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PLEASE! Let Me Speak to a Human!
Do you remember when one could call a company and speak to a real human being ? What happened?
In our rush to reduce costs in the corporate world by slashing headcount we have arrived at a place where, if you have a question or a problem, there’s no one to talk to anymore. Organizations have rushed to implement chatbots, the majority of which are unable to answer standard questions, offering only boilerplate “non-help”.
The result: a race to the bottom with customer service standing at an all-time low.
This presents a wonderful opportunity: Any company that wants to stand out and develop a unique relationship with its customer base can now stand head-and-shoulders above the rest by employing human beings who interact with other human beings. The world has become increasingly frustrated and exhausted from useless and faceless technology that has failed to replace useful and friendly humans.
This presents a unique opportunity to become distinctive in the marketplace. Do you want to be different and better? If so, dust off the phones and bring back the people to answer them when customers call.
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It’s Not Easy Taking the High Road.
I invite readers to submit "Guest Blogs" for publication here. This week's blog comes from Patricia J. Moser, a Certified Higher Ground Leadership(R) Pathfinder whose profile you may find here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is always challenging...
The Truth Shall Set You Free
In corporate life, the absence of truth has become the accepted norm. We don't tell the truth in many business areas - budgets, financial reports, advertising, public relations, labeling, contract negotiations, resumes, performance reviews and expense reports, to name...
Why We Do Things
I wrote recently about the two priorities of organizations: “What we do” and “How we do it”. And then, during a conversation in which I was congratulating a client who had been promoted to a senior leadership role in an international organization, he said to me,...
Elegance – The Essential Leadership Quality
We spend a lot of our time learning, and adding what we learn to what we do. We think of this as "growing". But if you observe someone who is brilliant at what they do - say, an athlete, or an actor or a dancer (and often a great leader) - one can often notice that...
“The Whitewater Rule” of Leadership
I am back refreshed from one of my favorite pastimes—kayaking—in Algonquin Park, nearly 8,000 square kilometers (3,000 square miles) of pristine wilderness in Ontario, Canada. Nature's energy in a river or a Northern lake is deeply nourishing to my soul—a meditation...
Strengths-based Leadership Theory Revisited
In my 1989 book, "The Way of the Tiger: Gentle Wisdom for Turbulent Times" (still going strong!) I introduced the concept of leading with strengths, since popularized by Gallup, among others, as "strengths-based leadership". In the 25 years since I helped to found...
The Courage to Bring Spirit to Work
Here's a paradox of our times: Most of us yearn for opportunities to bring spirit into our lives (whatever that may mean for each of us). But, most of us lack the courage to bring spirit to the one place where we spend most of our time - work. Generally speaking, we...
Culture is Everything
In most organizations there are two processes happening at the same time: What We Do, and How We Do It. I work every day with brilliant leaders, and I find that the "What We Do" part in their organizations is typically in much better shape than the "How We Do It"...
Thank Your Mentor, Coach or Teacher Today.
Great quotes are like a great wine for the soul. They must be savored so that we can absorb the entire experience. A great quotation deserves our respect. And so, in the presence of a great quotation, we should pause, take our time with it, and let the beauty,...
The Fallacy and Danger of Competition
The prevailing paradigm for running modern organizations is competition. Competition, as defined by many leadership teachers, writers and consultants, draws its analogies from war and sports. But modern organizations are not at war (or at least, shouldn't be) and...
Being Conscious is the New Cool
Signs are appearing that the old order is crumbling and a new era is dawning - an era in which swagger, bullying, and deceit are being replaced by humility, service and community. In other words we are witnessing our transformation from un-cool to cool - from...
Google’s 8 Good Behaviors (for leaders)
In most organizations - corporations, governments, not-for-profits, families, schools - setting high standards is the result of a small number of things done extremely well. Choosing those few practices that are the necessary conditions for high performance, and...
