The Book of Business Etiquette | Page 9

really are our employers.
Ours is a semi-public institution.
Every day, men try to interest us in matters with which we have no
concern. It is our duty to tell these men, very courteously, why their
proposals do not appeal to us. But they are entitled to a hearing. It may
be that they are not in a position to benefit us, and never will be. But
almost every man can harm us, if he tries to do so. And a pleasantly
expressed declination invariably makes a better impression than a favor
grudgingly granted. We ask you, then, to remember that our
growth--and your opportunities--depend not only upon the friends we
make, but the enemies we do not make.
Remember names and faces. Do something, say something that will
bring home to those who do business with us the fact that the Blank
Trust Company is a very human institution--that it wants the good will
of every man and woman in the country.

That is the kind of courtesy which has builded this particular
organization. It is a pleasure to visit it to-day because of the spirit of
coöperation which animates it. They have done away with the elaborate
spy systems in use in so many banks, although they keep the
management well enough in hand to be able to fasten the blame for
mistakes upon the right person. The employees work with one another
and with the president, whom they adore. It is, as a matter of fact,
largely the influence of the personality of the president filtering down
through the ranks which has made possible the phenomenal success
which the institution has enjoyed during the past few years, another
proof of the fact that every institution--and Emerson was speaking of
great institutions when he said it--"is the lengthened shadow of one
man."
Banks have almost a peculiar problem. Money is a mighty power, and
to the average person there is something very awesome about the place
where it is kept. Mr. Stephen Leacock is not the only man who ever
went into a bank with a funny little guilty feeling even when he had
money in it. When one is in this frame of mind it takes very little on the
part of the clerk to make him believe that he has been treated rudely.
Bank clerks are notoriously haughty, but the fault is often as much in
the person on the outside as in the one on the inside of the bars,
especially when he has come in to draw out money which he knows he
should not, such as his savings bank account, for instance. The other
day a young man went into a savings bank to draw out all of his money
for a purpose which he knew was extravagant although he had
persuaded himself that it was not. Throughout the whole time he was in
the bank he was treated with perfect courtesy, but in spite of it he came
out growling about "the dirty look the paying teller gave him!"
It is not only in the first contact that civility is important. Eternal
vigilance is the price of success as well as of liberty. Another incident
from the banking business illustrates this. Several years ago a bank
which had been steadily losing customers called in a publicity expert to
build up trade for them. The man organized a splendid campaign and
things started off with a flourish. People began to come in most
gratifying numbers. But they did not stay. An investigation conducted

by the publicity man disclosed the fact that they had been driven away
by negligent and discourteous service. He went to the president of the
bank and told him that he was wasting money building up advertising
so long as his bank maintained its present attitude toward the public.
The president was a man of practical sense. There was a general
clearing up, those who were past reform were discharged and those
who stayed were given careful training in what good breeding meant
and there was no more trouble. Advertising will bring in a customer but
it takes courtesy to keep him.
Business, like nearly everything else, is easier to tear down than to
build up, and one of the most devastating instruments of destruction is
discourtesy. A contact which has taken years to build can be broken off
by one snippy letter, one pert answer, or one discourteous response
over the telephone. Even collection letters, no matter how long overdue
the accounts are, bring in more returns when they are written with tact
and diplomacy than when these two qualities are omitted. If you insult
a man who owes you money he feels that the only way he can get even
is not to pay you, and in most cases, he