Nancy J. Friedman
OccupationCustomer service consultant
Years active1982–present
OrganizationTelephone Doctor
Known forTelephone skills training
SpouseDick Friedman
ChildrenDavid, Linda

Nancy J. Friedman (known in her business persona as the "Telephone Doctor")[1] is an American customer service and telephone skills consultant.[1]

Nancy Friedman is founder and president of Telephone Doctor, a customer-service training company based in St. Louis, Missouri.[2][3] She also appears as spokesperson in the company's video training programs.[4] Friedman controls the registered trademark and dotcom domain for "Telephone Doctor".[4]

Biography

Friedman and her husband, Dick Friedman, were originally from Chicago.[5] Friedman has one year of college from the University of Miami.[6] Friedman worked as an actress in San Diego in the 1960s.[7] In 1964, she and her husband bought a radio station and then in 1967, they bought another radio station in St. Louis, Missouri.[6] In 1967, she and her husband moved to St. Louis.[7] In St. Louis, she did promotions for a weather-forecast service, Weatherline, which she started up with her husband in 1968.[6][5] She also continued to act, doing several shows a year and winning the Golden Globe Atlas Award for "best comedy actress."[5][8]

Career

In 1982, after being treated rudely in a routine call to her insurance agent,[7] Friedman both canceled her policies and started the "desk drawer" one-woman business Telephone Doctor to train employees in telephone etiquette.[9][10] The insurer company asked "how it should be done" and invited Friedman to demonstrate polite customer service to its representatives, leading to Friedman providing customer-service seminars to other corporations and associations.[11][12] Friedman's first seminar earned 38 cents in profit.[9][10] "Telephone Doctor" was named by Friedman's second client, a Davenport, Iowa newspaper editor.[11][13][14]

The company, Telephone Doctor, was founded by Friedman in 1983.[6] By 1986, her business, co-owned with her husband, Dick Friedman and her son, David, was a subsidiary of Weatherline and Sportsline.[7] By 1987, she was doing three to four seminars a week.[15] She and her husband began creating training videos because she didn't have enough time to do all the seminars people were asking for.[9] By 1994, Telephone Doctor employed 23 staff members and had annual worldwide sales of $2 million.[9][10] The company moved to a new building with a theater that same year.[9] Also in 1994, the company acquired World Telecom Associates.[16]

The company also did surveys to find out what phrases frustrated callers the most.[17] Friedman tried going on television to increase her business's exposure, but later found that creating close relationships with clients worked better for her type of business.[18] In 2007, the company made $3 million.[6]

Friedman's desire to teach businesses how to make better use of the telephone rather than to take it for granted[19] has been called a "crusade" and a "quest to stamp out phone rudeness".[20] She explains that bad customer service translates into lower sales and lost business of hundreds of millions of dollars.[3][9] Friedman is a speaker at corporate seminars in the U.S,[4][19][20] She has been a keynote speaker at Fortune 500 and other corporate and association meetings.[4][11] Her practices were recommended by Bear Stearns chairman Alan C. Greenberg for implementation by all employees.[20]

Books

  • Customer Service Nightmares: 100 Tales of the Worst Experiences Possible, and how They Could Have Been Fixed (1998)
  • Telephone Skills from A to Z: The Telephone Doctor Phone Book (2000)
  • Telemarketing Tips from A to Z: How to Make Every Call a Winner!. Menlo, California: Crisp Publications. 2001. ISBN 978-1-56052-603-2.
  • Excuses, Excuses, Excuses ... (2001)
  • 50 Little Tips That Make a Big Difference. St. Louis, MO: Independent Publishing Corp. 2005. ISBN 978-1-893937-25-3.
  • How to Get Your Customers Swearing By You, Not At You: Telephone Doctor's Guide to Customer Service Training. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-59996-151-4.
  • 54 Golden Nuggets: The Best of the Telephone Doctor. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, Inc. 2011. ISBN 978-1-59996-255-9.

References

  1. 1 2 Performance Research Associates (29 Oct 2011). Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service. American Management Association. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-0-8144-1756-0. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  2. ↑ Davies, Kent R. (October 2000). "Mobile Manners". Database. Rotarian. p. 16. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  3. 1 2 Enbysk, Monte (ed.). Fifteen Customer Service No-Noes. Microsoft.com. In Hammond, James (3 Mar 2011). "Talking the Walk". Branding Your Business. Kogan Page Publishers. pp. 115–117. ISBN 978-0-7494-6302-1. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Doane, Darryl S.; Sloat, Rose D (1 Sep 2003). 50 Activities for Achieving Excellent Customer Service. pp. 6, 24, 85. ISBN 978-0-87425-737-3. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 Pattiz, Denise (1978-11-22). "Actress Nancy Friedman Accepts Challenges of Dual Career Roles". St. Louis Jewish Light. p. 14. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Company President Dials Up Courtesy". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 2007-10-05. pp. B005. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Olson, Carolyn (1986-10-22). "Phone Etiquette At Work, Home". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p. 85. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "Costarring at Barn". St. Louis Jewish Light. 1979-04-25. p. 13. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jarvis, Cheryl (May 1994). "Prescribing Good Manners". Nation's Business. 82 (5): 18. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  10. 1 2 3 强华·张; 安才·侯; 琳·王 (2005). 信息管理专业英语实用教程. 清华大学出版社有限公司. p. 15. ISBN 978-7-302-11524-3. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 Friedman, Nancy (1 Jun 2001). Customer Service Training: How to Create Your Own Program. pp. vii–xi. ISBN 978-0-87425-623-9. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  12. ↑ Skaer, Mark (26 Apr 2004). "The Telephone Doctor Dispenses Advice". Air Conditioning Heating & Refrigeration News. 221 (17): 51. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  13. ↑ "She's One Smooth Operator". The Santa Fe New Mexican. 1985-06-09. p. 36. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ Arpy, Jim (1982-12-06). "The Telephone Doctor". Quad-City Times. p. 13. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Creamer, Beverly (1987-02-09). "How To Get Your Way Over the Telephone". The Honolulu Advertiser. p. 9. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Professionally Speaking". St. Louis Jewish Light. 1994-09-07. p. 33. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Gubbins, Ed (2003). "The Doctor of 'Not In'". Telephony. 244 (8): 21 – via EBSCOhost.
  18. ↑ Conner, Cheryl. "What I Learned From My Appearances On Regis And Oprah". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  19. 1 2 Applegate, Jane (8 Apr 2011). "Great Idea 175: Listen to the Telephone Doctor". 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. p. 248. ISBN 978-1-118-06769-7. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  20. 1 2 3 Richards, Cindy. "'Phone doctor' has an Rx for telerudeness". Chicago Sun-Times. In Greenberg, Alan C. (1 Mar 1996). "Phone Manner". Memos from the Chairman. Workman Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-7611-0346-2. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
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