May 12

When I was 10 or 12 I had a newspaper route.  Two of them, in fact.  One was the "local" paper (from the closest large city ~30 miles away).  The other was "GRIT" (which I was actually shocked to find is still in business!).

One of the papers paid me to deliver the paper.  I was not responsible for collections.  I didn’t bill anyone.  My job was to please the customer and do nothing else.  I wore the white hat - someone else wore the black hat.

The other paper paid me collect the money as well - which people often didn’t have on the day I chose to go get it.  Which caused me to have to go back time and time again.  I was a pest to my customer, and I started to resent my customer.  This is NOT a good relationship to have with a client.

Although I didn’t really realize it at the time, this was significant.  You can’t expect your customer service people to also be your hired thugs.  It is impossible to build a relationship like that.

Years later, as I traveled with my father while he did on the road sales of paper supplies I learned that he was always the good guy - he never called his customers for late payments and he always fixed any problems personally, and quickly.

If your company calls you something like "Customer Service" or "Support", but you have to also be the collection agent (the bad guy) then you are working for a company that never ran a paper route.  At least not successfully :)

written by rob