Satisfaction

This week's 2 - on  - 1 topic is Satisfaction. Satisfaction is basically the fulfillment of a need or a want. I'm certain most of you have been  asked to respond to a Customer Service (CS) survey at one time or another, and it wasn't long ago that when you called a support line the guarantee of an unhappy experience was assured by the heavily accented agent on the other end of the call.

At one time, when I was a supervisor in a call center in Fort Worth for RadioShack products, I had an excellent phone agent named Dinesh Dave. Dinesh was of Indian descent and he had a fairly strong Indian accent,  several times per week customers would refuse to speak with Dinesh and demand to speak to his supervisor so the call would be transferred to me. The first thing said to me was usually where are you located? About 50% of the time I was called a liar when I responded "Fort Worth, Texas". Obviously I was in India and my Texas accent was very poor. When I explained that my accent was from California many still accused me of lying and  claimed they would stop shopping at RadioShack until we had USA based support centers.

Occasionally the caller would be reasonable and we'd have a good laugh and then I went ahead with solving the problem but there were always callers who simply wre not satisfied, insisting we clearly were not USA based. I would then give them the RadioShack main switchboard number - it had an  817 area code,  not a toll-free 800 number. Then they would complain about having to pay for a call and I'd say call that number and ask for me - or they could simply let me solve their problem.

It was always fun to get a celebrity caller - I regularly dealt with the wife of conservative commentator Bill Kristol. She was always cordial but the best celebrity caller I dealt with was Noel Paul Stookey - known to most as the Paul in Peter,  Paul and Mary. He too was cordial but said he had been promised a cell phone he purchased would do certain things which it could not do. He simply said I could have him as a  satisfied customer advocate who would always be happy to spread the good word or he could simply say he'd never shop with us again and happily say why that was.

I then contacted the District Manager responsible for the offending store manager, explained the situation and said I was going to give Noel a new phone that did perform as promised and he agreed but told me to send Noel to his office - it seems he did not quite believe the customer was who he said he was. I called Noel back and gave him the info and the next day I got a call from that District Manager who admitted he did not think it was  really the Paul Stookey. I laughed and he said all was now good. Noel then called to express his satisfaction with my efforts on his behalf and invited me to a CD wrap party for a new children's CD that was about to be released (that company is called Hugworks). Of course I went and when we met face to face I guess I stared a bit and Noel asked what was wrong. I just laughed and said other than  athletes, most "famous" people I met were much shorter than my 6'2". He laughed and  said that happened a lot - because Mary was so tall many people were surprised how tall he and Peter really were. I had a great time talking music with the ex-rock and roller that became a folkie.  We were both satisfied with the results of that encounter and yes, I left with an autographed Peter, Paul and Mary photo.

There have been several posts on Facebook recently that suggest one cannot be truly happy until he or she becomes satisfied with what they have. That seems to suggest that setting high goals is a bad thing - and that is something i totally disagree with. Setting goals high enough that achieving them requires real effort - and learn to appreciate what you obtain while you continue moving in the direction you have chosen. Most importantly, never be satisfied with what you know. As long as you are breathing,  keep learning.

That's my quick shack take on this week's topic. Be sure to visit Ramana's blog for his take on the topic he selected at Ramana's Musings.