Background: In 1982, Nancy Friedman phoned her insurance agent and told him, "Cancel all my policies!" She was upset after experiencing repeated episodes of poor service from his staff. For most of us, the story might have ended there. Instead, Nancy's agent pleaded with her to visit his office and teach his staff to better handle customers. Combining the service techniques she pioneered with another start-up business and the presentation skills she acquired from a background in professional theatre, Nancy's training program proved to be extremely entertaining and effective.

She was soon invited to train over 300 employees at a newspaper in Iowa. It was after one of these sessions that the Editor of the newspaper approached Nancy and congratulated her by saying, "You've sure got all the cures...you're the Doctor...you're the Telephone Doctor!" After a series of Fortune 500 corporations repeatedly hired her to conduct her workshop, they formed a company to market these techniques. Before long, Nancy had a full time career delivering workshops to corporations and associations across the country.

The following year they were contacted by a producer who was familiar with Nancy's customer service workshops. He was interested in making a customer service training movie based on her teachings. They agreed and produced a 17 minute training movie. After some initially disappointing sales, Dick and Nancy purchased the rights to the original movie and went on to sell over 10,000 prints of it.

Fast forward 25 years to where the company has released over 100 video and computer-based training courses on all aspects of communication - with niche topics as diverse as E-mail Etiquette, Motivation, Sales Training, Management Development, Leadership and New Employee Orientation.

Today, Telephone Doctor® Customer Service Training is a familiar and valued brand name within the corporate training and development marketplace. Over half of the company's current business is the result of repeat or referrals. Core offerings continue to be The Complete DVD Training Library and on-site instructor-led workshops. Telephone Doctor® also offers keynote presentations and a comprehensive e-Learning platform.

The next time you're frustrated by poor service you receive, remember that there are 30+ staff members and over 22,000 customers who are glad that a poorly handled phone call back in 1982 resulted in this very unique company!