"The Trouble Man”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 11

"The Trouble Man”

NOWADAYS, pretty nearly all business concerns make arrangements for receiving,, investigating, and adjusting complaints from customers about goods or Service. The “trouble man" is in charge of such' work, and some of his (or her, it may be, as the reader will see later, doings arc entertainingly discussedby the Boston “Monitor.” He first appeared among the electric light, gas, telephone and similar public service corporations. People pressed complaints against these concerns rather vigorously, because they were big and supposed to be unfeeling. The corporations, in turn, had to deal with complaints by some routine . method because the amount of the average customer’s bill for gas, current or telephone service did not permit the personal attention to each case that was possible in, say, a mercantile business.

To meet this need, the trouble man was appointed. To-day, business houses in many lines profit by results ho is able to show through taking up complaints in a systematic way. For while ho is making the investigation that will right the grievance of ono customer, he finds obscure shortcomings iu organisation, effects improvements and economies, and forestalls future complaints. The trouble man is on the side of the customer from the beginning. The latter comes in angry. His ‘mind is' full of imagined slights and impositions, heaped upon him, ho thinks, by the company. He has declared war and has come ready to fight if necessary.

Value of Tact. The trouble man is glad to see him, and assures him that lie is employed to attend to just such, matters. Indeed, the trouble man may be a woman, for it has been found that feminine tact, cheerfulness and patience with details are exactly suited to this sort of work in many cases. The snarl brought by an angry customer begins to straighten out of itself the moment he learns that h< is to deal with a woman instead, of thrashing somebody. A good trouble man has certain resources to fall .back .upon in handling the people who * come to him. An in-