You’ve probably seen the recent video of police dragging a United Airlines passenger off a flight and injuring him in the process. It was a public relations disaster for United Airlines, whose CEO subsequently admitted that the incident was the result of employees being too rigid in following company policies.
Absolutely.
Company policies exist for a reason. They provide for consistent performance and aim to assure that all employees act in accordance with the law and the values of the organization that employs them. At Dutton Plumbing we have policies in place governing everything from the way our customer service reps answer the phone to how our service technicians interact with customers.
But you know what? Nobody is smart enough to figure out every possible situation that might arise. Some things aren’t covered by a stated policy, and sometimes policies need to be overridden by common sense. For instance, while United Airlines may have had the legal right to forcibly remove that passenger, common sense should have told someone in the management chain that it was not a good idea to do so. Sometimes rules are made to be broken.
It’s wrong for a business to be so rigid in its policies that its people cannot act to correct a mistake or make things right for a dissatisfied customer. I think all of us at one time or another have tried to get a company to do something out of the ordinary only to hear, “Sorry, that’s against company policy.” That gets infuriating, especially if the company is at fault.
Dutton’s policies are based on decades of experience in the plumbing business handling various situations that arise. We’ve seen almost everything – but ALMOST everything isn’t everything. Our policies have to be flexible enough to make sure we cover situations that we’ve never dealt with before. This does occur occasionally.
That is why we adhere to one policy the overrides all others. We are committed to offering our customers 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! We want everyone who does business with us to go away with the feeling that they were well served and got their money’s worth. We want our customers thinking that Dutton Plumbing is the best plumbing company they’ve ever hired. If you have a complaint, we will bend over backwards to resolve it, even if it requires us to bend one of our rules.
All of our employees are authorized to depart from policy to various degrees. If it’s a fairly simple problem, it likely will be solved by the first person you speak with when you call our office. More difficult issues might get kicked up to a supervisor or higher. But rest assured that all of us here are committed to 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! as Dutton Plumbing’s number one policy.
And we have never left a customer bleeding and battered! And never will.
