Jump to content

Nancy Friedman

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Nancy J. Friedman)
Nancy J. Friedman
OccupationCustomer service consultant
Years active1982–present
OrganizationTelephone Doctor
Known forTelephone skills training
SpouseDick Friedman
ChildrenDavid, Linda

Nancy J. Friedman (born 1939/1940) [1] is an American customer service and telephone skills consultant.[2] She is also known as her business persona the "Telephone Doctor"[2]

Nancy Friedman is founder and president of Telephone Doctor, a customer-service training company based in St. Louis, Missouri.[3][4] She also appears as spokesperson in the company's video training programs.[5] Friedman controls the registered trademark and dotcom domain for "Telephone Doctor".[5]

Biography

[edit]

Friedman and her husband, Dick Friedman, were originally from Chicago.[6] Friedman has one year of college from the University of Miami.[1] 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.[1] 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.[1][6] She also continued to act, doing several shows a year and winning the Golden Globe Atlas Award for "best comedy actress."[6][8]

Career

[edit]

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.[1] 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.[1]

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.[4][9] Friedman is a speaker at corporate seminars in the U.S,[5][19][20] She has been a keynote speaker at Fortune 500 and other corporate and association meetings.[5][11] Her practices were recommended by Bear Stearns chairman Alan C. Greenberg for implementation by all employees.[20]

Books

[edit]
  • 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

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f "Company President Dials Up Courtesy". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 2007-10-05. pp. B005. Retrieved 2017-12-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b 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.
  3. ^ Davies, Kent R. (October 2000). "Mobile Manners". Database. Rotarian. p. 16. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  4. ^ a b 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.
  5. ^ a b c d Doane, Darryl S.; Sloat, Rose D (1 Sep 2003). 50 Activities for Achieving Excellent Customer Service. Human Resource Development. pp. 6, 24, 85. ISBN 978-0-87425-737-3. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  6. ^ a b c 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.
  7. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b c d e f Jarvis, Cheryl (May 1994). "Prescribing Good Manners". Nation's Business. 82 (5): 18. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  10. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c Friedman, Nancy (1 Jun 2001). Customer Service Training: How to Create Your Own Program. Human Resource Development. 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. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c 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.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Nancy_Friedman&oldid=1218202189"