Craig Padoa at Customer Think has been writing about the drawbacks of a Toxic Corporate Culture. Many companies fail to realize that their culture – which is always top-down – affects everything in their organization. When I managed mainframe accounts for IBM I could tell you what the management style of upper management was by the way customer service and lower management interacted with me.
In toxic companies, everyone was so afraid of being disciplined
that they were unwilling to make any decisions and front-facing
employees had no authority to actually provide customer support.
On top of that they were often extremely unreasonable. More than once at one account I had I went into the manager’s office, closed the door, and asked if he would like to be someone else’s account because he had filed unwarranted complaints: once for my arriving on site in 42 minutes in the middle of the night (I lived 40 minutes away) and another time for not coming right away for a minor issue that was deferred by the system’s operator as non-urgent.
These types of companies have what I call a “Kick the Dog” philosophy of management where each level blames and abuses those beneath them – and then they treat both vendors AND CUSTOMERS the same way. Just look at how front-facing employees treat customers and you’ll know what type of upper management that business uses.
If a company’s employees can act on their customer’s behalf they have an empowered culture. If they can’t – they do not no matter how many presentations they schedule trying to convince the rank and file they do.
Management Training
Are your managers and staff performing up to par? Do you want to provide better customer service? You may want to check into additional training. Here are some training resources:
- Business and Economy: Business to Business: Management
- Business to Business: Education and Training: Management
- Customer Service: Education and Training
- Small Business: Education and Training
TRAINING BY INDUSTRY
- Domestic Services: Education and Training
- Financial Services: Insurance: Education and Training
- Hospitality Industry: Education and Training
- Publishing and Printing: Education and Training
- Textiles and Nonwovens: Education and Training
IT and ECOMMERCE TRAINING
- Computers: Education: Training Companies
- E-Commerce: Customer Relationship Management
- UK~ E-Commerce: Customer Relationship Management
- Ecommerce: Education and Training
- Information Technology: Education and Training
- Telecommunications: Education and Training
Human Resources Training
- Human Resources: Education and Training
- Human Resources: Training and Safety
- Corporate Services: Human Resources: Training and Safety
- Corporate Services: Outsourcing: Management
- Labor-Management Relations
- Work: Training and Safety
Management Training
- Yale University: School of Management
- Temple University: School of Tourism and Hospitality Management
- Cornell University: Johnson Graduate School of Management
- Hamline University: Graduate School of Management
- Morgan State University: School of Business and Management
- Suffolk University: Sawyer School of Management
