2007 October » AchieveMax® Blog

Monthly ArchiveOctober 2007

Moment with Melanie Melanie L. Drake on 31 Oct 2007

When the Employee Understands Customer Satisfaction and Service Better than the Manager

We’ve all had good customer service, and we’ve all had bad customer service. But those moments of exceptional customer service are few and far between.

Since it’s Halloween, I’m reminded of an incident a few years back. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

I was at dinner at a local restaurant toward the end of October and was greeted by my waitress, who was dressed in a beautiful Snow White costume with well-done make-up and manicured nails. No Snow White at Disney World or Disneyland could have competed with her. Everyone she served loved her costume and was thrilled to be served by Snow White. I thought it was a great idea that management asked their employees to dress up for Halloween because everyone so obviously responded positively to it.

Toward the end of the meal, instead of having Snow White return to our table, a new waitress, dressed in normal, drab waitress apparel, appeared. When asked where Snow White was, we were told that she had been sent home.

Gasp!

To this day, I wish I had said something to this by-the-book manager. Sure, Snow White didn’t show up to work in her approved uniform. Yes, she didn’t ask if she could wear a costume for Halloween. But were her customers satisfied and happy? You bet!

There’s a Japanese proverb—Deru kugi wa utareru—which means the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, and obviously that’s what happened in this case. Snow White made waves, and her manager didn’t like it.

However, how can you truly provide exceptional customer satisfaction if you don’t empower your people to make decisions and allow them to think out of the box to solve customer problems? I’ve seen a number of instances recently when so-called empowered employees were reprimanded for not doing what the manager wanted but the internal and external customers were happy with the outcome.

In the end, Snow White provided excellent customer service, while the manager apparently didn’t notice how delighted his customers were; the manager was at fault himself for bad customer satisfaction, which I’m sure was not his intent.

If I had been the manager, I would have made wearing the Halloween costumes for the wait staff an annual event. Word of mouth would have increased his business, customer retention would have been high, and his customers would have been happy.

As Theodore Roosevelt said:

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do!”

Melanie L. Drake is a consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: customer service, customer satisfaction, customer retention, empowerment, empower, management

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Fact-A-Day from Harry K. Harry K. Jones on 30 Oct 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 30, 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. In the spirit of C.A.N.I. (Continuous And Never-ending Improvement), here are this week’s new facts—one for each day of your coming week. Pass them on to others to keep the spirit alive or invite your friends and family to visit our blog where they can also view previous entries.

Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first.
Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.
The world’s record for biggest pumpkin is currently held by a gigantic gourd weighing a whopping 1,385 pounds!
The estimated number of potential “trick-or-treaters” — 5- to 13-year-olds — across the United States last year was 36.4 million. Of course, many other “kids” — older than 13, and younger than 5 — also go “trick-or-treating.”
There are 519 U.S. establishments that manufactured nonchocolate confectionary products. These establishments employed 23,343 people and shipped $7 billion worth of goods that year. California also led the nation in this category, with 79 establishments. Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.
If you see a spider on Halloween, it is the spirit of a loved one watching over you.
700,000 immigrants came to America in the 1800s during the Irish Potato Famine, bringing with them the traditions of Halloween and the use of jack-o’-lanterns. Traditionally, the lantern was carved from a turnip, potato, or beet and lit with a burning lump of coal or a candle. These lanterns represented the souls of the departed loved ones and were placed in windows or set on porches to welcome the deceased. They also served as protection against malevolent sprits or goblins freed from the dead. Turnips and gourds were not as readily available in the Americas so the pumpkin was used and found to be quite an adequate replacement. The pumpkin jack-o’-lantern has been an essential part of Halloween celebrations since the Victorian days and today is a universal symbol of Halloween.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

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Generational Gems for Future Leaders Harry K. Jones on 25 Oct 2007

How to Be More Effective with People

As I mentioned when we started this series of generational gems, these stories have been around forever. However, considering the level of service we find in today’s marketplace—regardless of the industry—this is an analogy that should be retold again and again within many organizations. As a result, EXPECTATIONS can be given, ACCOUNTABILITY established, and CONSEQUENCES shared. Let’s not let this gem fade into the past.

Remember the old parable about the Wind and the Sun? Wind, being the blowhard that he is, bragged that he was more powerful than the Sun. So the Sun challenged the Wind to a test of strength. “See that young man walking along the road down there? Let’s see if you’re strong enough to make him give up his fine wool coat,” said the Sun. “Nothing to it,” Wind smirked. “Watch this!”

Wind The Wind inhaled mightily and then expelled a cruel blast of cold air at the lonely figure below. The young man was almost swept off his feet, but the coat stayed on. In fact, the harder the Wind blew, the more diligently the man struggled to retain possession of his jacket and its protective warmth. Finally the Wind gave up trying to force the battered and buffeted man to give up his coat.

Sun “Now, let me try,” said the Sun. And the Sun smiled warmly and expansively down on the young man. Almost immediately the man’s tightly-clenched fingers began to relax. The Sun continued to beam serenely, and soon, one by one, the buttons on the coat were loosened. Shortly thereafter, the young man slipped off the unwanted jacket and went whistling down the road.

The moral is quite clear. You can usually accomplish much more with a warm smile than with bluster and brute force. Before dismissing this familiar bit of common sense as being much too elementary and trivial, think about it. It may be “common sense,” but it’s certainly not all that commonly practiced.

To take the moral a step further, consider the warm smile as “good service” and the cruel blast of cold air as ”poor or even non-existent service.” Which is more effective? Which will bring your customers back to your establishment time and time again?

Although you may be given the product and/or service, the quality, the price, and the proper training, the only ingredient missing is SERVICE. The most important ingredient can only be supplied by YOU! You hold the key to success! Use it!

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leaders, future leaders, customer service, customer satisfaction, customer retention

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On the Road Again Harry K. Jones on 24 Oct 2007

A Beacon of Leadership

As I look back over the decades we’ve been consulting, training and keynoting, it becomes more and more difficult to remember all of the clients we’ve had the pleasure to work with. It’s somewhat of a challenge to identify an industry we haven’t served, which means our client list is indeed diverse. Of course, those clients that most often come to mind are those who were the most difficult or the most pleasant to work with.

We really never know what to expect until we arrive at the event. I recently worked with a client on the west coast. As schedules many times dictate, this event followed closely an appearance on the east coast. That meant that I had a very long flight from coast to coast crossing three time zones, which is always tiring. To add to that challenge, I left unseasonably warm summer weather in the 90s to arrive in Seattle on a cloudy Sunday afternoon to experience a typical rainy day and a temperature of 56. I was fortunate to get a non-stop flight but quickly discovered it was a full flight and I was seated in a center seat, which is always a treat. One of the bathrooms was out of order so I quickly learned the true meaning of a “holding pattern.” I arrived at my hotel feeling as though I made the trip folded up in my luggage.

I managed to get a nice dinner at the hotel, study my keynote content for the following day and get a good night’s sleep. The way things were going, it appeared I was going to need it. I was scheduled to give the opening keynote address in the morning followed by two break-out sessions in the afternoon. The client happened to be one of the largest and most progressive credit unions in the country … Washington State Employees Credit Union. Their financial family includes more than 150,000 members and assets of more than $1 billion. The event was a celebration of 50 years of world-class member service. They called it an ALLSTAR event (All Staff Training And Recognition), and they certainly provided plenty of both.

I went down to the grand ballroom early for a microphone check and met the WSECU leadership team. I was somewhat surprised to see so many of the employees arriving well before the scheduled start of the program. You could almost feel the electricity in the air as they greeted one another and shared small talk. They kicked off their action-packed day with a fantastic catered breakfast buffet for 500! I must admit I expected to meet, greet, and interact with 500 employees and the leadership team. What I found was a family—a real family of dedicated employees who arrived ready to celebrate, have fun, support and praise one another, and continue their journey from Good to Great by maintaining and accelerating their unselfishly high standards. It was indeed a joy to behold! This sincere atmosphere certainly made my job a lot easier.

I was scheduled to speak following their recognition ceremony, which lasted several hours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more enthusiastic reaction from employees as they celebrated each others’ years of service and accomplishment. It was obvious that every person in that ballroom felt a pride and sense of belonging as recognition and awards were presented.

This proud team serves 150,000 members from 20 branches in 12 cities. They share a brand promise slogan which is extraordinarily simplistic: “Making Our Members Lives Easier.” I’ve seen hundreds of similar slogans over the years. Such slogans are to be expected. The difference with this group is the obvious fact that they believe it, they strive to achieve it, they’re open to new ways of making it real, and most importantly, they’re doing it! That simple fact is what puts them head and shoulders above their competition and will certainly insure their future growth and success.

WSECU was established 50 years ago by 40 founding Washington State employees committed to the concept of people helping people. One of their first loans was to a member who needed new car tires. Remember their slogan? “Making Our Members Lives Easier.” Now fast forward to today and you realize that they’ve done exactly that for an additional 149,999 members. And that number is growing.

They asked me to speak on “Creative Strategies to Raise the Bar,” which focused on innovation for the next 50 years, as they fully realize the difficult challenge of achieving that next 1% improvement after producing such a consistently stellar performance. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that their next 50 years will far surpass the success they’ve enjoyed during the past half century. The evidence is everywhere.

They have a dedicated staff focused on the training and development of not only their loyal employees but their faithful members as well. To help improve financial literacy among young people, they have created a free, user-friendly curriculum which they call The Vault. This program was designed to teach the principles of smart money management to young people. Available on CD or by download, The Vault provides teachers comprehensive lesson plans about budgeting, saving and investing, and other financial topics.
WSECU employees also are available for guest speaking engagements in youth settings.
Each year, WSECU awards more than $40,000 in scholarship funds to members and their dependents pursuing degrees at two- and four-year higher education institutions. They invest in their community.
WSECU was named one of the Best Places to Work by the Washington State CEO Magazine.

The accolades go on and on and well they should. This unique organization has created and executed a game plan for success that is almost too simplistic to comprehend. I’m not certain if they would agree with my description of that game plan, but from what I’ve observed through research and interaction with their leadership team and staff members I would say this:

They have recruited good people.
They constantly educate, equip, and support their employees.
They provide expectations of excellence in every aspect of the organization.
They recognize and reward employees for their performance.
They take care of their employees.
Their employees, in turn, make their members lives easier.
They have created a very powerful culture and take strides to grow it even more successfully.

I wrote this article not only to salute a fantastic organization that overwhelmingly impressed me. I obviously have selfish motives as well. I hope to provide examples to others of what it takes to cope in a very challenging, competitive and changing environment today. Washington State Employees Credit Union is doing just that. They are demonstrating leadership in ways we seldom see in this country today. They are revitalizing the building blocks that made this the greatest country on earth, and we’ve simply got to see more of that kind of performance if we hope to maintain that title. It all boils down to leadership.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leaders, credit unions, financial, member service, customer service

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Fact-A-Day from Harry K. Harry K. Jones on 23 Oct 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 23, 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. In the spirit of C.A.N.I. (Continuous And Never-ending Improvement), here are this week’s new facts—one for each day of your coming week. Pass them on to others to keep the spirit alive or invite your friends and family to visit our blog where they can also view previous entries.

To keep out sand, the camel has three eyelids per eye. One of the three eyelids is very thin. The other two have long, thick eyelashes. A camel can also close its nostrils.
Dust from outer space—from meteors and other space bodies—falls to Earth, causing Earth’s weight to increase by about 90 tons per day!
In most displays and advertisements, the hands of a clock or watch are set at 10:10 to display the company’s logo.
Anti-crying trick: Stick out your tongue while you’re cutting onions. The moisture on your tongue will soak up the onion’s airborne chemicals before they hit your eyes. (Personal note from HKJ: only try this when you’re alone as people might think you’re mad at the onion!)
Brits eat over 22,000 TONS of french fries (chips) per week!
One of Coke’s ingredients, called “Merchandise 7x-100,” is a secret. The few people who know what it is aren’t allowed to travel together, in case they all get in an accident.
Kermit the Frog of Muppets fame delivered the commencement address at New York’s Southampton College in 1996.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: facts, learn, life-long learning

Generational Gems for Future Leaders Harry K. Jones on 18 Oct 2007

The Never-ending Story of Change

In today’s very competitive business environment, we hear so much about the need to adapt to change that it often falls on deaf ears. We’ve heard it all before and too many times to take seriously. However, this has been the case for centuries, and yet we never seem to learn. For example, let me share this communication from the Governor of New York, Martin Van Buren, (later to become our 8th President) as he warns current President Andrew Jackson of the pending danger of drastic change.

TO: President Andrew Jackson
FROM: Martin Van Buren, Governor, State of New York
DATE: January 31, 1829

The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation know as “railroads.” The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons:

If the canal boats are supplanted by “railroads,” serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for the horses who pull the boats.

Boat builders would suffer and towline, whip and harness makers would be left destitute.

Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States. In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modern war.

As you may well know, Mr. President, “railroad” carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by “engines” which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock, and frightening women and children. The Almighty never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed!

Martin Van Buren

This same attitude is shared by many today as they deny continuous growth, technological advances and the need for unrelenting creativity and innovative application. Someday, future generations may very well look back on us and feel much as you just did in reading the above correspondence.

Keep an open mind and don’t let change happen to you. Play your role in accelerating that needed change.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leaders, future leaders, change

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Fact-A-Day from Harry K. Harry K. Jones on 16 Oct 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 16, 2007

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. In the spirit of C.A.N.I. (Continuous And Never-ending Improvement), here are this week’s new facts—one for each day of your coming week. Pass them on to others to keep the spirit alive or invite your friends and family to visit our blog where they can also view previous entries.

Frisbees outsell baseballs, basketballs and footballs combined in the U.S.
A nursing blue whale mother produces over 50 gallons (200 liters) of milk a day. The milk contains 35 to 50% milk fat and allows the calf to gain weight at a rate of up to 10 pounds an hour or over 250 pounds (44 kg) a day!
The Oldsmobile, manufactured by Ransome Olds in 1901, was the first automobile mass-produced in the U.S. About 12 years later, Henry Ford invented an improved assembly-line process.
KEDS was the first company to mass-market rubber-soled shoes as canvas-topped sneakers in 1917.
The first person to use the word nerd was Dr. Suess in his 1950 book If I Ran The Zoo.
The average American 14 year-old has a vocabulary of about 10,000 words. In 1950, it was 25,000 words.
In March 1945, during World War II, the current queen of England, Elizabeth, joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, a support branch of the military. She joined to train as a mechanic to repair military vehicles for the war effort. But Elizabeth served only until May, when the war in Europe ended.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

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Business Briefs Harry K. Jones on 15 Oct 2007

Globalization Simplified

Business Briefs Last year I reviewed Thomas Friedman’s best seller The World Is Flat to add to our ever-growing list of book reviews on our web site.

Friedman does a great job of explaining globalization and how it will impact all of us in one way or another in the very near future—if it hasn’t already.

In my travels I’ve come across a large number of people who fail to see themselves impacted in any way because they simply don’t understand globalization and have yet to recognize an example of it.

I see more and more instances everyday on TV, the Internet and via print media. Consider recent news reports on the many recalls we’ve witnessed in the past few months, the growing trade imbalance, healthcare comparisons around the world,
immigration concerns, jobs being exported to every corner of the globe, etc. It’s all around us.

In re-reading Lee Iacocca’s best seller Where Have All The Leaders Gone (also reviewed on our website), I discovered a very revealing explanation of globalization. Lee explains it this way:

“My friend, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who knows something about globalization because he’s one of the few people who has seen the whole globe from the moon, sent me this piece that he said was making the rounds of the Internet. It makes the point—vividly:

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer: Princess Diana’s death.

Question: How come?
Answer: An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines. This is posted by an American, using Bill Gates’ technology, and you’re probably reading this on a computer that uses Taiwanese chips and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals. That, my friend, is globalization!”

Iacocca goes on to point out that he certainly isn’t making light of Princess Diana’s death. However, he emphasizes the fact that it makes your head spin to consider how interconnected the world has become. Some people are nervous about globalization while others are simply in denial. But it’s impossible to escape it—the way the world seeps in. You can no longer fence the world out, and you can’t fence yourself in. Technology knows no borders.

To fear globalization is to fear change, but like it or not, change is a constant in our lives. Acknowledge it, accept it, and strive to deal with it. The alternative can be disastrous!

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: change, globalization

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Generational Gems for Future Leaders Harry K. Jones on 11 Oct 2007

Making Your Waves Amid the Tides

This “classic” goes back a few years but certainly hasn’t lost its punch. In fact, it’s very pertinent in today’s environment. It’s not only appropriate for “future leaders” but should most definitely be revisited by anyone focusing on making a difference today.

“Making Your Waves Amid the Tides” by Anonymous

We are all a bit like the waves of the sea. Some of us are a little lax, never noticed and never going forward. Others of us excel just enough to ride the crest above the others; like white caps, though, we finally sink, enveloped by the following crests that are very much like ourselves. A few of us, however, form a more noticeable, lasting splash—the BREAKERS!

And don’t we all envy how the breaker wave is always carving new ground, pounding at the beach resolutely and leaving its own impression? We all certainly envy the people who are most like the breaker waves—those always at the forefront of any and all activity. They’re the successful ones who lead and build on their own so that others may follow.

Wave In any business which relies on “service,” the “BREAKERS” are those who constantly make their clients or customers feel as though the business is there to serve them. The “BREAKERS” answer questions, calm nerves, overcome objections, offer alternatives, make suggestions, introduce new products, promote special merchandise, fulfill needs, and, above all, constantly demonstrate a “Positive Attitude.”

They continually care—building a relentless force behind them, like the pounding breaker wave. When they finally splash against the yielding shore, it’s a loud, beautiful and momentous event!

We all strive for the memorable and the ultimate in what we do. Join the rising “tide” of those who are enjoying this kind of success at a time when so many others have buckled under the pressure of the economy, rising costs, and consumer attitudes. The choice is yours and yours alone. No one can make it for you. Will you end up broken or will you emerge as a successful “BREAKER”?

Your choice of a shoreline actually is of little importance. Shorelines will differ from person to person—the important thing is how you arrive on that shoreline!

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leaders, future leaders

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Is It Just Me? Harry K. Jones on 10 Oct 2007

Lost Luggage Figures Continue to Soar

Last month I wrote a column about the sad state of affairs when it comes to lost luggage (”Limp the Unfriendly Skies“). We received a nice note from one of our readers asking if the situation was really that bad. In that article I was sharing figures from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics—I wasn’t sharing my own opinion on the subject. I couldn’t do that as it would be unsuitable for print. My luggage was delayed, damaged, lost or actually destroyed in 11 of my last 15 flights. That’s not only extremely annoying and disruptive but also quite expensive as the airlines are currently at the point where they simply find an excuse not to reimburse you or they do it at a rate of 5% of the true value. They don’t care. They have nothing to lose. What are you going to do about it—hire yourself a lawyer to pursue the situation at a cost of one hundred times the value of your bag? The airlines are well aware of your choices and simply smile as you fill out your claim.

As I mentioned, that previous article was written two months ago. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics just released their latest figures which relate to the month of August. I could never figure out why they’re always two months behind but I guess it’s rather obvious that it takes that long to count the high number of bags in question.

In reviewing the most recent figures, I’ve got to surmise that Ripley wouldn’t believe these figures, and I’m certain he wouldn’t publish them in his famed “Believe It Or Not” annual publication.

The number of bags lost or delayed by airlines continues to climb, with a daily average of 14,089 in August, according to Washington’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That’s a lot of bags! However, keep in mind that the number listed is a daily average! That means that for the 31 days of August, airlines combined experience and talent to lose or delay 436,759 bags! Come on! What are they doing … digging holes at the end of runways and simply bulldozing the luggage into the craters as it comes off the plane? That’s four hundred and thirty-six thousand, seven hundred and fifty nine bags! You have to send people, in great numbers, to training seminars on luggage destruction to attain those kind of stats!

It was the worst month for baggage-handling since the one-time meltdown in December 2004. US Airways was the worst offender on record.

With teamwork, focus and determination, I’m quite certain that record will more than likely be broken as we approach the holiday seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, we won’t know that until we see those figures in the spring of next year … at which time it will appear to be old news and therefore we won’t care!

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

AchieveMax® Blog

When the Employee Understands Customer Satisfaction and Service Better than the Manager

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 30, 2007

How to Be More Effective with People

A Beacon of Leadership

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 23, 2007

The Never-ending Story of Change

Fact-A-Day from Harry K. - October 16, 2007

Globalization Simplified

Making Your Waves Amid the Tides

Lost Luggage Figures Continue to Soar

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