SOME THINGS CAN STAY THE SAME BUT SOME THINGS ABSOLUTELY CAN’T AND WON’T
Our communications consultant, who so far this year has saved us 50% on our telephone costs, was in yesterday giving Peter and me an update on his progress and to offer further recommendations. He advised us even though our original 800-number only costs $5.00 per month, because it wasn’t being used we should look at canceling it. Pete and I looked at one another and almost in unison we told the consultant five dollars was a small price to pay for a little nostalgia. When we made the original application to PacBell way back in early 1993 for our phone numbers, they offered us 800-649-6249, the same as our fax number. We took it to be our “lucky” number. For sixty odd bucks a year it was a no brainer for Pete and I making the decision to hold onto something that has been part of our company since its inception. Out of town customers today communicate by email instead of the phone and scan their documents instead of faxing them. The sad thing is a voice at the end of the phone makes the relationship personal and conversely an email relationship, if the customer is relatively new, takes a longer time before you to start to get to know one another. The good thing about scanning, no more jammed fax machines!
At CII, we take pride in many things staying the same. Our headquarters is in the same building since the day we opened our doors, our fax and phone number remain the same. Even our outdated, museum piece, second hand phone system, where an individual staff member is required to pick up the phone (no such thing at CII as a voice mail to switch the customer over to when you can’t be bothered talking) is still going strong after sixteen odd years! Our market niche, the South Pacific still represents 80% of what we do. Over the years, it is still just the same handful of carriers who receive the bulk of our business. It is a shame over the years to see the demise of so many mid-sized forwarders, either disappearing into that hanger in the sky or being swallowed up by bigger players but that is a change we have to accept. So many of my vintage have hung up their boots and yes, I do have difficulty acknowledging the future of forwarding is now safely in the hands of a new generation of smart people.
I do accept Pete and I may be regarded as anachronisms, but at the end of the day, I think we both share greater piece of mind clinging onto so many of the old same customs and things that never allow us to forget our roots; the most important of course being plain old fashioned personal service!
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Derek Mac
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Derek Mac
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