The Real Mission of a Corporation

Most Corporations in todays world have forgotten one simple fact, they are in the customer service business.

Comcast and Verizon happen to use skinny metal wires or fiber optic cable surrounded by a thin covering of plastic, a couple of metal connectors and a computer that records the stuff the tv stations show. That in a nutshell (IMHO), is how their business is conducted.

EVERY single corporation, business or self employed individual all share the same basic fact - your true mission statement starts with:

I am going to service my customers by... being on time, accurate and providing the best (fill in the blank).

Call me Sumi naive, but that is what I truly believe.

WRONG! Take the cable/internet industry. The consumer in their eyes has unlimited time to wait around for appointments, wade through voice mail hell, be put on hold for hours at a time to try to talk to completely overworked, manipulated uncaring or poorly trained 'customer service agents'.

The consumer is usually considered to be ill-informed, angry, and completely out of step with the reality of the situation.

Almost all of the companies I deal with need more customer service reps with better training. The only exception I can add to this mix is Apple, their customer service is a model to behold, no wait times, available supervisors, and a real caring about you and their products. Oh yeah, and Nordstrom's.

So this got me to thinking. Look at this:
Edward Whitacre Jr, CEO AT&T, salary with compensation, 2006, $60.7 million
Gary Forsee, Ceo, Sprint & Nextel, salary with compensation, 2006, $21.3 million
Ivan Seidenberg, CEO Verizon, salary with compensation, 2006, $21.3 million

Now, if each of these guys, contributed back to their company lets say 50% of thier salary earmarked for customer service training and new hires, I have a feeling things would be much different on my side of the phone line.

Oh crap, I forgot, it's the paycheck they receive, not the customer service thats important to them. After all, so many of these CEO's are not in it for the long haul... nope, silly me... they are here just long enough to get their name out there (power! celebrity! ego!), long enough to get on some Boards (fun! easy money! free vacations and private planes!), long enough to fatten their bank accounts (retirement was never so good!), and just long enough they can get away with robbing the company of its core values, and dumping the mess on someone else's shoulders.

And that in a nutshell is my problem with todays Corporate America.