Letters

Readers respond to Norm Brodsky's March Street Smarts column, "Deciding To Grow." Also responses to recent stories on customer service and recruitment.

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Readers again responded in droves to the perennially popular Norm Brodsky, adding their own two cents to the advice he dispensed in his March Street Smarts column, " Deciding to Grow." They were just as blunt in voicing their opinions on the state of customer service and on finding low-skilled workers, two topics we covered in April.

Service without a smile
Senior writer Susan Greco wrote about the state of customer service in her April feature story, " Fanatics!" This reader says many retailers aren't fanatical enough about the service they provide.

I spent the past four years with Joe Boxer as the director of retail services. The job had me traveling to 38 states and visiting about 80% of the malls in each of those states. I know customer service both as a consumer and as a traveling brick-and-mortar maven.

I know I had high customer-service expectations at one time (I think they ended sometime in the early 1990s), but now it's the exception to get good service when you're shopping, no matter where you are.

I've started to use E-commerce sites, although I swore I never would, because the service is good to great and I can avoid the stores. I never thought I'd use a service that required me to pay for shipping and then wait for my order, but shopping in the malls has become excruciating.

Jeanmarie Smith
Account Executive
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Irvine, Calif.

Back to basics
In her April feature story, " Help (Still) Wanted," senior writer Rifka Rosenwein explored the challenges that employers continue to face in seeking low-skilled workers. She also reported on the techniques that several company owners have used to find employees. One reader wrote in to remind employers that sometimes it's the simple things that can help retain workers.

As one who once worked in the low-skill trenches (fast food, telemarketing, and so on), I can tell you that being paid a living wage -- not to mention being treated with dignity and caring instead of like a child or a criminal (I was neither) -- would have meant so much more to me than the gimmicks the employers you profiled are using to attract workers. Many of my early jobs had rules and regulations whose only purpose seemed to be to dehumanize workers and let them know just who was in control of their every movement and thought.

People who are made to feel important and valued will stay at a job even if they could be earning more or getting better benefits somewhere else -- as long as they're being paid a living wage. Low-skilled workers in general feel battered by life and society, and making them feel as if they matter can often overcome a less than ideal work situation.

Teresa Barragn
Office Manager
ATTM International Ltd.
Houston

Patent pending
In his March From the Front Line column (" Patents: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone?"), Brad Mead, president of the investment-banking firm Delta Capital Group LLC, questioned whether small-business owners should bother trying to patent their inventions. This reader advised his peers to proceed with caution.

I was pleased to see that you shed some light on the usefulness of patents and the flawed system surrounding their issuance. Having recently survived a costly patent lawsuit, I can say that the article is a must-read for entrepreneurs who are about to patent their inventions or who think they're safe with the patents they have. My company could have gone to trial to prove that our ice-sculpture-molding method, for which we had purchased the rights, was the first of its kind. But for a small company with limited financial resources, the court costs would have put us out of business long before the case ever went to trial.

Kudos to you for the article. I hope that readers will take note and do their homework before heading down a costly and sometimes worthless path.

Dennis Wold
President
Ice Occasions
Houston

Gorilla in the missed
In March's Obits column, senior writer Rifka Rosenwein profiled Red Gorilla, an online time-tracking and billing company that closed its doors in October 2000. This reader offered his own diagnosis of the company's ills.

You seem to be making the assumption that Red Gorilla failed because of its upselling strategy: giving away basic services as an enticement to get customers to pay for premium services. That assumption is both facile and faulty. Using such a strategy is a time-tested marketing tool, and there are plenty of instances -- even in the dot-com arena -- where it has worked successfully. For example, Hoover's Online (a well-known provider of company information) gives users access to its basic company capsules and financials, with the hope of converting them to paid subscriptions that offer much more detailed profiles, officer lists, and financials. The strategy has been a successful one: subscriptions accounted for 46% of Hoover's $19 million in revenues for 2000, and the company anticipates reaching EBITDA profitability by the end of the current quarter.

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