The Mu

I had a teacher in high school who was very unorthodox but he had many anecdotes that prepared me for adult life. Gerry Cadman, may he rest in peace, was definitely an influence on me and taught me that good customer service is far too rare.

One memorable Cadman schtick was his impersonation of a post office worker preparing a package for delivery.  He would use his glasses as a prop, illustrating how the worker would struggle to read labels, wandering from one place to another in the depot, checking shelves and filling out forms.  He exaggerated the effort to accomplish what should be a relatively simple task: getting box X from point A to point B.

He also had some infamous quotes: “That company services their customers like the bull services the cow.”  And his vulgar variation on making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear: “You can’t shine sh*t.”

Today, all those pearls came back to me as I dealt with a wide variety of companies to get my address changed and generally deal with the details of moving.

None of the experiences were pleasant, although some were better than others.

Here’s my general conclusion: even if a customer service rep is trying to deliver excellent service, they are seriously hampered by corporate policies and bizarre automated systems.  I could blame the IT departments, but since I come from an IT background, I know it isn’t their fault either.  Really the problem is the “organic” nature of bureaucracies.  Once a bureaucracy is in place, it is self-sustaining and puts down roots throughout the company, growing and festering of its own accord.

Rogers: The people moving into our house next month did what you would expect: they arranged for cable TV and Internet service to be activated after they move in.  A typo resulted in the switchover being done a month early.  It’s an easy mistake to make; let’s see how easy it is to unmake.  They are told it would take at least 48 hours to reactivate their service.  On my end, my account has been cancelled with no clear indication that it can be re-established at all (although thankfully the actual Internet connection itself continues to work for now). I seriously doubt that the silver lining will be a month of free service.

Bell: My satellite TV provider (although they don’t tell you this at the beginning) must have 30 days notice to deactivate the service.  I said that we’d be moving during the intervening time, and could they send out the pre-paid shipping box to return my rental HDTV receiver right away.  No problem, sir.  I got the confirmation email: the box would be shipped two days AFTER the deactivation 30 days hence.  When I called to correct that, I was told that they always send out the box after the deactivation.  So if you’re moving, how do you get the box?  Well apparently there is an exception process but it took quite a while to go through. I am crossing my fingers that this is resolved, since the system provides no way to send out another email confirmation.

The Personal: My insurance company may have been the easiest to deal with, but a mild oversight by the clerk (which he immediately noticed and called to correct) has resulted in four envelopes hitting the mail all at the same time.  I naively asked if there was some way for them to cancel the extraneous mailings since the mistake was discovered right away.  No way, I am told.  I also asked how I would easily know which of the four was the correct one.  Apparently it is up to me to read all four and find the one with the correct information.  That’s exciting (like a treasure hunt)!

All in all I have spent hours on the phone today with Rogers, Bell, Enbridge, Powerstream, the Town of Aurora, the Bank of Montreal, and The Personal.  Most of that time I was on hold, listening to some really exceptional light favorites from yesteryear.  The rest of the time I was treated to a series of employees all trying their best to struggle through archaic and nonsensical systems and rules.  Not one clerk was rude or abusive.  But I expected them to turn on me at any moment, especially after I explained that this was hoop #964 that I had to jump through today.  The last thing a beleaguered phone attendant needs is a disgruntled hoop-counter like me.

Meanwhile, the ghost of Gerry Cadman was over my shoulder, laughing his head off.

I promised last time that I would veer away from technology temporarily and talk about the people aspect of my new real estate career.

Meeting new people, talking about their aspirations and dreams, then trying to help them realize those dreams is a pretty rewarding way to spend time.  Take any one of those three activities and it remains rewarding on its own.

While real estate is fraught with competitive practices and is cutthroat to some extent, the people in my office have been wonderfully supportive.

Then there are the house hunters and sellers.  These are the clients in the business.  While I recognize that as soon as I identify myself as a “salesperson” many people immediately feel the bile rise in the back of their throat, I’m impressed at how friendly most people are.  The bad reputation attributed to salespeople of all stripes is something I fully understand, since I myself hate the schmoozy, schmarmy aspect of selling.  I joined this industry with a somewhat idealistic goal of helping people accomplish something they already wanted to do.  I grasp the concept of “closing” a sale being a process of addressing objections.  But I want to remove obstacles as opposed to sweeping them off the negotiating table onto the floor where they remain a tripping hazard.

All this wide-eyed idealism is something that I don’t apologize for, but my manager gave me a great perspective today by pointing out that learning the business involves taking cues from a variety of sources, while remaining true to our ideals.  In other words, she advocates ongoing learning in the sales process and adapting things like lead generation and closing techniques to our own personality.  I can’t argue with that.

I could provide many more examples of people I have met and situations I have found myself in where human behavior truly impressed me.  The more people I meet the more I realize why society works: most people are good and ethical.  Even salespeople.

Darryl Halse recently wrote about New Year’s resolutions.  I agree with his concluding observation that in general, if something is worth doing, what’s wrong with starting today?

In fact, I began my journey to a new career back in July 2009.  I had been thinking about different areas of specialty for my consulting business.  I had originally set my sights on newspapers as a place that could use content management and social media project advice.  But traditional media seemed so set in its ways that I was having difficulty with most of the conversations I was conducting with people in the newspaper business.  And to be honest, I wasn’t getting to the decision makers anyway.

Fortunately I met with a friend of mine who had made a partial leap from software development into real estate.  He was very enthusiastic and I started to see another industry that could benefit from information technology advice.  So, in an effort to increase my expertise in the business, I started taking the real estate licensing courses.  As I learned more, I realized that I was already surrounded by people who, in one way or another, are enamored of or involved in the real estate business.  (For example: My daughter is hooked on interior design and loves the idea of staging homes.  My wife loves analyzing the MLS and getting ideas from HGTV.)

So I started to see myself as a full-time real estate sales representative, with maybe a little IT consulting on the side.

Heeding Darryl’s advice: my New Year’s resolution is to continue down the path of becoming licensed to trade in real estate in Ontario.  I write the big “final” exam on 6 February 2010 (final is a relative term, since the education never ends, but it is the last exam before I can start to trade).

I have a catchphrase that I developed many years ago as a news editor for my university newspaper.  My dream was to start a company eventually that would help people craft their words for greatest impact.  I imagined people writing more concisely, conveying their meaning quickly.  My advertising slogan was going to be: “Make your point.  Sharper.”  I still love that slogan — the grammatical ambiguity is one of the intriguing things about it.  I started using it for my current company since I focused on editorial assistance and information architecture as well as content management systems.

Eventually though, I had to admit that the company was doing more than just word-crafting or even conveying information to others. It was more broadly based in content improvement: creating, storing, and retrieving content for a whole enterprise.  Content is the focus, but its application for business success is really what I am helping people with.  I also strongly believe that we should never “settle” for anything less than our best.  In fact, being better than our best can happen through collaboration.

So my company’s new slogan is “Content to overachieve.”  It still retains double meaning through two different pronunciations of “content” and it emphasizes business success.