Hello. Your call is very important to us. All of our customer service agents are helping other people at the moment. But your call is very important to us. Please hold on the line, listen to some inane music, and pay attention to our silly prerecorded commercials in order to occupy your time while you wait indefinitely.
Because your call is very important to us, we will answer it in the order that it was received. You will have to wait approximately forty-five minutes, but there is no way to tell for sure.
If you would like to upgrade your account status to Gold Club member, your call will be answered immediately. This will cost you only an additional charge of three hundred sixty-four dollars. That’s less than a dollar a day for an entire year. If you wish to enroll, press the pound key now. Otherwise, please hold and we will get to you as soon as our customer service people feel like answering the phone.
Please know that your call is very important to us.
After your call is complete, hold on the line and answer five questions about how we believe that your call is very important to us. If you choose not to answer the survey, your account will be charged one hundred dollars. If you answer the survey with anything but a perfect score, your account will be charged one hundred dollars.
Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us.
We’ve all heard that overly polite computerized female voice attempting to lull us into hypnotic complacency. The organization we’ve called wants us to believe our call—and subsequently we ourselves—are personally significant to them even though they linger in answering our call and responding to our question.
We’re important, but not important enough for the customer service department to address our issues promptly.
This exercise in frustration reminds me of something my Modern European history professor told me in my college days. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union draped its Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe, separating it from the rest of the continent. Most people referred to the countries in the east by their shorthand names like East Germany or Czechoslovakia. However, all of these nations had official names like the German Democratic Republic or the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Dr. Reid assured us that any country that feels compelled to tell you that it is Democratic, a Republic, or the People’s is lying.
He pointed out that if a country practices democracy in the interests of the people, it doesn’t have to repeatedly announce it. Everyone already knows.
Radio stations often act in a similar way. They tell you something that is patently false in hope that you will believe they actually care about your listening pleasure.
106.9. The River. We play more music and talk less than all of those other stations that are talking. See, we just announced how much music we play. So stay tuned for another fourteen minute music mix of uninterrupted hits. We play more music and leave the talking to the other guys because we know you want to hear more music and less talk.
Don’t you love how they tell you that they play more music than their competitors? Hello. If you stopped telling us how you played more music, you could actually play more music—and everyone listening would know.
So when an automated voice tells me that my call is important, but I must hold for an extended period of time before I talk with a human, you’ll understand if I’m a bit skeptical.
Granted, in an age of instant gratification, we might benefit from developing an under-used sense of patience. In some cases, an overgrown ego can leads us to believe that “I” am so important that my needs must be addressed now. It’s easy to forget that waiting is an inevitable part of living.
Yet, no one expects customer service agents to answer the phone immediately. We’re all aware that other folks have issues to, and we need to wait our turn. However, if our questions were attended to promptly and without the patronizing voice telling us what we know to be false, things would probably go much smoother.
How about something like this? “Thanks for calling. We apologize for making you wait. We will get to your call as soon as possible, and we will not rush you when it is your turn to talk. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”
Customer relations departments could improve their performance if they remembered that they were relating to customers—and customers are more than nameless account numbers. Customers are more than parasitic consumers. Customers are real people with problems, hopes, dreams, thoughts, and emotions.
Depersonalization isn’t limited to poor customer service. Any department in any organization and in any field can lose its focus by become self-serving. It’s easy to lose focus when dealing with people. Overlooking the human element in service is rarely done maliciously. Instead, we mistake the type of business we’re in. We forget that regardless of our specific industry, we’re in the people business.
The recent scandals within the banking industry show that many financial institutions have assumed that they were in the money business.
Real estate brokers getting folks into homes they couldn’t afford believed they were in the housing business.
Auto makers seeking to maximize profits at the cost of their employees and local communities have imagined they are in the manufacturing business.
Insurance companies that refuse to pay legitimate claims see themselves as being in the indemnity business.
Pharmaceutical corporations that hide or minimize the risks of their products assume they are in the drug business.
Energy conglomerates that foster an addiction to any specific resource imagine they are in the power-generating business.
Garment makers who employ underpaid or slave laborers assume they are in the clothing business.
Doctors that make patients wait for extended periods of time and fail to listen to them closely before making a diagnosis believe they are in the medical business
Politicians who say anything in order to aggrandize power believe they are in the governing business.
Educators that push for higher test scores in order to maximize institutional funding suppose that they are in the education business.
Researchers who misrepresent their methods and findings see themselves as being in the academic advancement business.
Churches seeking to bring in new members in order to perpetuate the institution view themselves as working in the religion business or in the God business.
Parents that punish, humiliate, and ostracize their children for not living up to certain standards presume that they are in the idealized-family business.
Customers who—out of frustration—speak rudely to customer service agents think that they are in the ego-driven “I want what I want when I want it business.”
The examples could go on infinitely.
Each specific discipline is important in its own right. Education, religion, family, politics, manufacturing, medicine, and every field of endeavor have important contributions to make to the broader society. Yet, none of them is a self-enclosed entity. Every activity, enterprise, and sphere is deeply interconnected and engaged internally and externally with people.
Your business is the people business.
To overlook the fact that you are in the people business is to disregard the primary nature of your venture. People work in your business, with your business, and for your business. People support your business and contribute to your business. Being in the people business requires that you mindfully serve people and their well being and to go beyond viewing people as Matrix-like batteries to fuel your individualized pursuits.
People businesses don’t have human resource departments because they don’t perceive people in terms of disposable assets. The business was made for people, not people for the business.
Cultivating your people business requires the continual development of an authentic spirit of service. Loving-kindness and conscious interconnection combine to form attention to detail, skillful flexibility, and a keen aptitude for listening.
In an organization (government, religious, non-profit, for-profit, family), this involves fostering a sense of open communication in which all participants have a say in the way the organization can become more people-oriented. The internal transformation of tending to employees, respecting members, and appreciating associates will translate into more attentive customer service. And this will cause your business to flourish.
In your own life, you can create sincere service by installing what Peter Senge describes as an ethic of recognition. Senge shows that business is a human community. Look closely at yourself, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Invite criticism, and create feedback loops from various sources that allow you to measure your personal accomplishment in the people business.
Entrepreneurs in the people business recognize that the financial bottom line matters only if the human bottom line is addressed first. What good is all the black ink in the world if you lose your heart for others? This is not a matter of “giving back to the community.” Instead, the people business immerses itself into the human community and becomes an integral contributor to society.
Transforming your current endeavor from an impersonal, rote, lifeless activity into a thriving people business involves thoughtful aspiration, active intent, and “appreciative inquiry” (to borrow a phrase from David Cooperrider). What do you really want to achieve in serving people? How will you go about it, and how will your business processes and practices serve people? Are you ready to humbly acknowledge compliments by sharing the credit? Can you gratefully welcome criticisms by testing their validity and discovering how to modify your business accordingly?
Whatever occupation or vocation you practice, you are in the people business. Management guru Tom Peters emphasizes, “Organizations exist to serve. Period.” Nurturing this inner spirit, deep vision, and outer action will allow you to enjoy genuine and meaningful success in any venture.
When you are in the people business, people will know that their call truly is important to you. And they will keep coming to you for that simply profound reason.
Kevin Beck is COO of Presence International and author of This Book Will Change Your World. He is married to Alisa, and they live in Colorado Springs with their three electrifying children.
URL:
http://www.presence.tv/cms/org_the-people-business.php
| 
Top of Page
Email Article
Printer
