Transcripts

Ron Burley, author of the book Unscrewed, says if a company is unwilling to do the right thing, you have to take effective action. For example a friend of Ron's had an on-going billing problem with her cell phone company and it was a public company.

I bought ten shares of stock in the cell phone company; now I call Investor Relations and I say, " I don't believe that we should be treating our customers this way - so you know what, I am going to show up at our annual meeting, I am going to walk up to that microphone and tell President CEO exactly how we're treating our customers." Twelve minutes - that's how long it took to get a call and an apology for the five month billing error - telling her it was corrected.

Ron had a horrible experience with a car dealership that was unwilling to make things right. So Ron went to see the sales manger with a manila folder full of flyers that said how unfair the dealership was.

He says, "What are you going to do with these?" I said, "Well, I'd bet in a handful of Saturdays standing outside of your dealership on that public sidewalk, I can talk to people and you will lose ten times as much business than you will just taking care of me right now." He got up from his desk; five minutes later he comes back and he says, " I'm sorry we've made a mistake - would you mind waiting for a couple of minutes while we cut you a check?"

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.