Customer Service

Good Morning Greg,

I thought I would share with you a revelation in how I perceive world class
customer service.

After years of sharing information with you, I have also read the customer
service training regimens of Disney, Windham Hotels and have been fortunate
to employ a previous employee of Ritz Carlton.

I made a classic mistake. When reviewing and tracking performance I found
that I would undergo peaks and valleys of customer satisfaction statistics.

They directly linked with when I would have customer service training
classes. My peaks directly followed my training regimens and I had
impleneted a three class module that included, What level of service we want
to deliver. Problem Solving and a service recovery plan. Delivery value by
performing beyond our service commitment.

The training did not make the change permanent and would dip customer
service statistically because I failed to recognize I had not made a
permanent change in each associates concept and delivery of outstanding
service.

Repetition and reinforcement of a skill set can take substantial and ongoing
training and not just a one, two, three approach. I failed to change the way
people think by giving them constant reinforcement and thus old habits
re-appeared.

Customer service will now become a constant and consistent part of our
culture. You have to live and breath customer service to be consistently
effective. We now do round table problem solving at a unit level every week
for about 10 minutes and discuss openly service challenges and how they were
handled. Every manager in this company is charged with permanet effective
change.

Have you written or do you know of a good source for change management. I
have been through four acquisitions is as many years and unfortuneately the
stock holders have failed to substantiate any value in their Human Capital.

Poor communications and I suspect some poor business acument have reeled
this company. Our name will change on 1/1 and I have to find a solutions to
get these people to take control of this situation and empower everyone to
take a long look on what ddirves a healthy, happy company. I believe real
wealth is achieved by taking a long term approach and not necessarily
looking at short term gains. I see some things that make ke very skeptical
and it may be time for me to move on as I perceive my philosophies of
effective Human Captial Management to conflict with current ownership. I
guess I ma reluctant to face that after 11 years of hard work and trying to
build a Legacy to be proud of I see that interests lie only in money
andbeing ruthless is a vialbe option. Not for me.

Your opinion would be of great value. I see symptoms that make me very
uncomfortable.

Dave