Memo to staff: you're banned from e-mail
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Your support makes all the difference.One of Britain's leading businessmen has banned his staff from using e-mail, claiming it was costing £1m a month in lost time.
John Caudwell, who owns the high street chain Phones 4u, has told his 2,500 employees to speak to each other in person or on the phone rather than using "insidious" internal e-mails, which he said was wasting at least three hours a day. Customers will still be able to e-mail the firm.
Mr Caudwell, the 26th richest man in Britain, with a personal fortune of £840m, admitted that he did not use e-mail himself.
"I saw that e-mail was insidiously invading Phones 4u so I banned it immediately," he said. "Management and staff at HQ and in the stores were beginning to show signs of being constrained by e-mail proliferation - the ban brought an instant, dramatic and positive effect." He said the most noticeable benefit was increased customer loyalty because staff had switched their attention from sending e-mails to improving services.
"Service par excellence needs 100 per cent focus, and e-mail was showing the potential to get in the way - but not in my business," Mr Caudwell added. "The quality and efficiency of communication have been increased tremendously in one fell swoop - things are getting done and people aren't tied to their PCs.
"The net result is that the business has been dramatically liberated, leaving the typical Phones 4u person with an extra three hours a day to concentrate fully and without distraction on sales and customer service."
Mr Caudwell, 50, has a reputation for being unconventional. He has broken his neck three times in three years, twice after coming off his motorbikes and once due to a bad landing on his Olympic-size trampoline.
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