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CURRENT NEWSLETTER
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Lindemann Chimney Supply sells wholesale only to the chimney and hearth industry.
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 January 2008
Customers are not always right, but they are never wrong.
The phrase, “The customer is never wrong” is a bit hackneyed
but is still the foundation of good customer service. In our
industry I’ve found that much of the front line phone contact
with the customer is often lacking. The technicians and the
office staff take great pride in what they do. They often defend
their own position at the expense of the customer.
For example, a technician will explain a situation to a customer
and document it accordingly. The customer will call
back to the office confused on why the company is recommending
such work, which may be quite different from another
recommendation they got. The natural inclination is to find out
what the technician said and re-read them what the documentation
said and defend the position of the technician. We all
believe we are better than our competition. Often times we
take for granted that we know a heck of lot more about chimneys
than any customer that comes our way does. The bottom
line is the customer is confused. This may not be your fault,
but it is your problem.
Many times the “other guy” is recommending something
wrong, but he may have just done a better job explaining.
Their solution may be less complex than yours, albeit wrong.
Your job is to focus on the problem – the customer is confused.
Empathy is a good way to start. “It seems you may be
bit confused, or have conflicting opinions. Chimney problems
are often very confusing.” It is also helpful to shoulder some of
the blame and accept the problem as yours. “My apologies,
apparently we did not do a sufficient job explaining the situation.
Let me try and clarify.”
With this approach you’ll find the customer feels better about
themselves and the situation they are in. They will be more
inclined to see the issue the way you see it. They will be more
likely to put their trust in your business.
Euro English
The European Commission has just announced an
agreement whereby English will be the official language
of the European Union rather than German,
which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government
conceded that English spelling had some room for
improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan
that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly,
this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The
hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should
klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less
letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the
sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be
replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf
20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling
kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated
changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double
letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate
speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in
the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from
vords* *kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav
a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find
it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop
vil finali kum tru.
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BACK ISSUES OF OUR NEWSLETTERS
January 2008
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