Final Word from Thursday, June 27, 2002
Winning and retaining customers are two of the biggest challenges of doing business. Rarely is getting rid of a customer a priority. Imagine our surprise, then, when we inquired about canceling one of our backup internet services. We said we were undecided and only wanted to know the terms, but a few days later we received the following email from KPNQwest/GTS: "On June 11 we sent you, at your request, a form for canceling your service. But you haven't returned it yet. Please send it back as quickly as possible." When we asked the sender what the rush was, she said her performance evaluation was based on how many transactions she completed. She was therefore encouraging us to cancel our service. KPNQwest is in bankruptcy in Holland and is merging locally with GTS. Some priorities seem to have gotten misplaced in the process.