THE TELEPHONE VOICE

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1930, Page 6

THE TELEPHONE VOICE

When customers complain LONDON,September 15. Sir F. Goodenough, chairman ofi the Government Committee on Education in .Salesmanship, in a paper read at-the Drapers’ Chamber of Trade, at • Cambridge suggested that,? on every tele-. iPhone in a business.house .there should, be, hung a card. bearing the text, "A , sqffc answer turnetlr away wrath. 3 *''; • '/‘lt is not enought,” said Sir Francis “that ordinarily good manners should lie possessed by all who answer a customer on the telephone. The ‘voice’ that to the customer represents the whole firm and reflects its whole policy ought to be ageenbje to the ear, convey immediately the desire: to serve, find, syinwith. the . customer’s troubles,

( .and make the customer realise tluit he or. she is regarded a® one of the first, im- , ,-pqrtance. Every telephone operator . should be selected with as much care and for the same qualities as a 8.8. C. and everyone who speaks to a customer on the telephone should try ;tp be an ‘Uncle Rex’’ or an ‘Aunt i Jftophie.’ ” 1 rmCornplaints were very rarely illfounded, and the fact was not that the British customer complained too often and without cause, but that he did not complain as often as those whose guiding principle was service would wish. “British goods and British brains,” said Sir Francis, “are second to none in the world, but the brains in British industry are not all being applied as they should be to the most vital problem confronting it. Salesmanship, the very core of commerce, if it is to eventuate in permanent profitable trade, must begin in the board .room,- must continue in the office,, must control the factory and transport organisation,- and must persist in seryice,: after sale:' . iln the icing run the customers :are" the •employers of a firm,-.and businessrclsi?-' tions can only be permanently able to the seller if they are also pro- - fitable to the buyer.”