Remember the stories about successful business leaders who started in the Mail Room?
- Dick Grasso (NYSE)
- Barry Diller, Michael Ovitz, and David Geffen (William Morris)
- Mike Medavoy (Universal)
- J. Lawrence Hughes (William Morrow)
- Ned Tanen (MCA)
- Jeffrey Katzenberg (Paramount)
- George Bodenheimer (ESPN)
- John Borghetti (Quantas)
- Tom Whalley (Warner Bros.)
- Don Hewitt (60 Minutes),
- John Bachmann (Edward Jones)
- Simon Cowell (EMI records)
The old Mail Room was in the critical path of all interdepartmental and customer communication. The Mail Room personnel navigated a maze of personalities and witnessed communication styles used throughout the organization. They could learn the crucial dividing line between what matters and what doesn’t in an organization. The Mail Room was the perfect department to bring new blood into a company. It was a low rung position that offered bountiful learning opportunities.
Which group of employees in your company know every customer and know every product flaw? Which group of employees have to accommodate all of the flavors of customer personalities (particularly when the customers are under stress)? Which group of employees must absolutely provide some sort of answer back to the customer? Which group of employees know which customer facing departments are ineffective at doing their assigned functions? Of course I am describing the Technical Support team which is in the critical path for customer communication. Technical Support teams witness it all. What better place to introduce new hires to the inner workings of you company. Never underestimate the importance of a powerful Technical Support team. It is the safety net for catching issues that fall through the cracks. All companies have cracks. Many companies however commoditize Technical Support. Metrics are overly applied to measure results and the true value provided is lost. Instead, create a program so that all new hires spend some period of time in Technical Support. Provide mechanisms where Technical Support can improve new product testing cycles. Take advantage of the trust that Technical Support has earned from customers to sell additional products and services. Take advantage of Technical Support to groom the future leaders of your company.
