Rules That Were Supposed to Help But Ended up a Big Fail

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Dialing for Dollars

I worked for a tuxedo chain in the US midwest for years. During a prom season a few years back, a new policy in how we answered the phones came through.

The greeting was: “Thank you for calling (Company Name), Sales and Rental, Suits and Tuxedos, where we can save you some Cha-CHING on your prom tuxedo today!”

Now say that out loud a few times, and realize how much TIME it takes to say on the phone… each time it rings… all day… every day.

Several of us senior managers refused to say it, 1) because it sounded stupid and 2) because it took an eternity to say, and we’d often get interrupted halfway through. Our office would call each store (16 locations) and make sure we were saying it, then threatened to FIRE us if we didn’t.

Needless to say, we took our defense to the owner of the company, and he nixed it pretty quickly.