The Washington herald., 1913-03-02

blend OF courtesy and shrewdness: also a
sense Of absolute fairness and Justice-which
usually IL the result Of the right kind Of home
training
To begin with. I had no more than the
usual amount Of courtesy In my makeup
he continued. II had to develop It; also
shrewdneas. 50 that / could tell In a minute
usually whether the complaint were just or
not No doubt I let chronic and artistic
complainers get the best of me many a time
when I first started into this interesting
game. But Just a good. strong effort at plain.
ordinary courtesy pulled me through so that
at least I did not lose trade for the store.
Later 1 learned to pick out unerringy
the just from the unjust complaints. !
worked on the principle that the complainant
Is In the right until he proves himself to be
in the wrong. Therefore l always listened
patiently to the whole story-that is. of
course. where the complaints were out of the
ordinary. involving q considers sum OF
money-watchins all the time for discrepan-
cies and exaggerations.
Often the unjust complainan mt really does
imagine that his complaint is just That one
thought tends to make the good complaint
man patient with all cases whether or not
he knows the complainant to be in error"
Then, asked what In his opinion was the
most important policy in the adjustment OF
complaints. he replied The best way to
settle a complaint is not to have any.
Tracing Causes Important.
That is the complaint mans biggest job."
he said. He can earn mint of money for
his firm by getting at the Fundamental causes
Of complaints and often by suggesting d.
rect remedies for those causes. Tracing
causes Is often no snap. but it is important.
" worked three weeks on series OF SIM
liar complaints Of the nondelivery Of goods
in a suburb In several cases 1 traced the
goods 10 the door OF the complainant Then
in several cases We found that the complain
ant was not at home part or all the time on
the day Of delivery.
That was my cue. found that invariably
that had been the case A house detective
fourd that the delivery boy was in the habit
of leaving packages in the back entry way
of certain houses where he made frequent
deliveries, and that a thief had followed up
the wagon Just TO take advantage OF these
Deliveries. The cause. as in a majority Of
cases, easily suggested the remedy.
" You see. ie is the complaint mans task
to try TO work himself out of job And the
III WHICH lie 10 dDIc 10 cut GOWN the
volume Of complaints by getting at and
helping to remedy the causes largely deter
mines his value The more time he has to
loaf the better he has done his work
'' This also reminds me Of the reason why
we just q couple Of years ago scattered our
complaint department around in various
parts of the store and back in out of the way
places instead Of having one central pace
for all complaints. A big, well developed
complaint department is not a good recon-
mendaron for any store or business
4 r
Needs Wide knowledge of Details.
Even though 1 shall have better position
as soon as we can fnd the right man for my
present job" continued this young man,
should have considered work as an expert
complaint man Of sufficient importance and
promise to make OF It a life time Job That
is one reason why have been successful.
realize the Importance Of my work
The complaint man doesn't have to look
for trouble. but he does have TO hook for
causes and for ways and means Of eliminat-
ing them. That is his big Job. II involves
a deep knowledge of the detail workings of
a business. That 10 experience the good
complaint man must have
''A Add to this the necessary courtesy. pa
tience. shrewdness, and judicial sense Of
fairness and you have no mean set of oualifi-
cations. should you aspire to be the trouble
man IN n business"