-way through contain the phrase, "Wait a minute, I don't think I was clear, let me go over that again." I wish someone would tell them about the re-record button.

My other voice-mail pet peeve is what I call the "excess body function message." I know a guy in our place who clears his nasal congestion and periodically coughs during his long, dull, and generally meaningless messages. When I listen to his voice mails, I sort of hold the telephone away from my ear and have the burning urge to wash my hands and face after I hang up the phone.

However, my favorites are not the transgressions committed by the denizens of the voice-mail jungle. My award for infliction of pain goes to those people who leave long, warm, and caring greetings on their home answering machines. I frequently have a meaningful conversation with their mechanized messages prior to the beep. They go sort of like this:

Machine: We cannot come to the phone.
Herb: I've already figured that out.
Machine: We are sorry that we cannot speak with you right now.
Herb: Why are you sorry? For all you know, I'm a bill collector or the aunt that you hate.
Machine: However, your call is very important to us.
Herb: Huh? Suppose I'm selling dance lessons or vinyl siding. Get a life.
Machine: But if you leave a message at the tone, we'll get back to as soon as possible.
Herb: Sure. Right after the dumb TV program you're watching. Assuming, of course, that you aren't going to snarf another bag of potato chips instead of returning my call.

Keith G.

Dear Keith:
Given its importance, it's hard to accept that training is the first thing to go when budgets have to be reduced. Without skilled people, it's not possible to do more with less, which generally is the whole idea behind cutting the budget in the first place. And the future is being jeopardized. It is sort of like eating your seed corn; you may get through this winter more easily, but you'll not have anything to plant next spring.

Protecting the training budget during a budget reduction cycle is very difficult. You will be rebuffed with all sorts of comments about whether you would rather reduce training or fire people. It is highly likely that no matter what you do, the training budget is going to be cut. Recognize that the only way to keep as much of it as possible is for you to find a reasonable compromise.

First, gather articles about implementation of new systems and why they fail. You will find that almost without exception, insufficient training is given as one of the primary reasons along with over-customization and lack of project management. Build a plan that explains what training is necessary to achieve the objectives of the reduced-budget organization. Eliminate, on your own, any training that can't be justified to achieve these new short-term goals. Show the costs of the new training budget vs. the original one. Above all, remember, your management will be more likely to listen to you if they see you are being prudent, not obstinate.

Good luck.

Don't tell me you followed Stagweg !!!! I'll stop my subscription to InformationWeek....

A Disheartened One

Dear Disheartened One:
No need to stop your subscription (you'd be missing out on lots of valuable information). Just because I think there's a causal relationship worthy of documentation doesn't mean that I necessarily approve of it. Let me give you an example. If I drink too much alcohol while dining at home on a Friday night, I will have a serious headache on Saturday morning. Mind you, I am not in favor of said headache, I just am reporting that the relationship exists.

After long and careful analysis, I am convinced that in many companies, Lovelace's Law of Corporate Promotions is true: An executive is rewarded primarily for not making mistakes. I do think, however, that companies are far better off with leadership such as that shown by your own CIO than by my associate, Ron Stagweg. In fact, companies that adhere to the law of corporate promotions are really well on the way to being devoured by their competition. Along that line of reasoning, since I have written the article, I have come up with another law, which I shall call the Law of Corporate Failure: A company is doomed to failure if it punishes people more for their mistakes than it rewards them for their successes.

I'll be writing a column in the next few weeks on this latest discovery. In the meantime, keep up the good work.

We have found a great deal of computer naturals who pick up very quickly basic programs like Excel, Word, Access, etc and who are interested in moving into the programming, database administrator, networking and other technical positions we have in our company. What is the possibility of self-education for these people? We allow them to use our equipment for this purpose and would consider buying the necessary books to help these "gems" to advance professionally. Is there a resource out there for self-educators to design their own curriculum?

These are very dedicated staff, with great potential, but our company is not in a financial position to offer tuition reimbursement.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Colleen S.

Dear Colleen:
I am not surprised that you have found entry-level employees who are gifted in using computers. With training, they can become a natural pool of talent for your company's future growth. It would be a shame not to provide them with the tools necessary to fulfill their potential. Without costing your company too much money, there are several avenues you might pursue.

As you can imagine, it's difficult for people to design their own educational curriculum. They generally don't know what is important to learn and whether a particular course or text is a good one or not. One approach to solving this problem is to take advantage of your existing in-house expertise. You mentioned that you are seeking to fill positions in the area of programming, database administration and the like. Have you considered asking the people in these technical areas to design an in-house course for their colleagues? The cost should be minimal, and it would not be surprising to find that the technical people would be willing to donate some of their time to help.

A second approach would be to discuss your situation with the administrators of your local community college or university. They may be willing, especially when they learn that some of the students are financially disadvantaged, to provide you with a syllabus that can be used for your employees to teach themselves.

Finally, as the HR professional in the company, how about seeing if the company will reconsider paying tuition? Educating employees is a great investment and you will find that the employment fee you save by not having to hire even one person from the outside can go a long way toward training those gems of whom you are so rightly proud.

NOTE TO READERS: As I've mentioned, I am planning to put my InformationWeek columns together into a book with a little bit of additional commentary around the events and people about whom I write. If any reader would like to be notified of such an event, please drop me an E--mail. Just use the word BOOK as the subject line.