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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Women In Business

Our Addiction to Social Media

Apps and social media are stealing our attention. We have become obsessed with likes, retweets, and finding the perfect gif response to post.

We miss the amazing play or moment at the concert because we are updating our Instagram.

We miss the bus because we are enthralled with the latest video on one of our YouTube subscriptions.

We miss our floor on the elevator because we were reading Twitter. We miss the green light because we are checking Facebook.

The CEO of a technology and data company recently shared with me his frustration about one of his senior leaders who appeared to be addicted to Candy Crush. In every spare moment, his director was online and had to be counseled twice in one week. The leader tried to explain it was his form of relaxation but after much questioning, he reluctantly admitted that his workload had fallen behind, he had emails in his inbox that hadn’t been answered for five days, and he was two weeks behind in developing a database for a client. Remember, this is a smart, functioning adult.

Maybe you don’t play Candy Crush but you feel a need to check every notification of a new email, text, tweet, or post on Facebook or LinkedIn, or maybe you have created Pinterest boards to plan your perfectly designed office or maybe you monitor every like you get on Instagram?

Gut check time: How much of your attention is being stolen by apps and social media?

Do we really have to include in our employee policies that people can’t play Candy Crush or check social media at work? Possibly. Some of our obsession is driven by habit and some of it by boredom. And it could be that the voyeuristic interest in other people’s lives is more exciting than whatever work is in front of us.

Regardless, the addiction is real. Technology, social media companies, and app development companies are competing for our attention and intentionally feed our addictions in hopes we will spend more time on their systems, enveloped by their tools. Either way, it demands are decaying our ability to truly connect in a meaningful way with others that is mindful, intentional, and purposeful.

I doubt anyone on their deathbed will say “I wish I’d posted one more tweet or picture.” Instead, I bet they’re likely to say “I wish I’d paid more attention to the people I was with rather than those on social media.”

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

What Cybersecurity Professionals Forget to Tell You

As a cybersecurity consultant and advisor, I often forget that my clients and those of you who are out there running your businesses don’t think about cybersecurity the way I do and that’s fair I don’t think about your industry the way you probably do. We all have our “thing” that we do really well and we forget that others don’t see our “thing” the same way.

Often cybersecurity professionals use FUD….Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to explain why cybersecurity is important and tactics such as listing lots of statistics on all the breaches, after which they will conclude, “It’s not ifyou’re breached, but when”, and make you wonder whether you’ve done enough.

What we have forgotten to tell you is that cybersecurity is actually a strategy you can use as a competitive advantage within your industry. It is part of running a successful and influential business. By implementing cybersecurity in a strategic way, you can reduce risks that can cost you more later, become more competitive, and improve your bottom line.

Brand loyalty is not what it used to be (unless your Apple or Android where there’s a fight to watch between loyalists). Consumers want to do business with those who want what is best for them and they will leave very quickly if they feel you don’t care about them. They want you to protect them and be willing and able to protect their information. In the case of many new products consumers need you to protect their physical well-being and in some cases their lives. Whether your product can track their location, their information, their privacy, or physically harm them if not developed correctly, your customers need your help. The more you can show you are doing the right things the more loyal your customers will be.

Maybe you don’t sell to consumers and are not concerned about brand loyalty from that perspective. If instead you sell a service to other businesses or to the government, cybersecurity may be the competitive advantage you are looking for. Many industries and any government contract will require their business partners, vendors, and service providers have a cybersecurity program to protect connections and data. If a potential business customer comes to you with a contract that would be great for your bottom line and says “we can do business with you if you can provide information and attestation regarding these 200 security questions”, I guarantee it will be much more fun if you can easily say yes and get that business. I constantly recommend to my clients when they are on the search for new business partners and vendors to have a due diligence process and only contract with those who can show they have implemented compliance and/or security programs. It is much easier to put the program in place before the contract shows up.

Other benefits include teaching your employees good security practices at work, which not only protects your organization, but also helps them stay safe at home too. When you care about your employees and teach them how to protect themselves you can add a level of employee loyalty. Not to mention it’s also being a great corporate citizen for your community.

If customer loyalty, new contracts, and being a great corporate citizen doesn’t resonate with you, then maybe improved stakeholder confidence is what you’re looking for. I’m not a stock market wiz, but last time I checked stock price valuation has a lot to do with confidence and when your customers and employees are confident in your organization and product, your stock price should reflect this.

That was the short discussion I wanted to have when I realized that we have forgotten to share all the good reasons to implement cybersecurity.

If you want to continue the conversation or have specific cybersecurity questions reach out via email to sharon@c-suiteresults.com. I’m happy to discuss stagey and options for improving your cybersecurity posture.

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Best Practices Body Language Culture Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

How To Address Objections In A Negotiation

“Objections are used in an attempt to see what one can obtain. Before addressing objections know what you want and what you’re willing to forgo to acquire what you need.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

I’ve addressed hundreds of thousands of objections over the course of my negotiation career. Objections should be addressed with the mindset of information gathered about the party with whom you’re negotiating; that includes silent partners that are not at the negotiation table, foils that might be aligned with your negotiation opponent to perform nefarious functions, the demeanor of the negotiator(s), and the culture of the negotiator’s organization. Such insights, along with reading one’s body language, will lend credence to the validity and viability of the person making objections during a negotiation. That, in turn, will allow you to discern how important an objection is, versus it being a possible ploy, created to distract you from something that is more beneficial to your position.

Handling Objections:

Before addressing objections, always be aware of the attempts of others on the opposing negotiator’s team to hype them; remember, these attempts could stem from people that are not at the negotiation table. Hyping objections can be in the form of giving them the appearance of being more valuable or dire than they are, for the purpose of gaining insight into how you might react to such attempts. Keeping that in mind, follow the steps below when addressing objections in your negotiations.

1. When the first objection is posed, assess its veracity to determine if you should address it at all. If the other negotiator insists upon having it addressed, note his body language before proceeding to the next step. In particular, you should observe if he looks directly at you with a smile or scowl, if he looks through you as though he’s in a daze, or if he makes such a request in a timid manner. In all such cases, appraise the degree to which any of these gestures might be ploys.

a.) Looking directly at you is a sign that he’s focused. A smile can indicate that he wants to convey a friendly/casual perspective. A scowl may be an indication of a more serious projection and/or one to set the stage to take his request more seriously.

b.) Looking through you in a daze could imply that his mind is somewhere else and the fact that he’s testing you as a ploy.

c.) Making the request in a timid manner could belie the fact that he doesn’t possess a strong demeanor. He might also be examining you to see if you’ll attempt to take advantage of his docile demeanor.

2. Ask the other negotiator to cite all of his objections. Your goal is to get them out in the open. Do this by requesting what else he’s concerned about. If warranted, have him detail why he thinks his objections are valid. Observe hidden insights gleaned from his body language and nonverbal signals, as mentioned in step 1. By doing this, you’ll gain a sense of direction he has for the negotiation.

3. Once you’ve garnered enough insights about the purpose and value he has for citing his objections, have him prioritize them. Then, address one that’s lower on his priority list to see if that has more weight than disclosed. Couple this tactic with the outcome you seek for the negotiation. Continue this process to the successful conclusion of the negotiation.

In any negotiation, you should know what you’re dealing with before you attempt to deal with it. Such is the case when dealing with objections. Thus, by implementing the suggestions above, you’ll be better positioned to keep in check those objections intended to dissuade your attention from what’s more important. That, in turn, will allow you to be more laser focused on addressing the real objections that will impact the negotiation … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#HandlingObjections #negotiations #Negotiator #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology #CombatDisinformation #hardpower #HowToHandleObjections

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

7 Ways to Overcome Adversity: Don’t Let Fear Stop You or Force Impulsive Decisions

At his 1932 inaugural address, deep in the Great Depression, FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s only natural to feel uncertain, anxious, and apprehensive when you think about possible negative outcomes of any business venture. It’s easy to get caught up in the latest initiative, worry about sales, or freak out about the growing pile of bills. So why should we relax in the face of these constant threats to your enterprise. The main reason is survival.

A consciousness of fear tends to create tunnel vision when our fight-or-flight response takes over. The obvious path to the best solution can disappear when we’re blinded by negative emotion. In our anxiety to solve a problem quickly and move on, we can easily make the wrong decision. Many of our worst decisions were made in a state of distress.

If you’re in business, doubts and threats to your success are everywhere. And they won’t go away. Absolute catastrophes will happen now and then. Your financial survival is on the line. In business, sudden problems are the norm. The sooner you understand this, the quicker you can develop a “bulletproof” approach necessary to contain, cope, and crush these challenges.

1. It’s difficult, especially when the solution isn’t visible. We know. But take a break, take a deep breath, or take a walk. Give yourself the time to calm down. Your brain will operate better. You’ll be more aware of choices that are easily missed when you’re uptight.

2. Believe that there is a solution, even though you can’t see it yet. Better yet, believe there are multiple solutions for you to choose from. This way, you won’t be as likely to pick the first one you see, which would solve the immediate problem, but could lead to bigger issues down the line.

3. An elegant solution solves many problems. To find the elegant solution, set all your problems out in front of you. Examine them, and see how they’re related. Is there a solution that solves more than one of your problems? With an open mind, and without preconceptions, search for the clues.

4. How do you know who your allies are? Focus on who benefits (besides you) when the problem is solved. They could be associates, buyers, suppliers, investors, employees, or even competitors! Can you solve their problem at the same time as your own? Think about how you can recruit their support in solving your problem, and how they would benefit.

5. It takes time to cool down, evaluate your options, consider the consequences, and receive good guidance. It takes time to recognize your allies and earn their support. And it takes time to think about the results and make compromises. Just be patient.

6. Ask for help from those with diverse experience, or more experience, than your own. Consult people who work in different areas of your industry. Ask for help from those at the highest and lowest levels. Consider other industries, and how they approach similar problems. Maybe their solution could be useful in solving your problem. Most people will be honored and flattered that you asked for their advice.

7. The quickest way out of a box is straight up. Evaluate your problem from all sides—over, under, left, and right. Ask yourself: “Am I even framing the problem correctly? Can I redefine the situation?” Many times, your best solution is inside your best statement of the problem.

Knowing that you have a process in place to tackle your intimidating challenges will give you the confidence you need. Fear can blind you when you need your foresight, vision, and focus the most.

When we freaked out about the latest emergency, we all had to laugh when Bonnie screamed, “For God’s sake, DON’T PANIC!”

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Interview with Catherine Bell Managing Partner with the Matrix Capital Fund

Meet Catherine Bell, The dynamic and inspirational Managing Partner with the Matrix Capital Fund and Vice President of Operations for Matrix Real Estate Investor Network and the Flipping Females.

Watch my interview with Catherine here.

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

6 Signs You May Be a Micro-Managing Leader

Dominant leaders typically want things done correctly and quickly. It’s easy to fall into the habit of “just doing it yourself.” But effective leaders know that they have a responsibility to help their team members flourish. That, I’m sorry to say, my dear fellow control freak, means that you will have to let go.

Hi, my name is Jennifer, and I am a control freak. There, I’ve said it. It’s true. I’m not proud to say it out loud, but I know I have half the battle won, just because I’ve recognized it and admitted it.

My control habits go way back. As a mom, I had difficulty leaving my children with a babysitter. My husband urged me for years to get help with the housework, (freeing me up to tackle high-return-on-my-time work projects) until I finally relented. As far as my own business, I haven’t been quite so bad, quickly realizing that having a professional tackle the back-end work on my website and social media would be a lot smarter than trying to accomplish those tasks myself.

The main reason that I had the courage to “come forward” is that in my work with leaders – “C-level” retreats, training programs, coaching, and consulting – I have talked to dozens of executives who admit to the same problem. Apparently, it’s fairly common.

Leaders, there are a number of signs you might be micro-managing.

You may be:

  1. Thinking that the world will come to an end if you aren’t handling every task, from the large to the small;
  2. Spending time on administrative tasks and admit that someone else could handle them quite proficiently;
  3. Barking at team members that it’s your way or the highway;
  4. Doing everything yourself and just realize that you are needed to tackle higher-level responsibilities that only you can do;
  5. Telling team members how to accomplish tasks and just accept that they got the expected results their own way;
  6. Having each task done to your exact specifications and welcome a job well done.

Try these action steps that you can take now to aid in your recovery:

  • Constantly look for ways to develop and cross-train team members;
  • Design a development plan for each employee, getting input on their interests, aptitudes, and strengths;
  • Prioritize your own work and focus on those high-rate-of-return responsibilities that you are uniquely qualified to do and delegate other tasks;
  • Mentor team members and empower them to handle the typical workload so that if something happens to you, or if, God forbid, you should decide to take a vacation, your business won’t come to a screeching halt.

You are right, it’s a challenging road to recovery, but I am confident that you can do it. Think of me as your sponsor and our community as your support network.

Welp, I gotta run. I need to go throw another load of clothes in the washer…ER… UH… I mean, I need to call a very important client! (Okay, maybe I’m not there yet, but I am a work in progress!)

YOUR TURN! What will you:

  • start doing,
  • stop doing, or
  • continue doing

to loosen the reigns and allow team members to flourish and get the job done without your controlling their every move? Use the comment box below to share your action plan with us!

To receive solutions to your people problems in your inbox every month, and to receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved,” click here.

You might also like:

Leadership Team Accelerated Results Program

12 Powerful Questions to Stash in Your Leadership Toolbox

Leadership Lessons to Push Past Homeostasis

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

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Marketing Personal Development Technology

The Most Powerful AI Needs Human Judgement

I grow weary of reading the simplistic headlines around the impact of AI. Some people say that AI will put many of us into a new leisure class that doesn’t need to work. Others argue that AI will make us all unemployed. They are both saying the same thing, actually, so it is just a personality test to divide optimists from pessimists. But there is no technology that in the past had that kind of impact, so why is this one different? It probably isn’t.

What is much more likely is that as machines do more, we humans will do something else. Something machines can’t do yet. That’s the way it has always been, so I think that is the way to bet.

What fuels my belief that this is true is that the most powerful AI we see today depends on human judgement. No, I don’t mean the highly-paid data scientists and AI engineers that are all the rage these days. Sure, they are important, but I am talking about ordinary people doing ordinary jobs using judgement that computers just don’t have. This technique is called semi-supervised machine learning or active learning.

Here is how it works. Supervised machine learning is what most AI applications use. They need human judgement, too. But they use it only at the beginning. They ask humans to tell the system the right answer to a question–for example, whether a tweet has positive or negative sentiment. You pile up enough tweets with human answers and use that to train the AI system. So, far, so good. But that is where most systems stop.

The most powerful systems keep getting better, using semi-supervised machine learning. The secret is something called the confidence score. Most AI systems can do more than just answer the question. Beyond telling you that they think this tweet is positive or that tweet is negative, they can tell you how confident they are in that opinion. So, the system might be 90% confident that this tweet is positive and just 60% confident that another tweet is negative.  This provides some interesting possibilities for semi-supervision.

You can set up your system so that your system handles automatically any tweet with over 70% confidence. If it is that sure of itself, let it provide that answer on its own. But if it is less than 70% confident, you can refer that tweet to a human being to check its answer. Is that tweet negative–the one with 60% confidence? Checking the answers the system isn’t sure of is semi-supervision, and it has two benefits. The first is that the system is more likely to get the answers right if it can ask a human to check its work.

The second benefit is that each new human answer is new training data that the system can use to improve its model. By constantly asking for help with the answers it is least sure of, the system is improving itself as rapidly as possible. You can add more training data at any time to any machine learning system, but if your new training data is merely adding more examples of what the system is already doing well, it doesn’t cause any improvement. Only by adding new training data in the areas that the system is getting wrong does improvement happen.

So, yes, machine learning is very important. But semi-supervised machine learning is what provides that most rapid way of continuously improving your machine learning application. If your team isn’t using that approach, it might be time to ask why not.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

Are You Afraid Of Achieving More In Your Life?

“Greater achievement starts with the right mindset. To acquire the right mindset, build on your past achievements.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Do you lack the confidence to become bigger, better? If so, do you really know what’s holding you back? The answer is, you!

Some people are so comfortable in their life, they forget to grow. They forget, the same attitude that allowed them to grow is the same attitude they can build on to continue that growth. Do you remember that attitude, what that mindset was, for you?

As long as you’re alive, you should continuously explore the outer reaches of your grasp. That’s the way that you continue to grow.

Don’t let your current lack of drive be the inertia that prevents you from moving to higher levels. You’ll only climb as high as you think you can go, and you’ll never know how high that is until you attempt to go higher.

So, when it comes to moving higher, move higher. First, start the process in your mind. Then, put your thoughts into action. You may not succeed to the degree that you thought you would, but you’ll no longer be where you were before you started your ascension. Note any progress as progress made, no matter how slight it might be. That progress will combat the inertia that previously occupied your thought process, which means you’ll be clearer in the future for higher takeoffs … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations? 

In a negotiation, if you play it ‘too safe’, you could dampen the gains that you would have otherwise realized. Plus, you’ll display to the other negotiator your pallet for risk. Displaying that will allow him to calibrate the offers he can make, based on the degree of risk adversity you display. Depending on the value of what you’re negotiating, such a move could make you negotiate against yourself (e.g. Other negotiator: This is the last one and I have someone else that’s interested in it. You: I’ll take it!)

When it comes to exploring higher possibilities, be an explorer. Even if you have to bluff yourself into believing that you can obtain more, do so with vigor. Make your belief believable to yourself and your negotiation colleague. He, in turn, may see you in a new light, one in which he grants you more respect and more concessions.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #Psychology #Perception #Fear #leadership #HowToImproveYourself #Achievement

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

2 Blind Spots Leaders Often Have Regarding Performance Discussions

Have you ever watched a movie where the hero is being chased by predators through the woods? He quickly arrives at a cliff screeching to a halt and nearly falling off into a river far below. He now has a choice, stay to face the predators, which will likely kill him, or take a chance and jump into the river below risking possible severe injury or even death. He reacts and jumps.

In my opinion, this describes the decision many major organizations made when they made major changes to their performance management processes. They were being chased by the poor results of the typical appraisal. These include significant wasted time, complaints by employees (especially millennials) about the quality and frequency of feedback, and the lack of quality skill developmental discussions.

Many of the employees (especially millennials) who are unsatisfied with the typical appraisal process claim the feedback is poor and doesn’t help focus on developmental needs. As high as 65% say it is not relevant to their job  (Meinert, 2015). Only 8% believed their performance management systems made a significant positive contribution in employee performance (David Rock, 2013).  These Performance management “predators” are real.  Even so, reacting and jumping into a “river” you don’t really understand, is not necessarily the best option.  When you have blind spots, you only see the jumping option.

Accenture, GE, Microsoft, Adobe and Deloitte and several others reacted and jumped. Some went into the “river of software” where the hope was to spend less time and remove much of the paperwork angst. Some jumped into the “river of more frequent check-ins” to avoid the annual conversations which managers dread, which waste time, and that upset employees.

Although Accenture, GE, Microsoft, Adobe and Deloitte have “jumped” why are their employees/executives still unsatisfied? There are two reasons in the form of two blind spots.  The first is the lack of appreciation for a system. The is the “appreciation for a system blind spot”. The second is the idea that a manager is the key person who must provide feedback. This the “omniscient manager” blind spot.

Blind Spot #1: Appreciation for a system

Organizations are social systems with interdependent parts. One of the main reasons the typical appraisal process fails to gain support and creates frustration is because it is inconsistent with systems thinking. Systems thinking is a sophisticated way of thinking about performance.  Results are more dependent on the design and functioning of the system than on the actions and decisions of the individual performer.  Yet, most organizations (even those who jumped into one of the rivers) still insist managers provide consistent and frequent feedback to individuals.

In a social system, the focus needs to be on improving the quality of the interactions between the people and avoid evaluating and/or criticizing the individuals.  Any attempt to evaluate and/or measure the performance of the individuals ignores the influence of the system on those individuals and ignores the opportunity to improve the interactions.

The individuals work in the system.  Leaders are responsible for designing and/or working on the system.  If leaders design the system and the system influences individual performance, evaluating individuals is unsophisticated at best and malpractice at worst.  It’s a blind spot.

Blind Spot #2: The Omniscient Manager

Why do organizations continue to insist that managers deliver the frequent feedback? This idea is a holdover from the hierarchical view of organizations. Instead, why not design a performance management process that provides opportunities for everyone to learn from everyone? Why not allow everyone to innovate their service and performance to improve the quality and speed of the system interactions? Why not make it about “internal” customers?

A manager cannot possibly know enough to help employees with all their interactions. The employees’ “internal” customers will know much more about the performance and will know more useful information. The typical performance management approach is based on the false belief that managers must be omniscient and omnipotent simply because they have the big title and the position.  This is the blind spot.

A redesign that offers the option to speak to multiple employees, especially those who are the internal customers, would provide significant opportunity for those who desire frequent quality feedback. This redesign will focus on the quality of the interactions between internal supplier and internal customer.  Some leaders believe “crowd sourcing” software will perform this trick. Perhaps.  In my experience, the crowd sourcing software tends to be designed with blind spot #1. In other words, that type of software still evaluates the employee instead of evaluating and improving the interactions between the employees.

If an organization is ready to replace their appraisal process because the leaders find themselves at the edge of the cliff, it is important to recognize the two blind spots and redesign the process to address the two root causes of dysfunction. If not, you’re just jumping off that cliff because the predators have caught you. That’s not strategic leadership. It’s reactionary and can be deadly for performance and for employee engagement.

Check out the interview on C-Suite Best Seller TV to learn more about how to stop leadership malpractice and replace the typical performance review: https://www.c-suitetv.com/video/best-seller-tv-wally-hauck-stop-the-leadership-malpractice/

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

Bibliography:

David Rock, J. D. (2013). One Simple Idea That Can Transform Performance Management. Retrieved from http://blueroom.neuroleadership.com: http://blueroom.neuroleadership.com/assets/documents/readings/HRPS_PS-36-2_ResearchCorner.pdf

Meinert, D. (2015, April 1). Is It Time to Put the Performance Review on a PIP? Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0415-qualitative-performance-reviews.aspx

Categories
Leadership Operations Personal Development Sales

Respect your Customers’ Time: Resolve Customer Service Complaints Quickly

Did you ever stop to think about how much time people spend on the phone making calls to complain about bad customer service?

An article in The Street pointed out that, on average, adults in the U.S. spend about 364 minutes every year placing calls to report complaints, waiting and hoping to talk to someone who will make things right. In other words, if you are one of the “average people,” you spend about six and a half hours each year on the phone. In six years’ time you lose almost an entire work week, and over 25 years, an entire month of your life will be dedicated to complaining about bad customer service. Much of that time will likely be spent “on hold” (which could in itself be considered bad customer service).

The author of the article, Brian O’Connell, used data from Populus Research and Kana Software, which refer to the “complaint wait” as the “hidden price of doing business.” Here are some other interesting facts that the study produced:

  • More than 70 percent of consumers in the U.S. have taken the time to voice a customer service complaint in the last three years. The average time spent to lodge a complaint was one hour and four minutes – for just one complaint!
  • In most cases, actually getting problem resolution didn’t just happen in one attempt. Sixty-nine percent of consumers had to repeat their complaint, and on average, it took three attempts to get a problem resolved.
  • Thirty-nine percent of complaints were made by phone call, and 33 percent via e-mail.
  • Despite its growing popularity, social media – such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp – was the channel for only 7 percent of the complaints.

Personally, I expected the number of social media complaints to be higher. Other surveys show that more consumers are turning to social media to air customer service grievances. Even at 7 percent, however, complaints via social media have to be taken very seriously as they are visible not only to the company receiving the complaint, but also to the customer’s friends and followers, and in some cases (such as Yelp) to the public. Even if the overall percentage is low, customer service complaints via social media are definitely on the rise as consumers realize its effectiveness and companies’ desire to maintain a positive image.

This article should be a wake-up call to all types of businesses, especially those that market to the general consumer. It’s surprising to learn just how much time is spent on the phone dealing with customer service issues. Time is a precious commodity, and if you “steal” it from a customer, you are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect.

Customers have limited time and can’t afford to waste it with repeated calls or long waits on the phone. If you don’t have respect for their time, it won’t be long before they decide to find another company with better service and faster resolution when a problem does occur. Be smart. Respect your customers’ time and always fix problems quickly … and with the right attitude!