Stupid rules at your firm? How to beat ‘em

Just this weekend I was shopping at BeBe, an upscale clothing store. While window shopping, I immediately spotted a dress in the window on the mannequin. I’ve been looking high and low for the perfect dress for an extremely important occasion in my life……and I knew that the dress on the mannequin was “the one!”. I hurriedly went inside the store and asked the associate for my size. She replied, “I’m so sorry, the only size “small” in the store is on the mannequin. And I try to keep all dresses on the mannequin for at least two weeks….which mean you can come back to the store in two weeks, I’d be happy to sell it to you then.” I felt this was the most stupid policy in retail I’d ever heard. Have retail employees forgotten that they are in business to “sell to customers” every opportunity they can get??? Seemed like she was in business to keep dresses on mannequins…..for two weeks or she’d be fired! I doubted that was the case, but this is another instance where businesses need to understand why they are in business, and throw out stupid policies that prevent them from serving the customer. If I can help it, I’ll try everything within my power to locate that dress at another store or online before I waste my gas driving all the way across town again….after all, today the new price of gas has reached an all-time high in my town of $4.00.

Dave from Phoenix. You have completely missed the point. Utterly and completely missed the point.

Customers !! Customers !!
Without them … Bye Bye. Go work somewhere else.

If your rules prohibit you from making logical and rational decisions, then your rules suck.

There are too many stupid rules to list, but here’s 3.

1. We need confirmation of an order even though the sales rep has told the admin staff what the order number is and that the customer is not at his desk but underneath a machine trying to fix it with a mobile phone in his hand saying “get me that part NOW !!!!!!!!!!”

2. Quotes… oh dear… Quotes
We have to send a quote request to another state. It’s on an excel spread sheet. That information then gets re-typed into another program and then checked by someone else to make sure it’s right.
The problem is: The person re-entering the data sometimes gets it wrong. Also the person checking the data doesn’t always know what the person who wants the quote needs. So, they assume, call the rep and the vicious circle continues.

Not only that, if a customer wants a quote in a hurry – forget it !! If the quote is stuffed up the rep finds out after it’s been emailed.

I’ve created a quote for them on excel that looks identical to their current one… All you gotta do is hit print and it creates a pdf, DONE !! …… so dumb.

3. Stock of products we sell:
We can’t afford to have the right CORE stock items on the shelf because we have 900 items on the shelf already (which no one wants)
All this has been identified, but still we have 600+ unwanted items sitting around because someone might want them – ahhhhhhhhh, so dumb !!

I work for the government. We are composed of useless rules, standards, guidelines, and policies.

Growth come by change, this is what companies today must embrace. Innovation and creativity defines what a company can achieve once followers in an organisation are encourage to take reasonable initiatives. Growth can not be sustained if people are not allowed to make changes. Therefore organisation must blend their leadership traits like those of transformation which encourages employees to act in the best interest of the company, and this includes bring in new ideas. In this competitive business environment firms can not afford to remain static with old rules. Organisations need to continue learning so that new ideas are discovered which can bring about competitive advantages to the firm. Lets not cheat ourselves that what we have found is na everlasting solution, in other way i will put it this way, growth is not forever if we not find new ideas we are bound to bury ourselves with old haunting ideas.

Thompson Chima

Excellent comments here. Makes great reading.

I have found in some companies the lower-paid employees are terrified of being fired; when the economy is bad, they don’t want to lose their jobs because the boss (or higher ups) are angry that the rules are not being followed. And some employees, sad to say, simply are not intelligent enough to make decisions on their own. Some need more experience, some need to forget the way things were done at an earlier job and do things a new way.

I am not going to comment about incompetent, lazy, careless, insolent, conniving, practical-joking, or mischief-making beyond this one sentence.

My father likes to complain about union people, who in their fights with management about jobs, demand rigid job classification, roles, duties, and descriptions. He doesn’t understand that upper management is often looking for an excuse to fire people, and those people who don’t follow the written rules – and in the process embarrassing someone in a position of power, even if it improves product, process, or customer relations – are the first to be fired. Unless they are on very cozy terms with the biggest boss of the business.

Arghh. The rules are written, evolving over time, to try to reduce the bad impact on a business that people’s stupidity causes. Lord knows I’ve been stupid, and I’m not going to entertain you guys with those stories.

Roger Steele wrote:
*begin quote*
Within the last week I called ATT to say that a friends phone was not ringing. I gave the person at ATT the number with the name. I also was asked and I gave my name and number, waiting over 5 minutes while ATT “checked” the line, and yes the line was not working.
Then I was told that ATT could not put in a repair order because my name was not on the account. When asked how I was going to call my friend, I was told to go to the location and “Have a nice day”. MA Bell is back and she has her rule book with her.
*end quote*

Twenty years ago I was visiting an older relative. A police officer knocked on the door – and told us her grandson had called them saying no one had been answering the telephone for several days. I went over to the phone and the line was dead. Turned out, though, the phone was dead, and she got a new one.

For your friend, just take your cell phone over, make the call to AT&T, explain the situation, and have your friend verify they own the account. Problem solved.

Annie

my name is Leticia, I will inherity a cotton yarn company in Brasil and, for this reason, I am already working at this company. My question is: how to motivate the employees who work directly with the production, operating the machines?

Thank you very much.

Maria Letícia

What happened to the goverment adding 13 more weeks to unemployment ????

This seems to be a fairly common problem: common sense is no longer common. I’ve found recently that no one is trained in customer service techniques anymore, very few people care about meeting the client’s expectations anymore, and there seems to be no leadership anywhere anymore. As an HR Director, I usually ask new hires why they chose our firm for employment, and have come to the realization that rarely do I find anyone who is there for the same reason we hired them. Thus, if you don’t train them early on they will be a liability from day one. Also, you can’t train for ethics.

Annie,
I’m amazed at what you are promoting without any considerations as to the potential impact that may occur. Granted, it the initial writer is working at a McDonalds, then sometime ignoring the company guidlines will have little impact.. and will definitely please the customer. However, if the writer was from a regulated organization, then throwing out the rule book is the very last thing you would want to do. Ignoring safe gaurds that are in place to protect the company, and your customers, can have a real devasting impact.
Lone story short… even regulated company’s do have to improve their ability to change. I always suggest that, “if you have a rule book then rule number one, is a way to change the rules within it.” This keep the company organized and able to adapt to changes as needed.

I’ve worked in Customer Service for years, and I’ve seen both sides of this.

I work for a delivery service. If I was going to institute one rule, it would be “tell the truth.” Don’t say something will arrive in 30 minutes when it will really take 45. Don’t say “free delivery” and institute a “packaging fee.” If the customers don’t trust us, they’ll go elsewhere.

My husband and I were both longtime Cingular customers. They wouldn’t let us covert our individual plans to a Family Plan without charging an early termination fee and doing a credit check. Hubby still uses Cingular (now AT&T Wireless), but I’m a Virgin Mobile customer.

In my personal point of view the worst thing my company have is to believe that I.E. is the master of all the processes and they have the worst mistakes all across the company, but guess what: when somebody must to explain wht did happen in a problem they never have problem “the rest of the company did not followed the instructions correctly” and because our country mgr is too a I.E., all we (who aren´t I.E.) are fools.

Hi, Steven! Annie here. Thanks for joining us! I too would like to hear more about rules that readers would like to see abolished (and why)! And you are so right about the rest rooms: Even the best-justified, most ironclad policy should allow for exceptions, especially when a desperate 5-year-old is involved!

I have really enjoyed reading about everyone’s Milkshake Moments (or lack thereof?) As the author of the book Anne highlighted today, I do have a couple quick comments.

First, this book is about organizational growth and how leaders overcome self-imposed obstacles in order to achieve it. I maintain that most examples of “bad” service are actually symptoms of a much greater organizational malaise. Most individuals aren’t stupid, but blind allegiance to arbitrary and arcane procedures can make any organization appear intellectually challenged.

I also must admit that selfishly I was hoping to see more answers to Anne’s thought-provoking question above: What one rule or policy would you like to see changed or abolished, and why?

I was reminded today by a friend of the pointless policy many retailers have against patrons using their “Employees Only” toilets. I have no doubt that there are real compliance issues here, ranging from insurance carrier mandates to municipal codes. However, when a five year old suddenly screams “emergency…now!” I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if the organization reacted accordingly. In my experience, all too often, this simply isn’t the case.

Indeed, the mess created by following the rules is often greater than the one that might occur by allowing for the occasional exception. May I assume that I’m not the only parent who has found themselves (and their clothes)on the wrong side of this bureaucratic pis**** match?

Stupid rules (or is it fools?) also apply to our government and politicians who can’t or won’t solve the growing energy crisis because they’re following “rules” that people years ago set up and are afraid of violating that policcal correctness.

Obama says we need to be independent of foreign oil by a specific date, but has NO concrete ideas at all for how to achieve that goal and slams any ideas that anyone else has as not effective or not environmental, or taking too long, not conserving enough, not providing enough relief, etc. That’s the “stupid rules mentality” that if we had followed throughout our history would have kept us from winning wars, going to the Moon and developing a free society that gives opportunity to all.

Seems all we’re left with is 55 speed limits, high gas prices to “conserve”, no drilling offshore or in Anwar, no new technical uses of coal, no development of nuclear because of “rules.” What ARE we going to run this country on in the next few years? Experimental solar energy and wind power? Perhaps we all should investigate how to spout wings.

Americans need to demand “milkshake” ingredients from lawmakers and candidates and get to work and do something and like this guy did, do it right away and for themselves.

The larger the organization the more beauracratic they become. I have found they typically throw rule makers, not entrepreneurs or fast-thinking business people at problem areas. Large organizations are more comfortable with stodgy, rule-making, procedure driven people who drive the faster moving crowd crazy. That is one origin of these freakish rules that drive ordinary businesspeople out of their mind.

http://www.thepeoplegroupllc.com/blog

I don’t think this is a phenomenon unique to the private, public or governmental sectors.

I think it is a societal problem: We move further and further away from applying common sense solutions in favor of what “the rule book” says. People are increasingly taught NOT to use their own judgment (which often makes more sense and is more effective than some arbitrary rule).

I am NOT saying rules don’t have their place in the world. I am saying that people should unquestioningly follow arbitrary, nonsense rules when common sense should apply.

It reminds me of passages from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged where people responded when faced with a unique situation that no rule existed for that situation and simply passed the buck on to a higher up (who simply reiterated the underling’s position).

For those of us who have read Atlas Shrugged we all know how THAT society fared.

I have been with this mobile company for the last 7 years. Recently I added a new line to the family plan, for my son. The equipment came free after mail in rebate but on the condition that a new wifi service is to be added to the family plan. So I added the wifi service to the family plan using myexisting number. The mail in rebate was rejected.

I called up the rebate department and found out the reason, the new service was not added to the new phone line (in the family plan). I politely explained to the representative that the service was added to the family plan but she wouldnt budge. She kept me on hold for a few minutes and confirmed from her supervisor.

This time I called up customer support (not the rebate dept). After explaining my position, she put me on hold and discussed the issue with the rebate dept. She came back with the same answer !

What happened after that reminds me on the milkshake incident.

Customer Supprt: Sorry sir, the mail in rebate requires that you add the wifi service to the new line.
Me: But I have added the wifi service to the family plan.
CS: Sorry sir but you will have to add the wifi serive to the new line.
Me: How much does that serive cost ?
CS: It is the same price…
Me: Is it for the family plan ?
CS: Yes sir, nothing changes.
Me: Then if there is no difference in price or service and both ways the wifi service gets added to the family plan then whay was my rebate rejected? In both cases I will pay the same amount every month, it is the same family plan, billed to the same person at the same address for the same amount. Then whats the difference ?
CS: There is no difference sir….
Me: Then…

She put me on hold for a couple of minutes and when she came back on told me that the rebate was re-submitted and everything was sorted out !!!

Annie,
Because you’ve read some book you like, you’ve gone off on a tangent here that doesn’t really address how to handle this specific problem. The new VP needs to go to his management, ask for permission to do the job he was given as best as possible, and when granted that let them know that he expects make many revisions to the “rule book.” Then he needs to start editing the “rule book” down, eliminating all of the bureaucratic nonsense that’s keeping his staff from doing their jobs. In the preface, one paragraph is added, in large type, that says that nothing in this rulebook should ever inhibit customer service staff from doing what’s right for the customer. Now, of course, he might really want to just throw the rule book away, but his staff might revolt, and take their phony grievances to top management, and does he have the confidence that he could survive such a revolt from a group of long-term employees?

I work for one of the biggest banks in canada, and this article really struck home. Our company recently introduced a nation wide objective to improve customer service. It is 13 steps that they want all customer service representatives to follow, and to add insult to injury, we were actually observed and “graded” on how well we follow these steps.

I found this to be utterly ridiculous, because every person is an individual, and who determined that these steps are the best way to serve each and every customer? I feel that I am great at serving clients because i dont serve them how i want to be served or how my company wants me to serve them. I serve my clients the way THEY want to be served. I know which clients want to be served extremely professionally, which ones want me to joke around, which ones want me to schmooze with them a bit, which ones just want me to do their transactions, which ones want to be upsold and given financial advice, and which ones don’t. What ever happened to putting your faith in your front line employees and letting them do what you hired them to do. If a company gets a lot of client complaints about a certain employee, then management needs to perhaps offer that employee individual coaching. Had they just released the 13 steps as a guideline, that was one thing, but to actually have a manager from another branch come and observe and grade us? To me that was just a smack in the face, and actually made me feel less motivated, because here I am day in and day out providing excellent and personalized customer service, yet I’m being told to be a robot. It just doesn’t make sense.

A lot of large companies just don’t get it. People that take the time to come in to the bank (as opposed to doing online/telephone banking) want to be served by a person, and not a robot. The politics are so bad, that sometimes things just dont get done because our partners don’t want to stray from their defined tasks and guidelines, and the only ones that suffer are the clients.

However, I am not so convinced that banks (or other large companies) really even care about clients, they just care about shareholders, and the fact of the matter is that they arent even impressing their shareholders because the whole financial sector in canada is basically in status quo. What ever happened to the idea that big sales start with great service? By taking away that personalized touch to customer service, you are just making your customers feel like they are just numbers, and not valued clients.

Wow, after reading this article my first thought was my previous employer. I worked for AIM Investments for just under 2 years and they had a “bible” as they called it for how to do anything. If it wasn’t contained there then it was like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. I’m going to get a few copies and send them to management. To bad they probably won’t get it!

Within the last week I called ATT to say that a friends phone was not ringing. I gave the person at ATT the number with the name. I also was asked and I gave my name and number, waiting over 5 minutes while ATT “checked” the line, and yes the line was not working.
Then I was told that ATT could not put in a repair order because my name was not on the account. When asked how I was going to call my friend, I was told to go to the location and “Have a nice day”. MA Bell is back and she has her rule book with her.

Stupidity is the reason I no longer work for a corporation and will never return. I worked for HSBC for several years and quickly became one the top producers of the consumer lending division. When a deal would get declined there was a 2 day appeal process. I would ask the same question about my 500K transaction for several weeks and the answer I recieved from the yes man manager was “I don’t know, it has to go through the appropriate channels” But a bigger concern to them rather than a 500K transaction was whether or not I had a tie on or that I punched in the exact minute I began working that morning. These stupid rules only attract stupid employees and even further, they deter intelligent, producing empoyees from working there. Bottom line -Profits fall. But corporations keep hiring those who only care what time is lunch and how many vacation days they get a year. You can pay them less. I was layed off from HSBC 2 weeks before christmas. I was probably up on the list to go because I asked questions. What the hell is wrong with me? It has been the best thing thats ever happened to me as I am now in a position with a start up company that compensates me directly according to the work I put in. They also not only take my advice but ask for it.

If you think that’s bad, try working for the government!

While I agree there are many rules that make little sense in today’s environment, don’t automatically assume that a rule taht you don’t understand or agree with must be a “stupid” rule.

Quite a few years ago I worked at a webhosting firm as a server engineer. Quite often I would come into conflict with sales reps who didn’t like some of the rules that the technical departments insisted upon. While a few of those rules were a bit shaky and deserved to be reviewed, most of them were based upon solid technical reasons that a member of the sales team was unlikely to really grasp without spending a few years working in the IT field.

My favorite was when a salesman tried to argue (thankfully unsuccessfully) that we were losing sales if we kept insisting that customers’ servers had to have the latest security patches and anti-virus software on their servers.

Stupid rules come about because of stupid employees that do not use common sense. Firms are afraid of potential lawsuits from errors employees might make. Thus the rule book which makes even the brightest employee conform to the restrictions in fear of making a mistake thus losing their job, plus this practice breeds more dumb employees to be hired. We are losing a hold on ingenuity and creativity to operate business at the highest productivity and effiency.
Management needs to change their style to hired only the proficient to make better relationships and trust with their employees to say, “Hey, I trust your judgement.”

Wow! I am truly amazed that someone is actually addressing the process inhibitors that keep quality customer service from being a reality.

I could write a book about things my company does to stifle any effort to deliver quality customer service.

For the sake of brevity, I will just submit this example. I work for a customer service organization which sells 7×24 service contracts. The company will not assign a technician to a standby shift during the week. We only have shift assignments on the weekend and are regularly told that, “sooner or later, standby is going to be eliminated completely because of the huge cost associated.”

The policy effectively insures that during the week, service will be delayed or deferred until the next business day. This is not stellar customer service, or what the customer is paying for.

Thanks,

My company has a policy that you can’t hang your diplomas on your office walls. Although we compete on our ‘competence’ we have been told, These are the bank’s walls, not your walls. Do not personalize them. I would think you would want your employees to feel that their office was their ‘home away from home’.

The vice president needs to go through that rulebook and rewrite it. When an employee says, “It isn’t in the rulebook,” the vice president (who says s/he was hired to improve customer service) just needs to say, “Do it on my say so.” Vice presidents usually have a little pull. This vice president needs to start using his/hers.

Back office staff:

I understand your frustration at having to go through Team Leads for the most minor of issues. However, that is a different issue than being at a meeting where the Client asks YOU a question.

First, there is nothing unusual about bringing folks to meetings with the understanding that they have a non=speaking role. It is a way to professionally devlop you and an easy way to get someone else to take notes. However, as an observer, you should make it a point to be away from the main table if possible. Preferably in a seat behind your TL. that way, questions are directed at the TL and not you. And, if the Client purposely asks you a question, take a second or two to contemplate your response, giving the TL ample opportunity to jump in. If they don’t, then proceed with your well-reasoned response. If the TL complains later, let them know that you provided them an opportunity to respond and that it would have been impolite to ignore the Client. Alternatively, you could immediately defer to the TL, but that seems tacky to me.

Note, some TLs may not like the first approach, and if they’re too vehement in their approach to you, I’d start looking for another job.

It’s a bit of a paradox. The reason the rules get written in the first place is because someone made a bad error in judgment that cost the company a lawsuit, fine, or a customer. The challenge is how to change a culture to encourage creative problem solving when most corporate employees’ experience is that when you screw up, you get yelled at or worse.

A company can’t have it both ways. And in today’s world of accounting regulations, environmental laws, OSHA work rules, etc. compliance is king because it keeps the bosses out of trouble.

I just don’t see how a large company can sustain a creative culture for long before running into a real compliance issue at some point. It’s inevitable.

In the financial services company I work at, only Team Leads are allowed contact with a client. Even if the back staff need to ask the client a small question via the phone – we’re not allowed. All emails have to be sent by the Team Leads and all correspondence is done by Team Leads. Waste of time……….

As I am growing in the company, I sit on meetings. As a silent participant. If a clients asks me a questions, I feel weird saying anything as one TL has told me not to say ANYTHING in these meetings – she is a little controlling though. No duh.

I didn’t see a place for comments on the column itself, so I’ll post this here.

The book is security. Employees can cling to it and say that they followed the rules and, by extension, are performing their jobs.

What I read into the letter is that there may have been a lot of management reshuffling and failed attempts at change. The more failed changes, the less trust. Hence, they will cling to something solid (the book) even more.

So, you can rewrite the book. You could also think of ways to reward honest attempts at doing the right thing. Newsletters with good stories, small (and timely!) bonuses/gift cards/etc for exceptional stories, etc. This is more about establishing employee trust (IMO) than customer service. So, more carrots, less stick.