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when one of her children wanted to speak with her.
One evening she was sitting in the kitchen with her son,
Robert, and after a brief discussion of something that
was on his mind, Robert said: "Mom, I know that you
love me very much.
Mrs. Esposito was touched and said: Of course I love
you very much. Did you doubt it?
Robert responded: "No, but I really know you love me
because whenever I want to talk to you about something
you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me.
The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will
frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a
patient, sympathetic listener - a listener who will he silent
while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra
and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate:
The New York Telephone Company discovered a few
years ago that it had to deal with one of the most vicious
customers who ever cursed a customer service representative.
And he did curse. He raved. He threatened to tear
the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay certain
charges that he declared were false. He wrote letters to
the newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with
the Public Service Commission, and he started several
suits against the telephone company.
At last, one of the company s most skillful trouble-shooters
was sent to interview this stormy petrel. This
troubleshooter listened and let the cantankerous customer
enjoy himself pouring out his tirade. The telephone
representative listened and said yes and
sympathized with his grievance.
He raved on and I listened for nearlv three hours,
the troubleshooter said as he related his experiences
before one of the author s classes. Then I went back
and listened some more. I interviewed him four times,
and before the fourth visit was over I had become a
charter member of an organization he was starting. He
called it the Telephone Subscribers Protective Association.'
I am still a member of this organization, and, so
far as I know, I m the only member in the world today
besides Mr. ----.
"I listened and sympathized with him on every point
that he made during these interviews. He had never had
a telephone representative talk with him that way before,
and he became almost friendly. The point on which
I went to see him was not even mentioned on the first
visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or third, but
upon the fourth interview, I closed the case completely,
he paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the
history of his difficulties with the telephone company he
voluntarily withdrew his complaints from the Public
Service Commission.
Doubtless Mr. ----- had considered himself a holy
crusader, defending the public rights against callous exploitation.
But in reality, what he had really wanted was
a feeling of importance. He got this feeling of importance
at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon as
he got his feeling of importance from a representative of
the company, his imagined grievances vanished into
thin air.
One morning years ago, an angry customer stormed
into the office of Julian F. Detmer, founder of the Detmer
Woolen Company, which later became the world s
largest distributor of woolens to the tailoring trade.
This man owed us a small sum of money, Mr. Detmer
explained to me. The customer denied it, but we
knew he was wrong. So our credit department had insisted
that he pay. After getting a number of letters from
our credit department, he packed his grip, made a trip to
Chicago, and hurried into my office to inform me not
only that he was not going to pay that bill, but that he
was never going to buy another dollar s worth of goods
from the Detmer Woolen Company.
"I listened patiently to all he had to say. I was tempted
to interrupt, but I realized that would be bad policy, So
I let him talk himself out. When he finally simmered
down and got in a receptive mood, I said quietly: I want
to thank vou for coming to Chicago to tell me about this.
You have done me a great favor, for if our credit department
has annoyed you, it may annoy other good customers,
and that would be just too bad. Believe me, I am far
more eager to hear this than you are to tell it.
That was the last thing in the world he expected me
to say. I think he was a trifle disappointed, because he
had come to Chicago to tell me a thing or two, but here
I was thanking him instead of scrapping with him. I assured
him we would wipe the charge off the books and
forget it, because he was a very careful man with only
one account to look after, while our clerks had to look
after thousands. Therefore, he was less likely to be
wrong than we were.
I told him that I understood exactly how he felt and
that, if I were in his shoes, I should undoubtedly feel
precisely as he did. Since he wasn t going to buy from
us anymore, I recommended some other woolen houses.
In the past, we had usually lunched together when
he came to Chicago, so I invited him to have lunch with
me this day. He accepted reluctantly, but when we came
back to the office he placed a larger order than ever
before. He returned home in a softened mood and, wanting
to be just as fair with us as we had been with him,
looked over his bills, found one that had been mislaid,
and sent us a check with his apologies.
"Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy,
he gave his son the middle name of Detmer, and he
remained a friend and customer of the house until his
death twenty-two years afterwards.
Years ago, a poor Dutch immigrant boy washed the
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