Rory Sutherland

How valuable it is to people with pensions is a completely separate matter.

Because one of the things it does is it prevents companies from innovating effectively, and it prevents them from investing properly in customer relationships.

They were going blah, blah, blah, average call time, blah, blah, blah, average wait time.

And it was the standard kind of call center metrics about effectively how quickly can we get these people off the phone?

I mean, it's a bit more sophisticated than that.

You know, I'm sure there's some measure of satisfaction, but it was kind of evaluating the call center on an operational efficiency standpoint.

And Dyson basically said, stop right now.

You've got this all wrong.

The way we should look at this is we should treat it as an honor if one of our customers chooses to get in touch with us, and we should therefore respond to them accordingly.

As if we're flattered by the contact, not as if we're bothered by the interruption.

Or words to that effect.

I'm putting words in his mouth, but this is roughly speaking what the person said happened in the meeting.

That makes a lot of sense.

And by the way, that's why my father had four Dysons.

Stingy man though he was.

I hope he won't mind me saying this, my late father.

But every time he rang them up, which might have been only once every year, they did something astonishing.

And they were really, really helpful.

And they solved the problem.

And the part arrived the next day.