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.

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 !!

Thompson Chima

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

http://www.thepeoplegroupllc.com/blog

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 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 !!!