Category Archives: Service

Hiring, Launching a Remote Office, Opening a Remote Office, Planning, Remote Office, Service, Staff, Teams, Tools

Setting up and Launching a Remote Office

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In the early days of my career I was responsible for setting up an operation in a different city. It was a great opportunity for me and something that I really wanted to succeed in, however looking back on that person with the experience I now have. Well, lets just say that I was very lucky that I didn’t fall completely flat on my face!

The City

As a native Torontonian (that’s what people in Toronto, Canada call themselves for my International readers!), I’d visited Montreal a couple of times and had always enjoyed spending time there, so when my boss asked me to set up a new office in that city I thought it was a great idea! I mean, how hard could it be?

Well, it was 1998 or 1999, and while I was working for an Internet company, the many conveniences we’ve all come to expect and enjoy had yet to be invented or for that matter even thought of! Websites like Yelp! and Foursquare didn’t exist and while the multiple listing service (MLS) was there, it was really only useful for residential properties and in most cases you needed a realtor to provide the information.

I didn’t know how to promote my company – we were established in Toronto but no one outside of that city had heard of us. I didn’t know where to open the office – downtown would be great but the rents would be a lot higher than out of town, but how much higher? I didn’t know how to get new customers or even hire staff for that office.

The Marketing

Knowing what I didn’t know (which is I’ve found the first step!), I decided that I couldn’t do it all by myself. I’d need help. Local help. So I started interviewing marketing companies that could help me with two of the things on my list – promoting the company I worked for and finding new customers.

Fortunately I was able to find a small bouteque agency that was priced right and seemed to have all of the appropriate credentials. I didn’t interview three different firms though or get competitive quotes (mistake #1?), but they seemed to know their stuff!

Over the course of the next 2-3 months, we were communicating back and forth about radio spots, billboards, print advertising, product pricing and other minutae relevant to launching in a new location. Again they seemed to ask all of the right questions so I thought I was onto a winner.

The Hiring and Staffing 

While the marketing piece was going on, I started looking for office space and staff to work in the office. Based on the model we had in Toronto, we’d need a local manager and customer service/technical support staff that could both resolve issues and perform administrative and billing functions in French and English.
Monster.com had launched and was used quite extensively in Canada around that timeframe so the interviewing process began in earnest.  Fortunately it was very buyount job market so getting some good quality candidates was fairly straightforward. The local MGR however – well that one took a while and although I ended up putting someone in place he wasn’t my first choice (mistake #2).

Now vs. Then

Looking back, I think I did the best that I could with the tools I had available at the time. Money was tight so my budgets were definitely constrained. Everything was moving extremely quickly and change was happening at an ever increasing pace.
Comparing the piecemeal strategy of those years with the way I’ve setup two new locations over the previous 2 years is very much night and day. Part of that of course is my seniority now and my ability to talk to people and leaders that are higher up the food chain. People that can actually negotiate based on the potential upside that they can see. The other part of course is the confidence I’ve gained in doing this a couple of times now and knowing some of the potential pitfalls inherent in having remote staff and operations.

You see, while the Montreal operation was successful both of my mistakes ended up coming back to bite me. My manager choice – well, without local oversight, he turned out to be a bit of a dictator and was making the office environment toxic for the other staff. He had to go and I had to find someone else. My first mistake though – the marketing company – was probably the bigger one. While the comminucation and interaction had seemed positive and enthusiastic they didn’t actually end up producing anything of real worth. Sadly, they actually ended up going out of business themselves before we’d launched which set us back several months.

What could I have done?

Hindsight is always 20-20 isn’t it? With the tools and information available to us today, most of my requirements could have been dealt with, without even leaving my office. I would have been able to search and get reviews on other companies that had done the same things. I would have been able to pick and choose marketing companies and been able to interview them remotely only after shortlisting them based on reviews and feedback from clients. I would have been able to evaluate property prices and rental costs remotely and conducted interviews remotely. Would I have had to go to Montreal at all? Yes, probably, but for different reasons – more along the lines of ensuring things are moving smoothly vs. setting up.

Things have definitely changed in only a few short years – I’m fortuntate that the mistakes I made early in my career helped me to learn how not to do things and I’ve taken that knowledge and applied it. I wonder what mistakes await the next generation though? I’m sure they are going to be doozies!

Helpdesk, Incident Management, ITIL, KPI, Problem Management, Service, SLA, Teams

WHAT IS A HELPDESK?

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OK, to start with it’s not a desk that helps people! A help desk is a team of individuals (generally support staff) that provide solutions and resolutions to customers experiencing problems. Generally working at the 1st tier of the support model they are responsible for Incident reporting and resolution vs. Problem Management (I shall discuss those terms in greater depth below).


What is an Incident?
Simply put, an Incident is anything related to customer contact (Incidents are also reported by automatic means via monitoring tools and I will discuss those types of incidents in greater depth in later posts). Incidents related to customers can be anything really – Information requests, Account Updates, Issue reporting are all examples of Incidents. Incidents can also be reported through a variety of different methods – this could include the phone (probably the most common), email (a close 2nd) and even chat. As mentioned previously, automated monitoring tools can also generate incidents.


All of these different Incidents coming from/through different sources would get routed to your Incident Management tool. For smaller teams, this could be something as simple as a spreadsheet but in larger organizations either in-house customer-built applications or enterprise level tools prevail.



Incident Management (in a nutshell)
Your helpdesk is responsible for reviewing the information in each of these incidents and checking if there is an appropriate solution already available to the customer. For those instances for example where the customer wishes to update their Account Information, the helpdesk would look at the Incident, obtain the correct new information (& assuming that all appropriate security questions had been reviewed) log into the customers account and update the information. Once the information had been updated, they would inform the customer and then close the Incident. This is probably one of the simpler examples of an Incident from start to finish.


If the customer is reporting a problem or an issue, the Helpdesk staff are responsible for updating the Incident with all the relevant details as supplied by the customer. If the customer’s issue matches a known fix they are able to inform or supply that fix to the customer, however, if that is not the case they would need to escalate the issue to the Problem Management team. The simplest way to think of the Incident Management (Helpdesk/Tier1) team and the issues they resolve is that if a “band-aid” exists they can apply it. If more drastic attention is required they will need to call the Doctor!



Problem Management
Problem Management is where the interesting work really happens. Incident Management due to its repetitive nature can get tedious and is definitely a drain on the more skilled staff in your organization … if you have people like that, think about moving them into Problem Management if you have such a team or create one if you don’t! Problem Management is more in-depth. It’s where more often than not a single Problem is the cause of multiple Incident’s from multiple customers … as such you want your best people at this level. Generally, you would consider this Tier 2 or Tier 3 from an escalation and staffing perspective and dependent on your product or service you would have some very technically oriented people there. Their goal is not to just provide a band-aid, but rather to find out why the problem happened in the first place and fix it. Ideally, they should be looking at ways to fix it in such a way as to ensure that it doesn’t happen again!!



KPI’s
Now each of these teams would have different metrics in place. Obviously, your Tier1 team (Incident Management/Customer Service/Helpdesk) needs to get back to the customer in a timely manner. Their goal as already mentioned is to fix it, fix it fast and move on. A band-aid will not always reattach the finger though, so it’s up to the Tier2 team to ensure that the surgery goes smoothly which obviously takes a lot more time as you don’t want the surgeon doing a shoddy job!
Response Time – So with that analogy in mind … you want to have an aggressive goal set for your Helpdesk – try to work with the 80/20 rule … 80% of incidents responded to in 20 seconds (If you have the resources, otherwise maybe 20 minutes? Or 20 hours (that’s less than 1 day so might still be good – especially if you’re doing email support)? Or 20 days ß well that’s probably not really worthwhile) but hopefully you get the point? You want to set a specific goal for measuring how quickly your customers are getting a response.
Resolve Time – notice that I have separated these out. As much as you’d like to be able to resolve 100% of issues at that first contact, it’s not always going to be possible. However, you can have another measurement in place that tracks this which is the Resolve Time (sometimes called MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)). The Goal here is also to get that band-aid on as quickly as possible so you need to ensure that your Incident Management system has some sort of a knowledge base which helps your staff find the solution to commonly placed issues/questions. If they have the answer every time, then a 100% resolution at 1st contact is achievable! If not, however … it gets a bit more complicated because all of a sudden your Incident Management team becomes the customer and the team they go to is the Problem Management team. Guess what? They have a different measurement for Response Time and Resolve Time too!


Problem Management Response Time – now as previously mentioned these are generally your more senior staff and as much as you’d like them to be available 24/7 unless you have an extremely large organization this is probably fairly unlikely. So you are going to have built or determined some relevant response times based on their availability. In addition, as these escalated issues are generally issues that cannot easily be resolved, your resolution time is going to be extended also. Pick some appropriate intervals that meet your customers SLAs. Your main goal for this team (in addition to resolving the problem of course) is communication, communication, communication!!! They must inform your customer-facing agents what the issue is, what they are doing to resolve it and when they expect to have it resolved. If they cannot provide an estimated resolution time, they MUST provide your Tier1 team with an estimated update time.
Service, Skill Based Routing, SLA, Teams

Technical Support and Tiered Support Levels

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In Customer Service and Technical Support it is all about getting that client issue to the right person (based on skills and language) as quickly as possible and ensuring that you meet or exceed your SLA. Now this can be accomplished through a variety of different methods and depending upon the size of your contact center, you should ensure that you explore some or all of them.

Training 

Probably the most important criteria is training. You need to ensure that you have explored the requirements and needs of your customers fully and that based on these needs, the majority of your agents have the requisite skills to resolve their issues and assist them. Determining Their Needs 

If you do not know what your clients need then this is absolutely the first area of concern. You need to conduct surveys and do analysis of your past and historical incidents and contacts and determine from that what they are going to be asking. You will find that there is a significant amount of repetition with regards to client inquiries and if you are in a business with a growing customer base you will see this repetition play out most frequently with new accounts. Once you know what they are going to be asking, then you can put a training plan into place to ensure that you plug those holes. The quicker and sooner you are able to do this, the more satisfied your customers will be. 

Tiered Support Model 

As important as training is, you are not going to be able to have all of your staff at the same level. This is actually not a bad thing as the questions and queries that you will be receiving will also be at differing levels of complexity. By putting in place a plan that allows you to tier your teams based on their skills not only are you being more efficient with your resources, but you are also building an escalation model and a promotion path into your support organization. 

Erlang ‘C’ & Scheduling for Call Centres 

Tiered Support ensures that your training dollars are best spent where they are most useful and also allows you to offer your customers an increased level of service in various different fashions. 

Tier’ing Your Customers 

As you might recall from my previous posts on the 80/20 rule (here and here), you are best served by distributing your clients based on their “value” to your business. As much as you might like to treat all clients the same, the unfortunate fact is that they are not! You will often find that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your issues and also (and perhaps more importantly!) 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your revenue. Unfortunately also, these two different “circles” do not always overlap and it is absolutely key that you determine which of your clients fit into which circle. 
Once you have made that determination however, things become much clearer and easier to handle. By putting your customers into tiers, you are able to offer the ones with higher value to your business a different path to the support that they need in contrast to your other customers.

blurbs, Service, Staff, Training

Work Ethic and Today

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A famous quote from Thomas Edison reads – 

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Edison
Now how often have you been the one to procrastinate or put something off till later?  How often have you not studied for that big test or perhaps not got onto that train because the weather was a little bit bad or you felt a little bit under the weather?
The unfortunate truth is that with the prevalence of modern conveniences that we now have available to us, people have gotten lazy.  It is easy to forget that a requirement for success is dedication and hard work.  This doesn’t mean that you stop using the tools available to you … what it does mean though is that you need to learn how to use them correctly.

Work smarter – not harder … use your email client to track issues that you need to stay on top off – most clients have a “flag” option and any good email client will actually thread conversations together so that you do not need to read every individual message.  Use tasks and task management … if your email client doesn’t support this, use one of the free ones on the net – a great one that I use that is extremely customizable is called “Remember The Milk”.  Make sure that you have access to all the people and resources you need to instantly by keeping your address book synchronized through tools like Plaxo.  If you have a PDA (Blackberry, Palm or equivalent smartphone) make sure that your email client is integrated appropriately so that you can take it with you.  
Remember however that you need to “clock off”!!  Do NOT work to the exclusion of your family.  You need to remember that the only reason you are there is to support your family and it should NEVER be the other way around.  

Use appropriate and useful project management tools  – if you do not have access to Microsoft Project there are several free alternative Project Management sites that you can get access to – check out Zoho Doc for a good option.

Think about MindMapping software – Freemind is a great application if you can download and use it on your desktop.  However, if your IT department has restricted your access you can use – bubbl.us – this is a free and fairly easy to use application.
Customer Complaints, Service

When does Customer Service End?

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Have you ever noticed that the small entrepreneur will go that extra mile, while the big businesses don’t bother?  I guess the easiest explanation for this is that these smaller business people are actually closer to their customers and are able to realize the importance and value of customer service in driving back repeat business.  A good read I found that demonstrates this is here.


The question is though … why don’t the big boys?

The easy answer is that they are too far removed, but that is not really getting to the heart of the issue … more and more often you see businesses and senior staff that think they are where they are forever and that nothing is going to change.  However, the one good thing that came out of this recent recession is the realization that this is just not the case.  If you don’t care about your customers and have a good business model to boot … you won’t be in business for long!  I know that’s a bit harsh and a lot of innocent people suffered but maybe the realization that growth is not the final objective is a lesson worth learning.

It is essential that all businesses provide an appropriate level of after-sales SERVICE to their customers.  This should be more than just a phrase, but something that should actually deliver VALUE.  

The easiest way to measure this is to ask your customers!  Don’t be afraid to send out surveys and questionnaires… but make sure that you pay attention to the responses and that you do something about the issues your customers are telling you they don’t like.
Helpdesk, KPI, Service, SLA, Teams

What is a Helpdesk?

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OK, to start with it’s not a desk that helps people! A help desk is a team of individuals (generally support staff) that provide solutions and resolutions to customers experiencing problems. Generally working at the 1st tier of the support model they are responsible for Incident reporting and resolution vs. Problem Management (I shall discuss those terms in greater depth below).

What is an Incident?

Simply put, an Incident is anything related to a customer contact (Incidents are also reported by automatic means via monitoring tools and I will discuss those types of incidents in greater depth in later posts). Incidents related to customers can be anything really – Information requests, Account Updates, Issue reporting are all examples of Incidents. Incidents can also be reported through a variety of different methods – this could include the phone (probably the most common), email (a close 2nd) and even chat. As mentioned previously, automated monitoring tools can also generate incidents.
All of these different Incidents coming from/through different sources would get routed to your Incident Management tool. For smaller teams, this could be something as simple as a spreadsheet but in larger organizations, either in-house customer-built applications or enterprise level tools prevail.

Incident Management (in a nutshell)

Your helpdesk is responsible for reviewing the information in each of these incidents and checking if there is an appropriate solution already available to the customer. For those instances for example where the customer wishes to update their Account Information, the helpdesk would look at the Incident, obtain the correct new information (& assuming that all appropriate security questions had been reviewed) log into the customers account and update the information. Once the information had been updated, they would inform the customer and then close the Incident. This is probably one of the simpler examples of an Incident from start to finish.
If the customer is reporting a problem or an issue, the Helpdesk staff are responsible for updating the Incident with all the relevant details as supplied by the customer. If the customer’s issue matches a known fix they are able to inform or supply that fix to the customer, however, if that is not the case they would need to escalate the issue to the Problem Management team. The simplest way to think of the Incident Management (Helpdesk/Tier1) team and the issues they resolve is that if a “band-aid” exists they can apply it. If more drastic attention is required they will need to call the Doctor!

Problem Management

Problem Management is where the interesting work really happens. Incident Management due to its repetitive nature can get tedious and is definitely a drain on the more skilled staff in your organization … if you have people like that, think about moving them into Problem Management if you have such a team or create one if you don’t! Problem Management is more in-depth. It’s where more often than not a single Problem is the cause of multiple Incident’s from multiple customers … as such you want your best people at this level. Generally, you would consider this Tier 2 or Tier 3 from an escalation and staffing perspective and dependent on your product or service you would have some very technically oriented people there. Their goal is not to just provide a band-aid, but rather to find out why the problem happened in the first place and fix it. Ideally, they should be looking at ways to fix it in such a way as to ensure that it doesn’t happen again!!

KPI’s

Now each of these teams would have different metrics in place. Obviously, your Tier1 team (Incident Management/Customer Service/Helpdesk) needs to get back to the customer in a timely manner. Their goal as already mentioned is to fix it, fix it fast and move on. A band-aid will not always reattach the finger though, so it’s up to the Tier2 team to ensure that the surgery goes smoothly which obviously takes a lot more time as you don’t want the surgeon doing a shoddy job!
Response Time – So with that analogy in mind … you want to have an aggressive goal set for your Helpdesk – try to work with the 80/20 rule … 80% of incidents responded to in 20 seconds (If you have the resources, otherwise maybe 20 minutes? Or 20 hours (that’s less than 1 day so might still be good – especially if you’re doing email support)? Or 20 days ß well that’s probably not really worthwhile) but hopefully you get the point? You want to set a specific goal for measuring how quickly your customers are getting a response.
Resolve Time – notice that I have separated these out. As much as you’d like to be able to resolve 100% of issues at that first contact, it’s not always going to be possible. However, you can have another measurement in place that tracks this which is the Resolve Time (sometimes called MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)). The Goal here is also to get that band-aid on as quickly as possible so you need to ensure that your Incident Management system has some sort of a knowledge base which helps your staff find the solution to commonly placed issues/questions. If they have the answer every time, then a 100% resolution at 1st contact is achievable! If not, however … it gets a bit more complicated because all of a sudden your Incident Management team becomes the customer and the team they go to is the Problem Management team. Guess what? They have a different measurement for Response Time and Resolve Time too!
Problem Management Response Time – now as previously mentioned these are generally your more senior staff and as much as you’d like them to be available 24/7 unless you have an extremely large organization this is probably fairly unlikely. So you are going to have built or determine some relevant response times based on their availability. In addition, as these escalated issues are generally issues that cannot easily be resolved, your resolution time is going to be extended also. Pick some appropriate intervals that meet your customers SLAs. Your main goal for this team (in addition to resolving the problem of course) is communication, communication, communication!!! They must inform your customer-facing agents what the issue is, what they are doing to resolve it and when they expect to have it resolved. If they cannot provide an estimated resolution time, they MUST provide your Tier1 team with an estimated update time.
Customer Complaints, Service, Staff, Tools, Training

Exceptional Customer Service

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One important thing to remember from a Customer Service point of view is that the last person you speak to (or chat with or email) is also the most likely to buy your service or product in the future. This is obviously not a hard and fast rule, but more an estimation of the impact word of mouth plays with any business!

A repeat customer does not happen by accident. It is something that is only developed (& nurtured) through hard graft and constant work. You need to build relationships and this is where Exceptional Customer Service comes into play.
Communication is key. You have to remember that when a customer first signs up to your service – you should THANK THEM. They didn’t need to bring their service to you as I am sure that regardless of your industry you have competitors. A simple Thank You email will most times suffice. When the scope of the contract is sufficient, ramp it up to a personalized letter or perhaps even a bottle of wine at Christmas time! Now speaking to them when they first sign up is important – granted and mentioned … how about when they are having a problem???
SPEAK EVEN MORE!!!
The only communication a customer has is with you and the only insight they have into the status of their issue is what you are telling them. There have been many instances where I have been able to “Save” a customer simply by giving them updates. Please note – I have not solved the problem, that still existed, all I have done is told them what we were doing to get their issue resolved, gave them a timeframe to when I expected (hoped and prayed in some cases!) their issues would be resolved, and when I would next communicate with them. One key thing to remember here is if you give a customer a commitment – make sure that you stick to it… Think about it from your point of view and if you were the one experiencing this issue – wouldn’t you like to know what was going on? You probably have customers of your own that you need to inform also! This is something that always seems to be lacking at the lower levels of a CSR team but should be enforced and driven down. Remember, your staff doesn’t need to give out sensitive information to satisfy your customers. Most customers know that the people they are speaking to are not the ones who have caused the problem and they are just there to help solve it – for those ones that don’t, I will discuss handling IRATE customers in depth in later posts.
Give your customer as many ways as possible to get in touch with you. Obviously, resource constraints come into play also as you don’t want to offer 24/7 telephone support if you have a staff of 1. But perhaps in addition to email, offer chat as an option. When you get to the size where you can offer telephone support – do it, even if its only on an outbound basis.
The one thing that you must always remember and keep uppermost in your mind whenever you are dealing with a Customer from a Service/Support standpoint, is that the issue they are experiencing which has caused them to contact you – is affecting them and THEIR BUSINESS. The only reason they are doing business with you is so that you can provide a specific service to them. Once you fail in that regards you have not fulfilled your side of the bargain and there are many surveys that point to the fact that when someone has a bad Customer Service experience, they are likely to tell at least 10 other people about it. Think about it this way … not only could you potentially lose the business and money this one customer is paying you … you have now lost 10 others also! Word of mouth, unfortunately, is a lot more prevalent when spreading the bad news than it is about the good service you provide.
Now, what do you do if you had an issue (I’m assuming you’ve kept the customer informed throughout the process so that they are not too annoyed with you!) and have only just restored the customer’s service? Well, the first time it happens, you probably don’t need to do anything, aside from a brief apology! Hopefully, you’ve got an SLA in place and you’ve not exceeded the terms set out inside them. However in some cases, you might want to consider upgrading a customer to a better package or service – even if only for a limited time – you’d be surprised how often that works with customers and although the cost to you is not incidental … think about what the cost could potentially be if you had to find another customer!
Exceptional Customer Service matters because retaining existing customers are significantly easier than finding new ones. Customer Churn and Retention are two phrases you might hear bandied about quite a bit depending on the industry you are in and in some – Telecoms for example – there are huge teams and departments created to address just these issues. Their main and only goals are to keep the existing customers that they have with them instead of losing them to other competitors. In a very simple example think about it like this. If you are the industry leader and have 1 million customers and your nearest competitor has only ½ a million, you might think you were doing great. However if you are only growing at the rate of 10% per year (due to the negative press you’ve been receiving) and are churning at 25% per year to that competitor (who in the same timeframe is growing at 50% per year) … how long do you think you have at the top? Trust me it’s a lot shorter than you think!!
You want your customers to experience Exceptional Customer Service and instead of that 50% growth going to your competition you want it to flow towards your company. This mantra must be believed, understood and LIVED by your Customer Service Representatives and Support Teams. They need to understand that the reason they are getting a paycheque is that those customers are paying for it!
It might be trite and tired and a little bit old but the one phrase that is absolutely true is –

The CUSTOMER is ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!
Love it, believe it and spread it on!
Customer Complaints, Service, Training

Importance of Exceptional Customer Service

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When was the last time you had a coffee?  I don’t mean in the office, but in a regular takeout joint, one of those ones with a drive-through window?  Have you gotten to the window after repeating your order to the “big talking head” only to have it wrong when you get there?


When someone says … “Can I take your order…” they should be prepared to do just that.  Other distractions and conversations should not take them away from the service they are meant to be provided to you!  Your team needs to learn the importance of this lesson – the Customer comes first and its always the customer that’s in front of you that you should be looking after.  Problems with previous customers or planning for future interactions should not impact the service you are providing at that moment in time.  Now some of the blame should definitely be placed at the feet of employers here. 

Your training should always include a Customer Service component and even for staff that might not necessarily be working on the front lines, this module is a useful skill … if for no other reason than they are better able to empathize and prioritize their work to better assist your front line team that is dealing with customers.

Remember – the goal at all times is not just solving the problem … even Customer Service teams are involved in Sales and the best and easiest sale is one that your existing customers make for you!  This happens through referrals and the only way you will get those is through Exceptional Customer Service.  If your customers know that you will go the extra mile for them and that you are going to be there for them, they will be happy to recommend your company and its product/services to others.  Conversely, they will also be the loudest voice denouncing your service if it is not up to the standard that they expect and are paying for!!
Customer Complaints, Funny, Service, Teams

Communication and Customer Service

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An extremely funny story that demonstrates the importance of listening to your customers.

This is some correspondence which actually occurred between a London hotel’s staff and one of its guests. The London hotel involved submitted this to the Sunday Times. No name was mentioned.

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Dear Maid,
Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way. Thank you,
S. Berman
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Dear Room 238,
I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. I hope this is satisfactory.
Kathy, Relief Maid

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Dear Maid — I hope you are my regular maid.
Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won’t need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc. Please remove them.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,

My day off was last Wed. so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn’t remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if I can of further assistance.

Your regular maid,
Dotty
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Dear Mr. Berman,

The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this A.M. that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper
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Dear Miss Carmen,
It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 745 AM and don’t get back before 530 or 6PM. That’s the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,

Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you,

Elaine Carmen,
Housekeeper
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Dear Mr. Kensedder,
My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,

I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Martin L. Kensedder
Assistant Manager
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Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don’t want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,

You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily (sic). I don’t know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don’t know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper
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Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess:
  • On shelf under medicine cabinet – 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
  • On Kleenex dispenser – 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3.
  • On bedroom dresser – 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4.
  • Inside medicine cabinet – 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
  • In shower soap dish – 6 Camay, very moist.
  • On northeast corner of tub – 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used.
  • On northwest corner of tub – 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.
Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings.
S. Berman
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Ok, I know that this seems extremely funny and silly, but think about it from the Customer’s perspective.  He has obviously passed the point of frustration.  Do you think he’ll be coming back to this establishment?  Will he be recommending them to anyone else?  I think the answer to both of those questions is a resounding – NO!  It is important to remember that you need to “Listen” to your customer – don’t just hear them but listen to what they are actually telling you.  More often than not a small problem can be avoided early on by taking this approach.