Well, it is time for large organisation CEOs to come out in the daylight, where happy mushrooms do not abound but customers lurk waiting to express their discontent. I am the leader of a large region and I sure don’t have the time to press endless buttons selecting an automated menu on a phone, I want to speak to someone who can help me, speak to me and listen well and preferably someone who will take responsibility for my need as a customer.
Yesterday, trying to communicate with an insurance company, I even got as far as pressing all the buttons to be placed on an endless loop hold of music, interrupted by advertisements for selling more product. After 20, yes 20, minutes of holding I received an automated voice telling me to either leave my number for a callback or hang up and call back later when they were less busy! I left my number - they did not call back. I had wanted to increase my business.
Today I decided to cancel my policies instead, and that was a very difficult experience as I could not speak to anyone, their fax failed to work so I had to send them a letter and hope they receive and act on it. With their attitude to customers I do not fancy my chances of success!

I will not be surprised to hear that this company does not survive tighter economic times. This is a time when customers vote with their feet! Plenty of competitors are eager to get the business if you don’t measure up to your customers expectations.
It is also time for small businesses to understand this is their time to shine – give a fabulous customer experience and your business will grow exponentially at the expense of your competitors, both large and small. Price matters less if you delight customers and prospects with your level of service. It costs less than you think, and the resultant growth will quickly see you thriving with a stronger bottom line and sustainable business model.
Delighting customers is the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to increase your business. Why? Because most, if not all your competitors are doing a poor job. I hear people complaining everywhere and every day about their trade services, their communications supplier, their doctor, their pharmacy, their bank, their suppliers, and most retailers they visit.

Spend less time and money ‘telling’ your customers and prospects about your service, and instead commit that investment into a well trained, motivated and happy team of people who actually deliver that message directly to customers and prospects, day in and day out with their attitude. Your reputation will spread very quickly in this new age where poor quality service is in abundance.
Customer service comes down to people and how well you connect; not systems and smart software. This doesn’t mean that software and systems do not have their place, the more efficient you make them the better your team can delight customers. In some instances, offering a self help option is a great asset for those in a hurry with a very standard query e.g. needing a bank balance, or checking in at an airline kiosk. However any self help option needs to have a person available to help those who want help, also a self help option needs to be very simple, to test it - ask a young child to use it, if they can, then most of us would want to use it.
I don’t want to retrain as an airline check in service person, so my airline self check must be so simple that its quicker and easier for me – the customer. That is the reason I choose to fly the airline I fly – the self serve is outstanding and the service, if I need it, is also there. The same goes for my choice of bank, insurance, laptop, hifi retailer, clothing supplier etc. I travel frequently and select hotels based solely on their customer service score in the price bracket and I want to pay. I have never been disappointed, the opinion of others is very valuable.
If you are in the travel or hospitality industry, be aware the internet abounds with information about happy and unhappy customers.
Millions of people are making daily buying choices based on public feedback.
So what do most customers want:
1.A person who actually listens to their need and understands it.
2.Someone who can smile and have something pleasant to say, not just a human impersonating a robot with a script. (You can hear a pleasant smile over the phone!)
3.Someone who actively listens and interacts in a meaningful way, who demonstrates that they care if they win the business, or retain the customer or not.
4.Someone who will take responsibility for a query or problem and follow it through to ensure it is resolved. (Recently at a large telecommunications company, who advertises their commitment to customer service value, I was transferred 14 times!)
5.Someone who always does whatever they said they would do, without fail. (If you said ‘I will call Tuesday’, then be sure you call Tuesday)
6.Someone who respects ‘No, Thank You’ as an answer to an offering.
7.Someone who will offer to do a little more, go the extra mile to help, such as order it in, give a small gift or future discount to someone that has been inconvenienced, try to find a solution or some additional information that may help the customer.
8.A company that does not bother you unnecessarily with telephone sales campaigns, call at inconvenient times, or harass you. (Some charities have lost my decades of support recently by employing people who keep pestering me for an additional donation, then trying to make me feel bad for saying I cannot afford it).
9.Customer Service that is not obviously outsourced!
Outsourcing can only work when you have the right performance measurements in place, and the outsourcers employees are embraced as part of your culture and care about your company.
10.If an automated system is in use, then it must always have an option to speak to a person.
11.If you run a business for something people may find critical after hours, ensure someone is always contactable.
12.Finally, I recommend training your customer service team in using the principle of ‘One Minute More –The Human Connection’ and you will be astounded at the impact on your results for customer satisfaction.

A cultural shift happened and we were so busy giving our kids a childhood, that we stopped doing our primary function as parents, helping them grow into adults and be independent.

What do you think would happen in nature if Eagle parents stopped encouraging their fledglings to fly? If those feathered parents protected the rights of their eaglets to remain children much longer, and kept them safely tied to the nest? Eagle populations would decline, parents would die exhausted from trying to supply enough food for their young adults, cleaning the nests would be impossible, overcrowding and eventually a weakening of the species with disease.

The first responsibility of any parent is to slowly, and without trauma, teach their fledgings the ability and desire to function as responsible adults. The second responsibility, is regardless of the circumstances of that parent, to inspire their children to dream - to want to achieve those dreams, and to do everything to encourage their children to fly.

Where did we lose it? Somewhere in the last two decades the western developed world changed. In an effort to curb child abuse, we went way too far! We stopped being parents, and started to become slaves to our children and giving them everything possible, whilst asking nothing in return. The developing countries did not, because they could not. It is indeed fortunate that we have not yet been able to replicate this insane parental paradigm onto the third world, or we would have an international disaster the size of which is unimaginable!

There is a difference between child abuse and child disciplines and responsibility. This has been often lost in modern parenting. Further consequences, are sometimes the lesson needed to help a child understand that what they are doing is wrong, or dangerous. The three times and you are out philosophy. After a warning, and a reprimand, there needs to be action if a child wilfully continues to misbehave. This may be sending them to their room, or removing a pleasure like internet for a day, but it must be something that works.

There is a huge negative impact on children, and their parents, of overprotection and pandering to their every desire. As the children get older, into their late teens this becomes even more burdensome for parents, as demands increase, and behavior is very hard to change.

What I see happening in Western Europe is astonishing. A lot of children stay without responsibility far too long, and remain living at home being dependent upon parents. Often the parents also have full time jobs, but are catering to their adult childrens every whim. These 'children' I am meeting, in hundreds of situations, are between 18 and 30 years old, and their mothers are washing, ironing, cooking hot meals, serving breakfasts, making beds, cleaning bedrooms, and more. Driving a shuttle service for the ones that do not have a car, or a license, because they cannot plan.

Worse though, many of these 'children' do not appreciate any of it, they believe it to be their right. Some of them have no job, others have jobs where they earn as much money as their mother, or father , but pay no fee to stay at home. I frequently hear of situations where the 'child' is telling the parent - 'You may do nothing, or I will call a welfare agency or the police.' Some parents and teachers have admitted to me they are intimidated.

In Europe, this is not helped by the most extraordinary set of laws surrounding young people, supposedly to protect them. Although at 18 they receive all the rights of an adult: they may borrow money, gamble, vote, join the armed forces, marry, sign contracts - their parents are still responsible for them whilst ever they live at home! This means that if a young man of say 25, gets drunk and kills someone with his car, that his parents may have to sell all their assets to pay for his misdemeanor, even though they had no authority to stop him. Or as in the case of a friend of mine, her daughter did not pay her insurance and the sheriff arrived and began to note down my friends assets, as her daughter lived at home, it would be her mothers things that would be taken to pay the debt!

I have clients who are in desperate situations because of their young adults irresponsibility, and with no protection for the rest of the family. Stories abound of having to sell everything, including the other childrens possessions, because a 'child' over the age of 21 has done something wrong, and refuses to resolve the situation or take responsibility. This is beginning to create a fairly onerous social problem in families in my community. Some parents are facing very difficult times when they had planned to be getting ready for retirement, and this has nothing to do with the economy!

I also have a clients who struggle to make ends meet, whilst their 26 year old live at home son, has a good job and earns the same money as his Father, drives a BMW Cabrio and buys his girlfriend expensive gifts. The parents really believe that society will not think well of them if they ask this boy to move out, or to pay a more realistic share of expenses. They have two other children, and one is disabled. They are not a social case, they are intelligent and kind people, but they feel caught in a system of judgment.

To give children, or adults, rights without responsibility associated is wrong! To allow actions without teaching our children that every action has a consequence good or bad is wrong!

It is up to individual parents to challenge the current paradigm, to find their own lives and not be throttling back their children from growing into responsible adults. I know parents who have taken this responsibility, at the same time as inspiring their children to grow and blossom and have gorgeous children, grown into young adults and achieving amazing things!

We must, as responsible parents, teach our children the value of a good work ethic, the benefit of dreaming and planning to realize those dreams, encouragement to do well academically for those who can, and have the courage to assist those who are not so academically gifted to find good, honest occupations as soon as they can leave school. We must teach our children the dignity of independence, they should be able to take care of themselves, thus have learnt the basics of cooking, laundry, basic first aid, cleaning, how to manage their pay and budget, how to read a contract and borrow money, how to manage a credit card. We should also ensure we have taught them good social skills, and the basics of good manners, if we want them to have good self esteem and be well received in the community.

So instead of pandering to their laziness, inspire your children to dream, and whilst they are dreaming to find their independence and strength as responsible community citizens. This can even be fun as you grow together with your child of whom you are proud, and he or she is incredibly empowered to be all they can be. Don't take this shared joy away from your relationship with your children.

In my experience, the parents who became slaves remained so, and were not respected and admired by their children,at any time. The parents who took a more responsible parental approach from an early age, enjoy respectful and close adult relationships filled with mutual respect.

As a parent, it really is up to you - Be an Inspiration to your Children, Not a Slave!

Terrie Anderson is a human potential and transformational leadership coach, dynamic public speaker and author of The Little Red Success Book. She is a specialist in transformational leadership, and how to be a successful and happy human being.
Terrie has a dream to touch the lives of at least one million children with a positive message either directly, or through parents, carers and teachers. She believes the future of the world can be transformed through inspirational guidance when young.
She has had a successful corporate career, she understands the challenges of family life, and enjoys helping people open their minds to new ideas and concepts that generate happiness, and success, in both work and family.
She is also the CEO and Co-Founder of Easy Online Portals, an internet marketing company and the creator of The Essence of Truly Great Leadership, a course in transformational leadership. She is an incredibly passionate and positive person, who is passionate about the environment and nature, loves animals, riding motorbikes, travelling, and meeting new people and cultures. She also enjoys good food, music, laughter and great wines.

I recently heard a Mother say that she never says no to her child, she always reframes it. Actually, hearing the word 'no' is a very normal part of life, and certainly when they go to school and work they are going to need to be used to hearing this word, as they will hear it from others. I have close experience of the behaviour problems of a young man, who rarely heard that word as a child/teenager. He now resents the word and embarks on a destruction campaign towards the person who said it. He is 20 years old!

So, we establish some basics: that sensible discipline and life training is good. What is very important is that you use your parent skills as a family leader, not as a military commander. You want your children to be open and able to come to you without fear with their mistakes, so you have this chance to guide them appropriately.

Lets understand how the 7 principle of how the Commander works:

1. They usually want to know who is to blame, for any misdemeanour. Often asking your children to help you find a solution first is a good idea, asking them to help you fix it or clean it up.

2. Commanders Yell loud and clear! Talking in a calm and rational way to children, even in their most frustrating teens, is a much stronger statement. You can be angry but you still do not need to yell at children, or anyone. Have you noticed they do not respond well?

3. Commanders expect that their children have no opinion, and no ideas. Try and bring out the mind and creativity for useful purpose. Ask them to share a task with you, ask them how they think it should be done. Make the task interesting for you and for them. You will be rewarded.

4. Commanders do not take time to listen actively. When your child needs to tell you something, make the time to listen properly. Actually hear what they mean, not just what they say. If you do not have time to listen right now, the make a time. Better still, schedule a time everyday where you sit down and really listen, so they are also looking forward to a small piece of quality time with you.

5. Commanders ask closed questions, that is questions that can be answered with a 'Yes' or a 'No' Try to ask open questions of your children, ones where they must give some information in the answer. Eg. Instead of 'Is that the T-shirt you were wearing yesterday? Try 'When did you last wear that T-shirt?' Then go back to point 4 and listen to the answers you are given.

6. Commanders forget the please and thank you Don't forget it, manners and politeness start with you!

7. Commanders assume they are only in control when in command mode.

Command mode can be intimidating to small children and downright confrontational to older children. try rephrasing things and communicating properly with children. As an example, let us assume your 13 year old girl is wearing a dress too short - Instead of 'You will not wear that dress, it is ridiculous', Try ' What do you think that men feel when they see you in that dress?' Start a short discussion, usually they do these things to defy the commander, and will quite quickly admit it is a silly idea themselves.

Parents have much stronger bonds with their children than commanders, and children respect a parent, whereas they will normally defy a commander ( or worse withdraw and never realise their potential!)

Raise your awareness as a parent, and Enjoy Life with your kids! All rights reserved Copyright 2009 Terrie Anderson

Terrie Anderson is the author of The Little Red Success Book and other publications on Human Potential, High Performance Team Building and Essence of Leadership. Terrie has had a very successful corporate career and also coaches and mentors a very small group of people throughout the world. In 2009 terrie Anderson will be available again for speaking engagements for public or corporate events.

The Little Red Success Book is about to be released for the first time as an online version. You can contact Terrie Anderson through the website http://www.terrieanderson.com/ where you will find her blog, opportunity to register to stay updated and a contact link. Terrie enjoys to receive feedback and testimonials about her work and the results you have experienced.