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Talk About Not Going the Extra Mile….

September 14th, 2009 by Bob Bly

Eddie, a service technician from my phone company, was here today fixing my fax line.

“It seems to be working now.” the repairman told me. “Do you have any way of testing it?” he asked, which seems an odd thing for HIM to be asking ME.

“Why don’t you have your office send me a fax?” I asked him, not really understanding why this did not occur to him.

But I soon found out….

“We don’t offer that service,” he replied.

Huh? I beg your pardon — WHAT service?

Is he seriously saying that the PHONE COMPANY, of all companies, does not have the capability or the willingness to send me a ONE PAGE FAX to test their own repair work?

I told him I had never heard anything stupider, and to my surprise and delight, he agreed.

“But here’s my cell,” he said, handing me a number. “If you have a problem, call me anytime. I am almost always in the neighborhood and can be here in a flash.”

My conclusion?

Eddie did a smart thing: going around a stupid policy to make a good customer happy.

As for his employer, the phone company … they wonder why everyone you speak to in my town hates them.

Now maybe they know why….

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 5:28 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

25 responses about “Talk About Not Going the Extra Mile….”

  1. Chris Greaves said:

    > Now maybe they know why….

    Nope.
    They still don’t know why.

    Why not SEND THEM A FAX! (grin!)

    (BTW, the two Captcha words were “ing” and “floozie”. Good thing they left off the first part, eh?

  2. Net Biz In Buzz » ‘Talk About Not Going the Extra Mile’ by Bob Bly said:

    […] Talk About Not Going the Extra Mile… […]

  3. Lou Wasser said:

    With Skype, Vantage and others, the big phone providers are just beginning to get a small taste of competition.

    But fat cats need more than a taste. They need to be creamed before they can make substantive changes. I can’t wait. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

  4. Michael Murdock said:

    Generally businesses are limiting themselves to what it takes to get the job done, but not the extra support required to please the customer. They’d rather send the repair guy out again justifying the added expense so that they can raise prices. It’s also an excuse when shopping around new vendors they can say that the parts they took out on the first run failed and they now need a more reliable vendor. Lots of tricks that businesses use in this world. Sad but true.

    First time I’ve seen “stupider” used in an actual article, that stopped me for a moment as you always hear the ‘more stupid’ vs. using ‘stupider’

    Mike

  5. Susan Martin said:

    In 1992 two prominent thought leaders John Kotter and James Heskett co-authored a study which showed that “Performance Enhanced Cultures” achieve significantly greater revenues, employement growth, stock prices and net income.

    These performance enhanced companies have strong cultures which emphasize deep values that are in alignment with the needs of their target customer base and the services or products that they provide; and are held by the entire organization, from CEO to customer service reps on down.

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  6. Lou Wasser said:

    Susan:

    Your analysis reminds me of comedian Jackie Mason’s idea: “Wouldn’t it be great if the US Congress worked on commission?”

  7. TC/The Copywriter Underground said:

    Why not sign up for one of the efax services? Minimizes your exposure to the phone company (a good thing) and saves money in the process (also a good thing).

    Forcing a former monopoly to perform usually involves finding paths around them. It’s one of the benefits of the Intertubes, and as an added bonues, it’s a real pleasure when it works.

  8. Mele said:

    TC/The Copywriter Underground:

    Can you recommend a good efax service?

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  10. adams said:

    “It seems to be working now.” the repairman told me. Fields
    Replies
    Emails
    Links Do you have any way of testing it?” he asked, which seems an odd thing for HIM to be asking ME.

  11. ronnie 11 said:

    Is he seriously saying that the PHONE COMPANY, of all companies, does not have the capability or the willingness to send me a ONE PAGE FAX to test their own repair work?

    I told him I had never heard anything stupider, and to my surprise and delight, he agreed.

    “But here’s my cell,” he said, handing me a number. “If you have a problem, call me anytime. I am almost always in the neighborhood and can be here in a flash.”

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