In the course of doing business for a consulting customer, I started receiving emails addressed to all employees regarding a successful customer service call.
One individual was being highly praised for turning an irate customer issue into a satisfactory resolution.
Time passed and the volume of "me too" congratulatory accolades continued to pour in regarding this singular incident, with ever increasing sparkle and attention getting "Good Job!" and "You Care!" banners attached to the emails.
After the third round of praise emails about Cappie P.
, my information systems instincts started to kick in with curiosity over how many more of these messages would be spread to inboxes everywhere, before someone would be alerted to quiet the enthusiasm.
I could see this company relies heavily on email communications, so the system cost of circulating highly graphical messages throughout the company would become a load pretty quickly somewhere in the sea of servers.
As the praise for Cappie's good call began to wind down to silence, I started feeling a different question haunting me.
To test my instincts, I went to another consultant working for the company and asked, "Does it make you wonder about this company when one good customer service call leads to so much hoopla?' "Yes it does," replied my consulting compatriot.
If a single good call could stir up such emotion, it made me wonder how much longer the company will have any customers to do business with.
I decided to take some action on my own part.
I went to the team leader for the project I was working on, and requested that she find out where Cappie P.
sits, and buy Ms.
P.
some stamps with my 50 cent personal donation as a Tuesday morning bonus for making such a great customer service call.
The team leader looked at me incredulously and asked me again what the 50 cents was for.
I told her that I wanted to do my part as an independent contractor to recognize the accomplishment of Cappie P.
with more than just words of praise, and offer a 50 cent stamp reward from my own pocket for doing the kind of work that raised such a level of emotion around the company camp fires.
The team leader then smiled and told me to keep my 50 cents, because she did not know where Cappie was located, and she had been deleting all the praise ridden emails.
In this case, my grass roots recognition program did not get past my attempt to launch it, but I went back to my chair with the satisfaction that I had at least tried to provide some tangible recognition for doing a good job in dealing with unhappy people.
One individual was being highly praised for turning an irate customer issue into a satisfactory resolution.
Time passed and the volume of "me too" congratulatory accolades continued to pour in regarding this singular incident, with ever increasing sparkle and attention getting "Good Job!" and "You Care!" banners attached to the emails.
After the third round of praise emails about Cappie P.
, my information systems instincts started to kick in with curiosity over how many more of these messages would be spread to inboxes everywhere, before someone would be alerted to quiet the enthusiasm.
I could see this company relies heavily on email communications, so the system cost of circulating highly graphical messages throughout the company would become a load pretty quickly somewhere in the sea of servers.
As the praise for Cappie's good call began to wind down to silence, I started feeling a different question haunting me.
To test my instincts, I went to another consultant working for the company and asked, "Does it make you wonder about this company when one good customer service call leads to so much hoopla?' "Yes it does," replied my consulting compatriot.
If a single good call could stir up such emotion, it made me wonder how much longer the company will have any customers to do business with.
I decided to take some action on my own part.
I went to the team leader for the project I was working on, and requested that she find out where Cappie P.
sits, and buy Ms.
P.
some stamps with my 50 cent personal donation as a Tuesday morning bonus for making such a great customer service call.
The team leader looked at me incredulously and asked me again what the 50 cents was for.
I told her that I wanted to do my part as an independent contractor to recognize the accomplishment of Cappie P.
with more than just words of praise, and offer a 50 cent stamp reward from my own pocket for doing the kind of work that raised such a level of emotion around the company camp fires.
The team leader then smiled and told me to keep my 50 cents, because she did not know where Cappie was located, and she had been deleting all the praise ridden emails.
In this case, my grass roots recognition program did not get past my attempt to launch it, but I went back to my chair with the satisfaction that I had at least tried to provide some tangible recognition for doing a good job in dealing with unhappy people.
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