“Of course,” was my answer noting an appearance
of concern across her brow.
With a piece of paper, she covered most
of another page and asked me if I could read out the number on the right side
at the bottom of the page, which I did.
She asked me to repeat the number and I
obliged. She then asked me to confirm the second last numeral of the nine-number
sequence and I answered “5”.
She asked if I thought it could be
anything else and I looked again and confirmed, it could only be a 5.
Naturally my curiosity was pricked and I
asked her what the problem is.
She explained they had a client who was
due a refund and had provided an account number for the payment to be processed
to, however it was credited to the wrong account and the client has complained.
The reason for the wrong account being
credited was the second last number in the sequence she asked me to read out
being entered as a 6.
She was aware from other dealings her company
had had with this client that a number of things had gone wrong over recent months
and he was inclined to be volatile. She also knew the client was aware payment
had been made to the wrong account.
She went on to say her supervisor had
instructed her to call the client and explain he had provided incorrect account
number details, the fault wasn’t with them and while they would attempt to
recover the funds, they are not responsible.
She said there was not a single person
apart from her supervisor who believed the number in question was anything but
clear and she didn’t know what to do.
I made a few suggestions and she was
most grateful and I subsequently learned it went quite well.
But it got me thinking about the
insecurities of her supervisor who did not want to admit an error and set a
relatively junior member of staff a task that could only result in further
escalation of the issue, not to mention exposing her to a known volatile
client.
Sure, the supervisor may be under
pressure from their Manager to make it go away and is simply pushing it down
the line, but that is no excuse. You need to own the action you are taking or
asking another to take.
I wondered about the culture within such
an organisation where errors cannot be admitted, owned up to and addressed. It
suggests an environment of fear where staff and Management have no pride or
belief in what they do.
I won’t mention the organisation by name
except to say it is not exactly a household brand or a large player in its broader
industry.
The business does however operate in an
increasingly competitive market place and I will watch its progress with
interest over the coming years. If the situation I became aware of today is
representative of the overall company culture, I doubt its long-term success.
It also emphasises the importance of “Culture”.
In reality, products don’t complete with other products in the Market Place.
The true competition is the Culture of one organisation versus that of a competitor
that determines long term, sustainable business success.
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