Frank Abagnale Is Speaking To Us For Customer Service Week
Frank Abagnale, whose life was the subject of the movie Catch Me If You Can, will be speaking to us this year during Customer Service Week. It’s another example of how the company invests in us not only motivationally but in timely, topical fashion. Frank’s wheelhouse was scamming folks as a con man. This ties-in to customer service insofar as protecting sensitive customer data; acting responsibly from a corporate and an individual point of view.
When Mr. Abagnale performed most of his cons people had poor processes in place to help defend against deception. In today’s world, we’re always playing one upsmanship against those who would try to gain personally-sensitive data and use it illicitly. I look forward to hearing about personal responsibility and corporately cooperative processes to protect people who trust us with their information and disability recovery. It probably sounds like a focused topic but given that we’re the top shelf for Group and Personal disability coverage in the U.S. you have to expect that we focus on serving our clients well and we practice our execution like top-tier teams in any arena.
Mr Abagnale spoke candidly and powerfully at our recent Customer Service meeting. His rendition of his life was only slightly different from the movie but he recounted his experiences with sincerity and openness. It was moving to hear him strip some of the awe with which the movie imbued his actions. His honesty and humanity is definitely a different way to convey any message in a corporate environment. There wasn’t a big push to motivate us; just honest communication about the detractions of his life, how he conned folks and his regrets about doing so. Much like in a personal relationship where one takes a position and lives with the consequences, our business leaders are trying different ways to connect with us and inform us of what they value at the same time that they’re trying to shift their focus from what customers wanted last year and the decade before to what customers are wanting today and what we think they’ll want this upcoming decade. It’s not perfect but I commend our leadership for getting out of their offices, their boxes and trying their best to flip things around and keep us communicating and working together. Not everything they try will work with all of us; we’re myriad and diverse. Their passion for building a vibrant, healthy corporation that creates value for our customers is, in itself, motivating.