Life, the universe and whatever

I’m not a believer in the notion that positive things happen to positive people, my belief is that it’s simply a matter of perspective.  I arrived at this conclusion in my early 30’s after years of all-too-often feeling hard done by or badly treated despite the fact that things in m life were more often than not very positive.  However, the tendency has always been for me to get disproportionately upset by certain situations that don’t go my way.

I never had a moment of enlightenment or a flash of inspiration when I suddenly saw the light but, from since I can remember, I have always been driven to do better and to be a better person.  Although I do wish I had worked at making the changes earlier in my life I am very glad that I persevered and don’t suffer the bouts of negativity that can be extremely toxic in all areas of life.

I have recently encountered two separate examples of customer service that have been notable by the positive feeling they have left me with.  The first is a perfect example of my theory of perspective and involves my mobile phone service provider who I won’t name because this is all about positive feeling and their contract and standard procedure conspired to leave me feeling rather badly treated as a paying customer.  Anyway, rather than take the view that said service provider didn’t care about me now that they had me bound to a contract or that I was being persecuted, instead I took the view that I was just a victim of circumstance and with such large companies you have to accept that many of the pricing advantages we enjoy as consumers can only be achieved through economies of scale and it then becomes a challenge to truly treat customers as individuals.  Ultimately, this undoubtedly helped me as I felt the first customer service representative I spoke to (Nicola) genuinely did everything in her power to resolve the situation and leave me satisfied with the outcome.  She herself agreed completely that the best she was able to do for me wasn’t ideal and advised me to talk with her manager (Matt) who, as Nicola had done, made me feel he had gone far beyond the call of duty in resolving the situation.  I could have been left in a very negative state because I didn’t end up with either of the phones I really wanted and a contract with a company I no longer had a loyalty to.  However, although the end result was not what I had initially hoped it would be or felt it should be, I do now have a service that I am satisfied with and was left with an overwhelming feeling that I had been treated very well.

The second example is much more straight forward.  I recently bought an electric golf trolley having played a round with a young lady and admiring how nice her trolley was.  The company, Go Kart, are actually based just 30 miles from me so rather than use their reportedly excellent mail order service I thought I would drop into their offices and pick one up in person (of course this also meant I could drop by the nearby Canterbury Golf Club and play a round on my way back, happy days!)  Having spoken to the guys at Go Kart over the phone beforehand and browsed their excellent website it came as no surprise that they couldn’t do enough for me.  They only have one model of trolley so I made my colour and optional extra choices and paid.  The guy who had served me took me downstairs where he got a new trolley fresh from the assembly room and got the guys to fit the brolly holder I had ordered.  He  showed me how it all fitted together (unbelievably easy), put it in the carry bag and I was away!  Having used it for several rounds I couldn’t recommend the trolley highly enough, the fact that it is such good value and the reviews all mention the customer service are just added bonuses.  The fun yet “serious about customer service” ambience of their website and regularly updated blog is fully realised by their staff in person and that is worth it’s weight in gold in my book.

Getting back to my theory about perspective I feel it’s also worth mentioning an excellent book I was lent by a good golfing (and SharePoint) buddy recently.  Mental Ketchup by Jamie Edwards explains a lot about this concept in a really easy to digest and understand way.  I wouldn’t say he is a polished author but he has a great way of visualising and communicating his thinking and that is very much aligned with my theory.  There’s no rocket science or life changing revelations but reading the book made me realise very few, if any of us think this way “by default” and I for one have to make a conscious decision each time I am faced with a potentially negative situation.