Helping Others Succeed is Good Service

I receive a lot of voice mail. Maybe you do, too.

Some folks leave nice and clear messages that are easy to understand. Others seem to be in quite a hurry, especially when they leave their phone number.

When returning calls, I make a point of praising those who leave clear messages. And I encourage the others to speak a bit more slowly, cautioning that ‘hurried messages’ are sometimes difficult to decipher. Rarely do ‘fast speakers’ know about the problem. After all, who leaves themselves a message on the voice mail?

Fax machines provide another opportunity to help each other. Have you ever received a fax with a dark vertical line running the length of the page? This is caused by specks of dirt stuck to the glass strip inside the sender’s fax machine. But the person who sends the fax never knows about the problem. They never see the lines. After all, who ever sends themselves a fax?

Whenever a fax with ‘long lines’ shows up in our office, we make a point of contacting the sender, explaining how to open up the fax machine and quickly clean the glass.

It’s not really our business, but then again, maybe it is.