Mind your manners, please
This week, among other stops, I'm headed to Pinehurst as a guest of The Golf Channel for their second Viewers' Cup. In spite of anticipated 100+ degree temps, I expect it to be a grand time: an opportunity to play two very good golf courses (Nos. 2 and 4), meet and network with some interesting people (their really big clients), and watch an underachieving brand interact with some of its more zealous supporters.
I'll save the "underachieving" comment for another post...coming soon.
No, today's missive picks up on a thread of conversation I had yesterday with a friend about this particular event, The Golf Channel's Viewers' Cup. He told me that the scheduled tee times had shifted a bit from the original plan, falling victim to a few last-minute cancellations from several of their RSVP'd guests.
"How do you cancel this late?" I asked, somewhat incredulous. "We've known about this for months."
"They just do," he said. "Happens all the time."
Got me thinking about manners, common courtesy and those kinds of things.
Apparently many people put into action a different set of courtesy standards according to the situation they're in. Some who think nothing of showing up late for an appointment with a sales rep wouldn't dream of doing the same for their Saturday morning tee time. Others write thank-you notes to business customers, but it never crosses their minds to express gratitude for a birthday bottle of wine from a sister.
The most genuine and considerate people I've ever met have unwavering standards for their own behavior, and those standards seem to be based on general principles of courtesy. Hold a door for someone, wait behind to make sure a colleague's car starts, stand up when someone reaches out a hand to shake, take off your hat when entering a room. Don't call after 9:00 PM, make eye contact when saying "Hello," say "thank you" whenever anyone does something for you, let a customer know you appreciate his business.
It's too confusing to have different courtesy standards for business, friends and family. Why not treat them all the same?
It seems to me that the person who will cheat in golf will cheat his customer, maybe not every time, but it's there - you know it is - waiting to come out. And the person who cancels her appearance at a business function she has committed to will also fail to show for the kid's baseball game or recital.
The same friend who told me about his customers cancelling for this week once said to me that I should write a book about a certain business philosophy I once espoused. The key to treating a customer well, I said, is to treat him the same way you treat your mother. And vice versa.
My advice (to myself, mostly): Be the same person everywhere.
I'll save the "underachieving" comment for another post...coming soon.
No, today's missive picks up on a thread of conversation I had yesterday with a friend about this particular event, The Golf Channel's Viewers' Cup. He told me that the scheduled tee times had shifted a bit from the original plan, falling victim to a few last-minute cancellations from several of their RSVP'd guests.
"How do you cancel this late?" I asked, somewhat incredulous. "We've known about this for months."
"They just do," he said. "Happens all the time."
Got me thinking about manners, common courtesy and those kinds of things.
Apparently many people put into action a different set of courtesy standards according to the situation they're in. Some who think nothing of showing up late for an appointment with a sales rep wouldn't dream of doing the same for their Saturday morning tee time. Others write thank-you notes to business customers, but it never crosses their minds to express gratitude for a birthday bottle of wine from a sister.
The most genuine and considerate people I've ever met have unwavering standards for their own behavior, and those standards seem to be based on general principles of courtesy. Hold a door for someone, wait behind to make sure a colleague's car starts, stand up when someone reaches out a hand to shake, take off your hat when entering a room. Don't call after 9:00 PM, make eye contact when saying "Hello," say "thank you" whenever anyone does something for you, let a customer know you appreciate his business.
It's too confusing to have different courtesy standards for business, friends and family. Why not treat them all the same?
It seems to me that the person who will cheat in golf will cheat his customer, maybe not every time, but it's there - you know it is - waiting to come out. And the person who cancels her appearance at a business function she has committed to will also fail to show for the kid's baseball game or recital.
The same friend who told me about his customers cancelling for this week once said to me that I should write a book about a certain business philosophy I once espoused. The key to treating a customer well, I said, is to treat him the same way you treat your mother. And vice versa.
My advice (to myself, mostly): Be the same person everywhere.
posted by Mark Burris - BURRIS at 7/26/2005 11:58:00 AM
1 Comments:
Some quick comments that came to me via email on the topic of "manners":
- From Lee Pace: "How did man survive a million years without a cellphone at a restaurant table?"
- From Fred Palmer: "manners & courtesy...a somewhat lost behavior in today's 'me first' society"
Seems a lot of us have our own stories on this topic. What's yours?
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