The Briefcase Project

There are some that believe providing good customer service is giving the customer what they want. You’ve heard the old adage “The customer is always right”; basically what the customer wants, the customer gets. Not necessarily so – be careful of giving your customers everything they want…even in the name of good customer service.

A recent federal appeals court ruling in Indiana proves that the customer isn’t always right. In this particular case a nursing home acquiesced to one of its resident’s requests to receive healthcare assistance only from white nursing assistants – racially discriminating against one of their black caregivers. While there are some patient rights issues ensnarled in this debate, in addition to charges of a hostile work environment, the bottom line is the nursing home is not permitted to accede to the racial preferences of its customers.

Aside from this very specific example, there are other situations in which a customer might demand something of you or your employees that breaks the law. What about a client requesting a female account manager – or requesting that their account manager is not female? While it might be obvious that to exclude the hiring of female account managers (to satisfy a customer) is a discriminatory hiring practice, what about the assignment of work within your organization based on such client requests – are you creating an environment hostile to females? And this possible scenario applies to all the protected classes: race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, family status, disability, veteran status and genetic information. Also remember that protected classes vary from state to state and some states also include as a protected class: sexual orientation, gender identity, source of income, and smoking status.

The takeaway here is that there are limits to what can be justified as “providing customer service”. The real trick to customer service is to make the customer “feel like” they are getting what they want, even if it may not be exactly what they had in mind. Sometimes you have to put your sales hat on and convince your customer that your approach really is in their best interest – especially when it comes to matters of the law or you feel ethically obligated to do so. Bottom line:  don’t let “customer service” compromise the core beliefs and values of your company; no customer is worth that.

Debbie Hatke, MA, SPHR - Talent Strategy Manager, strategic HR, inc. www.strategichrinc.com

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Last week an ethical dilemma presented itself.

I got a call from a web development company in Northern Indiana.  They were building a new website for a client that we had helped previously with their existing website.  Frankly I was happy to take the call because I had always felt that this client needed to get more engaged with their website and had delegated their e-commerce site to too many contractors and had no clue what was going on with their own business.

But as a fellow web professional,  I can’t help but feel for the folks in Northern Indiana, do they know what they are getting into?  My two year history of un-returned calls,  ignored emails,  overall lack of communication/direction and most importantly, payments that usually ran about 120 days past due,  would they like to know this?  If I was in their shoes, would I like to know?

I didn’t say anything but very pleasantly gave them the information they needed,  but maybe I should have?

Maybe we need a ratings site for customers?

Recently we had a contractor out to our house to do some landscaping work.  He was telling us about a $10,000 job that he was probably not going to collect on, because the woman in lived in the multi-million dollar house in a wealthy neighborhood in Cincinnati, was protesting the quality of their work and was not going to pay.  He ran into another contractor that he knows working at another client on that same street,  and  Contractor #2 knew the woman my landscaper was referring to and said it was known among other contractors that she always tries to get out of paying her bill by claiming the work was sub-par.  My landscaper wished there was some way he could have looked this up online and then decided whether or not to put resources toward this job,  instead of now worrying about collecting a $10,000 invoice.

Make Non-Payment of Bills Part of Online Profile

In the past year you have seen individuals on the evening news gleefully telling how they are walking away from their mortgages and we have all been watching our government trying to get BP pay for their oil spill,  so it is obvious that legal ramifications no longer work.   So what if you started seeing that you haven’t paid your contractor in the last 120 days showing in your Google results?  I always Google a new website client  before I begin working with them,  what if I saw a listing saying this business already has 3 contractors waiting for past due payments?  I might think twice before starting that project or at least have the chance to address it before we are already a month’s worth of consulting hours into the project.

Do you think this would be enough to get people to honor their obligations?   How would this effect the ability of this company to grow?  How would it effect their ability to hire people?

Do you have a side on this ethical dilemma?  Please post your comments.

Carmen Krupar - Website Performance Architect - www.cyberviselimited.com

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When it comes to building your brand, we often overlook customer service as part of our company’s genuine personality. Yes, your brand has a personality – it’s what is said about you and your company. Your customer service is what your customers think of you after they have left your office or after a phone conversation. Aligning your customer service and your brand is what helps retain customers, distinguishes your business, and builds loyalty. How you and your employees speak and interact with customers and vendors is your brand in action.

Your brand, your customer service…

It’s a team effort: Everyone is creating and participating in the customers service and satisfaction experience. Don’t forget that your employees play a vital role in your brand. It’s not just about their interaction with your customers, but your interaction with them as well.

It’s an ongoing cycle: With each interaction the customer becomes a repeat customer. They turn into a loyal customer which is not only the pillar of a successful company but also an avenue for new customers.

It’s about communication: Spend some time with your customers. Listen and learn about their needs, wants and expectations and do this periodically – it changes over the months or years.

Are you building solid relationships by aligning your customer service with your brand?

“Coming together is a beginning, Keeping together is progress, Working together is success.”- Henry Ford

Diana Puppin, dpDesign

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This post is a guest contribution brought to you by:

Laura Littlecott, PHR
Consultant with strategicHR, inc.

Continuing the 4 Ways To Protect Your Company Against Worker’s Comp Claims!

3. After a conditional job offer, an employer can ask about an employee’s Workers’ Comp history, sick leave usage, etc. as well as require a medical examination – provided that all candidates who receive a conditional job offer in the same category are required to do the same. Inquiries must be job related and consistent with business necessity. If someone is not hired based on their medical history, the decision must be directly related to their inability to perform the job up to a certain standard or because in doing so, they may harm themselves or others. ADA-covered employers are required to consider job accommodations. Medical inquiries should be done by a physician- results are considered confidential medical records and must be treated as such.


4.Train continually. Spence says, “Employees should be provided with appropriate safety training and the safety rules that apply to their job and their work areas. Create a training matrix that outlines the minimum safety training required for all positions.” Requiring training to perform not only the tasks of the job, but training in all safety aspects of the job is key. Training doesn’t end after the new employee learns the duties and safety precautions. Any time job duties, equipment, or safety rules change, employees must be trained on the changes. Additionally, refresher training on basic safety rules should be conducted regularly.

If you evaluate the overall cost of one Workers’ Compensation claim, including the loss of manpower, the administrative cost to manage an injured employee, the W/C premium cost and the overtime to cover jobs that would have been done by the injured worker—you will see the cost benefits of integrating an effective pre-employment evaluation and safety train

Debbie Hatke, MA, SPHR - Talent Strategy Manager, strategic HR, inc. www.strategichrinc.com

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So you posted a job opening on one of the major job boards and received 400 applicants. Not all of them are remotely qualified, but they took the time to apply all the same. Now what?

You could just ignore them. Talk with the applicable ones, select your candidates and choose your new hire – DONE. But you may just have alienated 399 potential customers. And in the marketing world, it’s like the old Faberge shampoo commercial were one person tells two friends, and they tell two friends and so on, and so on…well, you get the picture. Today that concept is called viral marketing and when the viral message is bad it’s like a deadly virus spreading out of control. And like a virus, there is no easy fix – you just wait it out and hope it doesn’t get worse.

Appropriate follow-up and closure is essential to creating a satisfying recruiting process. Not every applicant will win one of your job openings, but that doesn’t mean that they all have to have bad feelings about employment with your company. We spend a lot of time and money on marketing and advertising in an effort to create a good consumer image about our products and services. It’s a shame that a company will obliterate all that hard work and expense with a small misstep like ignoring a job applicant.

Simply put the recruitment process IS closely linked to customer relations and customer satisfaction. Becoming an employer of choice is no easy task. But effective customer relations, with would-be employees or would-be customers, are fairly easy in today’s technological world. Most of those 400 resumes you received came through email or online. You probably have email addresses for 98% of the applicants you received. It just makes sense then that you utilize email as your communication tool.

When an applicant sends their resume make sure they receive an acknowledgement. This can often be accomplished with an auto-reply email; while not a personalized warm and fuzzy, it does let the applicant know that their resume has reached your hands. Likewise, when the position is filled, send out another mass-email letting all applicants know the position is no longer available. Providing closure will let the applicants know to move on, and in some cases, free up your staff from continual follow-up with applicants wanting to know their status.

My colleague, Cathleen Snyder, worked for the finance arm of a major auto manufacturer years ago. They would get hundreds of applicants for one job opening. Their office would hire temporary help just to assist with typing and sending letters to each and every job applicant (this was before email). That’s how valuable these applicants were as potential customers. Now THAT’S customer service!

Debbie Hatke, MA, SPHR - Talent Strategy Manager, strategic HR, inc. www.strategichrinc.com

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