I observed two events over the past 24 hours that appear to
be completely unrelated, but are in fact, two totally similar events. The two items are the upset victory of
Brown in Mass., and the apparent firing or resigning of Linda Colt, customer
service person at Lowrance Electronics.
The similarity is arrogance.
Last year President Obama ran, and won, on the concept that
Washington was not listening and taking the arrogant attitude that they were
smarter than the people. Then he put
into practice many policies with which the people didn’t totally agree. The people spoke through the “tea
party” movement and in other ways, but Washington gave off the feeling that
they were not listening. The
people interpreted this as arrogance, and they elected the first person they
could find who presented the case that he was listening.
In the case of Lowrance, they had a terrific customer
service person who would take care of customers quickly. Most importantly, she was available via
phone or e-mail. I talked with her
a couple of times, and the service was great. On the other hand, I have heard of others who went through
the more traditional customer service system, and did not receive good service.
Linda’s reputation for good service grew on the bass-fishing
discussion boards. Then when she
resigned under pressure (a family member’s side of the story) the story took on
a life of its own. Hundreds of
customers sent messages to Lowrance management expressing their disappointment
for her leaving. The company
quickly sent out another release and have indicated that they are discussing
reconciliation.
The moral is to listen to the customer, (voter). When we don’t listen to employees,
customers, constituents, and stake holders we appear to be arrogant. We may not feel arrogant. We may not mean to be arrogant, but
that’s how the public receives it.
We need to make every effort to listen. We need to be on the discussion boards hearing what our
customers are saying. And, we need
to be talking to them and giving them our side of the story while being sure to
listen to them.
