Last weekend I emailed the following complaint to the customer service department at The Wall Street Journal:
Our Wall Street Journal delivery person has a gutter mind. Let me explain.
Ever since we moved to our new address in January, with annoying frequency our morning paper is tossed in the gutter rather than our driveway. As you can see in the attached photo, the gutter fills with water in the early morning hours as homeowners water their lawns. The driveway, however, unless it rains, is bone dry.
My wife and I have been subscribers since 1996 in New York City when we had the Journal delivered to our apartment building on the Upper East Side. We used to divvy up sections of the paper to read during our morning subway commutes. We’ve always looked forward to waking up to the Journal – especially the weekend WSJ Magazine insert – and reading its many insightful articles.
There was a beautiful sunrise this morning in Denver. It would have been a delicious morning to sit with the paper and a steaming cup of coffee on the deck while the sun rose. But, alas, our delivery person (for perhaps the third time this week) had not thought to expend the discretionary effort required to toss the paper beyond the gutter and onto our driveway.
Please instruct this individual to pull his mind out of the gutter and focus instead on the pleasure his customers will experience by reading a dry morning newspaper with a cup of steaming hot coffee as the sun rises to the east.
Okay, so I had a little fun with this complaint. I’m not bitter, just disappointed. I know the delivery person can do better than to apathetically toss the paper into the wet gutter and drive on to complete his route. Beyond his daily mechanical job function, he must recognize the essence of his job – his highest priority at work.
His supervisor must convince him that, from his customer’s perspective, he’s not just delivering a bound clump of paper. He’s delivering the sunrise.
Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin or purchase from select retailers, including Barnes & Noble.
Watch the 90-second book trailer.
