As an owner, manager, supervisor or any top level executive, one of your first assignments from the Telephone Doctor is to pick up your telephone, call your office and ask for yourself, a service or a product.

That’s right. Call your own office from your home, outside with a cell, or from a friend’s home or office.

Ask for yourself, a product or a service your company offers. Be careful, though, it can be very painful.

Oh wait? You say you have a very recognizable voice and they’ll know you right away?

Then have someone do it for you and be close by so you can hear; or if there’s an extension, use that.

Again, be careful. It might be painful.

A while back I asked my program audience to do just that when they got back home. A woman came running up to me and yelled, “Well, they’ll recognize my voice.” I said, “Yes, they might if you ask for somebody else, but if you call up and ask for yourself a service or product chances are they won’t.”

I do it all the time. I call my office and ask, “Is Nancy there?” in a slightly disguised voice and trust me, nobody’s ever said to me, “That you screwing around Nancy?”

We cannot fix what we do not know. You must call your own store, office, or any place of business you own or operate and ask for yourself, a service or product to see how your customers are handled.

Then call me and tell me how it went.