The customer? What's that?

One of the first things I understood about business is that you need to take care of customers. Equally you need to take care of staff, investors and suppliers, but customers are absolutely vital. There used to be a saying which went something like ‘the customer is king’. That saying must have disappeared with the advent of equality, but the principle still applies, at least to most of us in Enterprise Britain.



Like many of us I have insurance on my home. It is there as a backup and I have always avoided making a claim. The last time I did was 16 years ago and it went like clockwork. The insurance company could not have been more helpful. Now it seems it is a whole new experience.


I live in a great part of town, but on busy weekends we get some rather loud people walking or should I say staggering through the street. On Sunday evening there was a loud bang against my front door and the dogs went wild. So I went down to check what was happening and found a group of young adults, about 6 of them, fighting in my driveway. Rather than risk getting drawn in I quietly closed the door and my partner called the police.


It turned out that my decision was a good one. As I walked back I found glass on the floor and it turned out someone’s head had been pushed rather violently through my leaded glass front window. The police stopped two of the girls in the group (the police had arrived rather swiftly – thank you police!) but because I had not seen the head being pushed through the window (only the outline was left – sadly no blood) it was my problem. The girls of course knew nothing.


So I called my insurance company. Going through the inevitable menus I was treated to a tape of about a minute telling me what would happen to me if my claim was found to be fraudulent. My understanding is that if I left out any detail anywhere on anything in my life, the claim could be considered fraudulent and I could face something dreadful – in any event something much worse than the perpetrators of the damage.


Being an upstanding citizen (or so I believe) I decided to risk it. Of course I was not particularly happy with the taped lecture following a rather distressing event, but chin up. Someone finally came to the phone. My identity then had to be verified. After all, I was probably a fraudster, so best to be safe.


The insurance representative started by telling me I would have to pay the excess to the window installer before they could start the actual repair. I was also told that my premium would go up and I would lose my complete no claims history. With all this settled, I was asked what the claim was for.


A national window installer was sent down a day later to look at the damage and to make a temporary repair. Even he advised me to pay for the damage out of my own pocket as the insurance company would force me to pay a lot more through the excess and the increased premiums.


What I do with the repair remains to be seen. The insurance company tells me to talk with the repair people about the estimate and the repair people tell me to talk to the insurers. Neither really gives a s..t. I guess I will get an estimate from a local firm which has always treated me well – like I would expect from someone from Enterprise Britain.


The insurer? Well I guess I have Fred G. to thank for this. I did not realise how far down the line the new attitude goes: ‘the customer? What's that?’

Bringing the profession into disrepute

Rugby to me is a little like cricket or real ale – something I will never fully appreciate despite my best efforts. After 20 years of living in this great country the attractiveness of all of these 3 local pastimes has eluded me. So it surprises me that there are people who take what is supposed to be a game so seriously they cheat with bags of fake blood and getting doctors to cover up by cutting their lips.

It gets even more painful as it becomes clear that it is not simply a player who decided that the easiest way out of the game was to use some fake blood (even football players have been able to avoid this kind of unsporting behaviour to date), but that the management of the club played a major role in the whole thing.

The event gets even more ridiculous as the doctor’s main fault seems to be ‘bringing the profession into disrepute’. This is laughable in today’s world. With MPs structurally cheating on personal expenses, bankers going to extremes to destroy the economy whilst paying themselves stupid amounts of money and lawyers calling every day to see if they can place personal injury claim, nobody cares about the reputation of the profession. Get real!

What is of interest to me is the pressure people like this doctor face and possibly even the player. To be honest, from where I am sitting, both should have stood up and said they would not participate in these shenanigans, but it is easy to say that from this position. How can an organisation like Harlequins develop in this way? There is a serious problem at board level.

In our own organisations we need to ensure we remain open to the people who work for us and that we do not find ourselves in a position that we allow pressures to take us down a road we would not go under normal circumstances. Last week I was in a situation in a company where some senior managers and I did not agree on a particular direction to take. There was no ethical argument in this case, nor was there a particular right or wrong answer. For me it was important to get to the best decision and not to find that by exerting pressure I had forced a course of action. Harlequins forced a course of action but did not get the best decision.

The doctor and the player were clearly wrong in this particular case, but the directors should be called to account for allowing standards to develop within Harlequins which allowed cheating to become part of their game. The Board should be in court and most certainly they needs to be held accountable – possibly personally. I am glad at least one director has resigned. I hope the sport continues to be enjoyed by many and I hope Harlequins can rebuild itself, this time with high standards.