I grew up in Fauquier County in the little town of Warrenton, Virginia. Warrenton is about fifty miles from Washington, D.C., in the heart of the Virginia horse country.

It was a great place to grow up. The population was about 3,000 and everybody knew everybody. It was a friendly town.

One of the things that I have vivid memories about is that we didn’t have rotary or push-button phones. When we picked up the phone to make a call, a live voice (heaven forbid!) simply stated, “Number, please!” Her voice (all the operators were female) was so pleasant, caring, and you could feel her smile coming through the telephone. What a far cry that is from what is happening today.

Place a call to an organization and you will most likely get an automated answering device. The message tells you to dial various numbers to get departments or people. Most of the messages are so long that by the time you reach the end, you’ve forgotten what number you want! So you dial the number again and go through the same rigmarole. And if you are fortunate enough to get someone who breathes, they have been trained to talk like a machine.

Personal Touch

We live in a busy, fast-paced world and one that has changed significantly since I was a boy. We’ve seen amazing advances in technology and the best still lies ahead. Yet, the one thing that great companies understand is to always maintain that personal touch.

Technology is key to our business at Owens & Minor and we’ve been selected twice by Information Week magazine as the #1 company in America in how we use it. But despite these wonderful accolades we have never lost sight of the value and impact that a live voice brings to the table.

First Impressions

At Owens & Minor, we call our receptionists Directors of First Impressions, and for a good reason. Think about it. The first impression you get of a company is the voice on the other end of the phone or the person that greets you when you walk in the building. It’s what we call a moment of truth, because how one is greeted makes a lasting impression. Organizations and people face many moments of truth every day and the way we handle those moments is how we are perceived.

Three Muscles

If you’ve ever read anything about the human body, you know that it takes three muscles to smile and 66 to frown. Whey do you want to waste all of that energy frowning?

I recently flew back from Atlanta on Delta Airlines. As I walked on the plane the flight attendant at the door sure was wasting a lot of energy frowning. She ignored the passengers boarding and never made eye contact. The flight had been delayed for three hours and we all were looking for a smile or caring acknowledgement. Instead, she was like Dracula, sucking the life out of all of us. Once the plane was in the air, she walked down the aisle and I stopped her and said, “I bet you hated to come to work today.” To which she responded, “I sure did.” To which I responded, “It shows!”

Make it a goal to recognize others, to smile at them and to let them know you care. If you do, you won’t ever be thought of as a “number”.