BBB staff finds harmony with Itsy-bitsy tail-wagger
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO, BBB jquintrall@spokane.bbb.org
for the Spokesman Review, 4/26/09
Last fall, the Better Business Bureau received a written complaint about me, about a management decision. That is a bit unusual – in fact, rare. I’m not sure it ever occurred before. But I need to tell you what led to this event.
When BBB Vice President Elea Sprinkle approached me about a puppy she wanted to buy, she told me this puppy was going to be so small it would need to be fed every two hours. I’m still not really sure what breed it is. Elea wanted my permission to bring the pup into the BBB office until it weighed 6 pounds and could stay home during the day. My first response was no, this is not a dog day care center. Then she e-mailed me a picture of the pup. Oh, heck, what could a couple of weeks of puppy sitting hurt? I relented.
“Itsy” arrived and the entire staff fell in love. Here was this tiny (itsy, bitsy) blond puppy with sad eyes and a wet nose. However, being a hardened executive, I was not taken in and kept reminding everyone that this was temporary, and not to get too attached.
But a strange thing happened on the way to 6 pounds. I started observing what that little bit of fur did to the staff. Each morning Elea and Itsy would come in, Itsy would make the rounds. She went to each cubicle, each office, and stood on her back legs, waved her front paws and made little happy sounds. Sort of a good morning “high five” for everyone.
Many of the calls we make and take here are not pleasant, and morale is a constant focus for everyone. Somehow, Itsy knew that. When a staff person ended a particularly rough call, Itsy was there to be petted, do the Itsy-wave or just to sit close by.
We have all heard the tales (or tails) of dogs and cats in health care centers offering comfort and support, and this was a clear example of that kind of relationship. All the tension that builds up in your neck, between your shoulder blades and in your clenched teeth seems to melt away when an animal looks up at you, just adoring, not judging. Even I understood that and knew sending Itsy home was going to be hard on everyone.
There were a couple events that sealed Itsy’s fate. The first was the complaint. Yes, the one about me. The BBB board chairman, Dan Austin with Austin’s Jewelry, spent some extended time in our office talking with the staff while compiling my performance evaluation. I am adamant that my board talk with my staff as part of my evaluation. When he finished, we received an anonymous written complaint about my plan to banish Itsy. We all knew Dan left the complaint, for he had seen the Itsy Effect in action, too.
But the final straw was Itsy’s relationship with my no-nonsense investigator. Zan Deery is a tough, direct fact-finder and not a dog person. Her job is probably one of the most stressful and unpopular in the office. She was really keeping Itsy at arm’s length, but that did not deter that little dog. Zan’s office became her favorite spot, her nap place and the place we all looked first when it was time to find Itsy.
Then Zan started to talk to Itsy. She brought her treats and socks and toys, and the bond was solidified. More important, Zan softened and relaxed with that little dog, and with the rest of us, too. Itsy made it OK for Zan to let her guard down – a difficult thing in her position, but that 6-pound dog got it done.
The Zan-Itsy connection is so strong that one day when Zan was sick, Itsy just sat at the door to her office looking lost. I think they need each other and the BBB needs Itsy. Yes, it took me a bit of time to understand the Itsy Effect, but now I get it. And the BBB is not the only office with a dog.
Itsy has a job here at the BBB. She is our Twitter mascot and has quite the following. The CEO of Zappo’s! Shoes is one of her fans. She sends out Twitter messages about BBB tips, news releases and thoughts in general. Her personality is all over these messages; just a fun way to help people make good buying decisions. If you want to follow Itsy, go to bbb.org, type in your ZIP code, then click on her picture. Sometimes she runs all the way to Bozeman or Yakima for a juicy tidbit.
So Itsy is a permanent addition to the BBB these days, and for the future. I was wrong and completely underestimated the effects of animals on people under stress. She is an important part of our message, our culture and our caring for each other and the communities we serve. Lesson learned.
Good deeds, ethical behavior are the best kind of business
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO, BBB jquintrall@spokane.bbb.org
for the Spokesman Review, 4/12/09
Recently I was speaking to a group of business people, and one of them asked, “Does the BBB accept compliments?”
Yes! Please call us with compliments. We love calling businesses to tell them a customer has taken time to praise their product or service. It’s a pleasant change to call on anyone with good news. So my Easter gift to readers this week is a basket of three good stories.
Looks can deceive: The first takes us back to the December snowstorms. I don’t think I need to remind anyone just how long you had to wait for nearly any kind of service. Even if they had the staff to get the job done, getting to your house might be such an adventure, they never showed up.
A woman called a towing company to get her car out of her driveway. The tow company arrived, and this rather gruff fellow began to hook her car to the truck. She observed that raising her car might cause its roof to get scratched by tree branches, but she hesitated saying anything, knowing he had 200 more calls after her and had been working 12-hour days. She decided to speak up. “He was such a gruff and grizzly guy, I thought he would just growl at me,” she reported. “I could not have been more wrong. He smiled, asked if I had a saw and proceeded to cut the branches off the tree, and hooked my car up.”
On the house: The second involves four young adults at a local restaurant. They were seated promptly, and the server took their order. The two couples had lots of catching up to do and were enjoying talking about recent events. None of them noticed the 20 minutes that passed since their order was taken. A rather embarrassed and humble manager approached, apologized repeatedly for how long the food was taking, explained that their order had not been turned in, and said the entire dinner would be on the house. When the woman related the story to me, she said what was most impressive was they had not noticed the delay and never mentioned anything; the restaurant was the first to notice they did not live up to their standards and made it right. Wow.
Lost and found: I was part of the last story. My husband and I had a party recently at the Spokane Club to celebrate our anniversary. One of our guests arrived flustered. She and her sister had been at a downtown sports bar watching the NCAA tournament. Before they got to our party, she realized she had lost her purse. They went back but didn’t find it.
I asked her if her cell phone was in the purse and turned on. It was, so I suggested we call it and see what happened. I grabbed my husband’s phone and dialed her cell. A young man’s voice answered, “Hello, is this Betty?” I was surprised to get an answer, and said “Yes! Do you have my purse?!” He did and went on to tell me they were walking around downtown and saw the little purse in the street. As they waited for the light to change, a city bus ran over it. They picked it up and headed home. I got directions, and Betty took off up the hill to get her purse.
It gets better. She had more than $500 cash in her purse. This young man had every opportunity to take the cash and remain quiet, but he didn’t. The shape of her cell phone was a sad sight; I’m amazed it even worked. You can imagine what her lipstick looked like.
When the BBB does ethics training in high schools, one of the lessons we teach is that ethical decisions are ones you make when nobody is watching; decisions that would not change if you were being filmed. This guy exhibited that kind of behavior, as did all the heroes in these stories. Doing the right thing when nobody knows is one of the most basic measures of character.
I once watched a man and his son stuff their small dog into a carry-on bag just down the street from a “no dogs” hotel. I followed them in, watched them pass the front desk and go to the elevator and get on, with the dog hidden in the case. I let the front desk know, but my bigger concern was, what in the world did that man think he was teaching his son?
What are you teaching your kids? Your staff? Your customers? Your vendors? We love to tell stories – about good and bad behavior. If the stories they tell about you involve ethical behavior, the BBB would like to compliment you.
Jan Quintrall is president and CEO of the local Better Business Bureau. She can be reached at jquintrall@spokane.bbb.org or (509) 232-0530.