By Letzen Maldonado 
Sunday, September 14, 2003

Pace Productivity conducted surveys among 690 employees and entrepreneurs across North America. They asked two questions. The first was designed to find out what factors impede respondents' productivity that are outside of their control. The second was designed to find out how much people take responsibility for wasting their own time.

When respondents were asked the first question, "What things, outside of your control, get in the way of your productivity?" a surprising number of respondents mentioned "Customer requests: service / problems / complaints". This response came in second, only behind "Paperwork / administrative tasks"!

What does this say about the Customer Service mentality of our employees and our leaders?

Frankly, I was not too surprised with the findings. Poor customer service is everywhere. I'm sure it's driven by this attitude that customers are an interruption.

An unknown author once stated: "Customers are not an interruption to our jobs - they are the reason for our jobs." We seem to have forgotten this in our foucus on numbers driven by our quest for improved bottom lines.

But if we see servicing our customers as a something that gets in the way of doing our jobs and wastes our time, how can we even consider being in business? After all, who buys the products and services we market? Without the customer, there IS no bottom line.

-- This article is available for free reprint in exchange for credit to Letzen Maldonado and link to managementaides.com.