. Bell telephone magazine . technical efficiency increased, the number of personal contacts decreased. But these contacts are as important as they ever were—if not more so. In that light, AT&Ts Board Chairman gives some of his views on the necessity for all employees to be responsive to our customers individual needs and concerns. When we tellcustomers, We hear you,wed better be listening. by John D. deButts If you were to sit at my desk andread and answer the mail I get abouttelephone service, youd come to re-alize, if you dont already, howmuch little things mean; howsometimes lifelong impres
. Bell telephone magazine . technical efficiency increased, the number of personal contacts decreased. But these contacts are as important as they ever were—if not more so. In that light, AT&Ts Board Chairman gives some of his views on the necessity for all employees to be responsive to our customers individual needs and concerns. When we tellcustomers, We hear you,wed better be listening. by John D. deButts If you were to sit at my desk andread and answer the mail I get abouttelephone service, youd come to re-alize, if you dont already, howmuch little things mean; howsometimes lifelong impressions ofthe character of our business areformed on the basis of a single con-tact with just one employee. Rathersignificant. Id say, when you con-sider that the Bell System employsmore than a million men andwomen. You know, its only natural whena customer feels service is poor orwhen he thinks his bill is too highthat he is going to register a com-plaint with someone. But in all myyears in this business, I cant recall. ever receiving a letter that com-plained solely about cost or , the key element in all the let-ters of complaint I get is how thecustomer was treated by an em- ployee of the company. As a matterof fact, Im sometimes amazed atjust how tolerant our customers areof situations that to me would seemintolerable, before poor treatmentby an employee finally pushes themto write to me or to one of the otherofficers, or to a public utility com-missioner. So that I dont give the wrong im-pression, let me add that intermixedwith those complaints are a goodlynumber of commendation commendation letters, ofcourse, always talk about how anemployee treated the customer in amanner so unusually satisfying thatthe customer felt compelled to writeto me about it. Id like to share portions of someof those letters with you. Heres onefrom a man in New Jersey: Today, Saturday, at approxi-mately 9:30 , my next doorneighbor rang my door bell to ad-vise me that eit
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