WELL I CAN'T COMPLAIN

I recently have gone on about customer service, the lack of it and the need to improve it. I hear no dissent. Tiers of corporate executives are all out there benchmarking and establishing robust measurement processes of their own customer satisfaction.

But what about the complainers - are they always justified and when did that world weary “can’t complain love” disappear from our language? For years I associated this with our putting up with overcooked food and weak tea, an era of laughable cuisine and public sector attitudes to service.

Inflation record 1956 - 2013

It changed in the 1970s. In 1975 inflation was nearly 25% and getting worse. Businesses would merrily inflate their prices twice a year. Britain was a basket case. And customer service hit an all-time low. Thatcher’s wagging finger symbolised the change. And her intolerance towards shabby standards was given daily articulation by the Sun and the Daily Mail.

We created a new generation of people. In Network (1976) Peter Finch playing Howard Beale said:   “I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'”

This was a time when we were sold the Austin Allegro, Morris Marina and Triumph Dolomite (renamed the Triumph Sodomite by Robert Robinson BBC broadcaster). These were the worst cars ever built (if such a sturdy word as “built” is appropriate.)

A friend of mine claims around this time he had a made-to-measure suit created for him by a Soho tailor. When he first wore it a sleeve came off. The tailor looked at him suspiciously when he went back to ask for an explanation. “You’ve been wearing it haven’t you?”

In those days we didn’t really complain….we prefaced our “observations” with phrase like “I’m sorry to bother you but”…

Last week I saw that Southern Rail had been taken to task for standards of punctuality and heartstrings had been tugged by a “handwritten” letter).

I personally think the service from Southern is remarkably good.  You could argue that they should just put their foot down and overtake or ram the wretched First Capital Connect laggard trains dawdling ahead of them. Or being pessimistic about the timetables they could say “expected arrival time …whenever” and offer free G&Ts to every customer to quieten them.

Things always swing from one extreme to another and I think we’re becoming a nation of complainers quite often without real justification. From the NHS to education to all the institutions there’s an increasing sense of discontent.

Yet the optimist in me wants to shout - things are so much better than they were. All that currently happens is the exception always proves the rule. One botched operation typifies a NHS breakdown, A few late(ish) trains demonstrate the wicked ineptitude of the provider.

Not so. Stop grumbling.

THE END OF NORMAL IS HERE

Creativity is at the heart of human resourcefulness especially now in straitened times. As the scientist Lord Rutherford said “we have no money so we shall have to think.” So indeed we, in Brighton, are…thinking, that is, and thinking creatively and it’s very satisfying.

I’m constantly asked when I think things will return to normal. People get disconcerted when I say “never.” People keep on doing what we all do, looking in the same place again and again for something we’ve lost in case it gets somehow spirited back. Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results…. as usual he was right.

The German philosopher Theodor Arno didn’t much like normality saying it was death. Well now 40 years after his own death he can rest happy. Normal is not just death it’s dead.

Technology has seen to that. 70% of the people in this overcrowded world own a mobile phone, the electric car in the shape of the Tesla Model S (0 to 60mph in 4.4 seconds) is a dazzling reality and things happen that humble the stupid amongst us. I met Nick D’Aloisio recently. He invented Summly an app that has (on paper) made him a millionaire. But here’s the thing. He’s 15 going on 16, doing his GCSEs. Abnormal success in a balanced young man.

We have a business landscape that has the economists, those heretics of the 21st century who would be mostly hanging from the battlements were we in normal, mediaeval times, aghast. From Greece to Brazil to India nothing is remotely predictable or normal. I hear the expression “managing the complexity of change”. It doesn’t come close to describing our real world. Try “surfing the tsunamis of chaos” and you might get closer. Yet the world of business has become a place of brilliant opportunity. Last year more businesses started up in the UK than anywhere else in the world. More than in Brazil, China or America. Normal? No, extraordinary. And Brighton is at the heart of this abnormally buoyant SME economy.

Recently I did some work with the CEO of the Chinese offices of the advertising agency Young and Rubicam whose manta is “resist the usual”. He said “China is on fire”. Then as we walked around Brighton before and after lunch from the state-of-the-art library to the café society, he saw what we, too close to it, miss. The buzz, retail eccentricity and liveliness. In a world where normal is dead Brighton is a creative place at ease with itself and potentially “on fire” too.

Do you remember Peter Finch in the film “Network” saying “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” In 1976 it was normal to “take it” which is what made Finch’s performance so striking. Now none of us take or put up with anything. MP’s expenses, journalist malpractice, rich tax-avoiders, overpaid CEOs, bankers.  Historically such  institutions as these were impervious but not anymore. What this leads to is an abnormal opportunity to do things in new ways, break old rules and recreate business models and change attitudes.

Even that British malaise of grumbling, is in decline. On a soggy Sunday at Seven Dials I remarked to the newsagent “what a dreary day” and was roundly rebuked by her “How can you say that? It’s Sunday, a lovely day to relax with your family and have fun.” And then (cue “feel-good”) the sun came out.
Nothing is normal today. Normal is dead. And Brighton seems OK with that.

 Richard Hall - http://marketing-creativity-leadership.blogspot.co.uk/ - www.colourfulthinkers.com