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Corporate culture: tradition and the present day
Содержание книги
- The emergence and development of public relations
- Read the text given below and speak on the influence of background music on people’s productivity, spending, buying, and eating habits, etc.
- Go over the material of Unit 3 and make a report on various techniques of molding public opinion and their efficiency in contemporary society.
- Practical ways to build ethics into PR programs
- Реклама на радио и телевидении
- Encourage, deal, compensate, communicate, ensure, concede, listen, take
- Tylenol (Johnson and Johnson)
- Ford and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
- Ways to Promote Your Business
- Attorney/Adversary Model (Barney and Black, 1994)
- Render the text in English and say what the author’s main message is and whether you share his viewpoint.
- How the situational theory of publics helps
- GordonsGuide.com Launches Educational Travel Category
- Make a summary of the text “Developing a PR Plan”.
- Make a summary of the text “Internal Communications” using the active vocabulary.
- Developing Awareness of Individual Cultures
- Tips for Successful Cross Cultural Communication
- Read the text below, then choose any of the management styles described and speak of its advantages and disadvantages in terms of teambuilding, task distribution, accomplishment, etc.
- Understanding and adapting to a new organizational
- Corporate culture: tradition and the present day
What is corporate culture? It is more than just these superficial things that catch our eye when we first encounter a company, like the company’s logo and the style of the staff’s clothes. The roots of corporate culture are those ideas, opinions and fundamental values that unite the members of an organization and let them work together effectively.
The most important thing that a manager can do to establish a corporate culture is to define the company’s most significant values. There are foreign companies that have a very clearly defined set of such values that are made available to everyone. For instance, when you enter the offices of Johnson & Johnson you see a big board on which the main principles of the organization are laid out. Here are some examples of statements on corporate culture found in another company’s brochure: “The most important thing in our company is our clients. We value flexibility and disposition to innovation. We uphold equal opportunities.” Such a document helps new staff members adapt to the corporate culture of the company and gives general guidelines for action to everyone who already works there.
Traditionally, corporate culture has been particularly strictly defined in the financial world: right up to the color of clothes and the way of wearing make-up and accessories.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of newly created firms don’t have a focused corporate culture.
It is notable that companies with clearly expressed corporate culture are much more effective in their use of HR. Corporate culture is one of the most effective means of attracting and motivating staff. Appealing to a person’s desire to identify him or herself with a group of people and the company is one of the strongest means of motivating an individual.
However, adapting to an existing corporate culture can be one of the most complicated things about starting a new job. As a rule, the main source of help is the HR/ personnel manager of the company. Some companies even go further and offer adaptation training. One and the same candidate can make a totally different impression at different companies. What is actually the reason for such performance? To some extent, of course, it has to do with whether or not the candidate has the required professional qualities and qualifications. However, the interaction between the company’s corporate culture and the individual’s personal traits of character also plays a big part.
For example, in the case of a certain Western company, all candidates being interviewed for any vacancy were told about the company’s traditions and how social interactions within the company usually took place. It was worth mentioning that for some the company’s specific corporate culture provided additional motivation, while others regarded it as a negative factor. Only those who could fit into the corporate culture began to work there and, in most cases, they stayed for a long time.
It goes without saying that all traditions are different. The same can be applicable to corporate culture. The most important thing for a company is just to create the corporate culture that suits it.
TEXT 9
Translate the given below text from Russian into English:
ЧТО ТАКОЕ КОРПОРАТИВНАЯ КУЛЬТУРА?
| То, как люди общаются в компании — это культура, то, как они подходят к работе, проявляют ли инициативу — это тоже является культурой. За что работников премируют или, наоборот, лишают премии - это вопрос культуры. Кого и как брать на работу — это также серьезный вопрос культуры. Культура — это не «ценности компании», это гораздо больше. Когда люди объединяются в группу вокруг какого-либо фактора, спонтанно возникает и свой набор норм и правил, свои принципы и ценности, поэтому необходимо сделать так, чтобы они работали на общее благо компании.
Регламенты, должностные инструкции и другие документы – это большой плюс в развитии компании, это то, что определено и прописано на бумаге. Но вследствие этого, компания может стать жесткой бюрократической структурой, и избежать этих последствий поможет удачно сформированная корпоративная культура.
Корпоративная культура - это совокупность норм, правил, ценностей, этических стандартов, которыми должны руководствоваться организация и ее сотрудники в своей повседневной работе. Корпоративная культура обеспечивает возможность совместной деятельности.
Корпоративная культура складывается из следующих компонентов:
Миссия – основная цель существования компании, общая цель, которую ставит перед собой компания и к выполнению которой стремится.
Фирменный стиль – совокупность мероприятий и приемов, которые, с одной стороны, обеспечивают узнаваемость организации и предоставляемых ею услуг, а с другой стороны, отличают организацию и ее услуги от услуг конкурентов. Сюда входят:
- символ (логотип) компании – обозначение, знак, раскрывающий содержание;
- легенда – это рассказ о компании, основанный на реальных событиях, которые часто повторяются и рассказываются самими сотрудниками компании и служит для формирования имиджа компании. В легендах сохраняется история возникновения и развития компании, формируется представление об одобряемом в компании поведении;
- герои компании - как персонифицированные ценности предлагаются сотрудникам организации в качестве образцов для подражания;
- девиз – фраза, в которой кратко выражен ключевой критерий ценности компании.
Деловая этика – совокупность принципов и норм, которыми должна руководствоваться организация и ее сотрудники в сфере межличностных отношений, управления и ведения бизнеса.
Кадровая политика – целостная и объективно обусловленная стратегия работы с персоналом, объединяющая различные формы, методы и модели кадровой политики.
Ритуалы организации – являются обыденной стороной корпоративной культуры, профессионально-культурные процедуры, органично включенные в рабочие процедуры. Например, политика проведения деловых встреч.
Церемонии организации – связаны с экстраординарными событиями, масштабны, по форме представляют собой зрелища (презентации, ежегодные конкурсы, демонстрации, фестивали и т.д.).
Традиции организации – чаще всего связаны с коллективными праздниками, мероприятиями, днем рождения компании и носят игровой характер.
Ценности организации – характерные принципы, лежащие в основе идеологии, находят отражение в миссии и целях, связаны со стратегией организации, определяют ближайшие и перспективные цели деятельности.
Организационный климат – эмоциональный тон коллектива, может меняться, зависит от внутренних и внешних факторов и условий.
Организационная культура включает в себя следующие важные функции:
-Адаптация к окружающей среде, отличие организации от других и узнаваемость на рынке.
-Формирование чувства общности всех членов организации, причастности к организации; соблюдение присущих организации стандартов поведения.
Для достижения гармоничной жизни организации необходимо приложить усилия по формированию культуры организации, выработать единый корпоративный «дух», который обеспечит удачное выполнение задач и сплотит людей в единую команду для достижения целей организации.
Look through all the information of this unit and be prepared to speak on the following topics:
1. The concept of internal communication: basic tenets and elements.
2. The role of team building in internal communication.
3. The peculiarities of cross cultural communication within a multi-national team/corporation.
4. The most common management styles in contemporary business environment.
5. The key points in understanding corporate culture and tips on adapting to it.
UNIT 11
IMAGE, IDENTITY, REPUTATION
TEXT 1
IDENTITY, IMAGE, REPUTATION
Implementing an identity infrastructure has real rewards, say customers, but it isn’t easy. The identity of a company is actually made up of its people; a company is not a building or a concrete thing. Identity is a term used to explain who or what an organization is (either from the perspective of employees or outsides, depending on the disciplinary stance adopted). Image refers to the ways in which an organization is perceived, i.e. its mission, values, priorities, successes and failure, etc., and can stem from inside the organization (assuming from what outsiders think of us). A good reputation starts with identity.
The importance of a good reputation is gaining respect from business and industry. Nevertheless many organizations start at the wrong end when trying to enhance their reputations. A lot of attention is focused on reputation, but what people forget is that identity is actually the important thing. Image is simply a reflection of how people interpret your identity.
When companies send out messages that fail to correspond with their identities, their reputation is affected.
You can “buy” a reputation from a PR agency, but this is a very short-term thing which cannot really be maintained. At business schools such words as corporations, companies and firms are used, but it is usually forgotten that they are all run by people.
There are several elements of a good logo. An effective logo:
1. Should be unique and not subject to confusion with other logos among viewers.
2. Is functional and can be used in many different contexts while retaining its integrity.
3. Should remain effective whether reproduced small or large, can work in “full- color”, but also in two color presentation (black and white) or halftone.
4. Should be able to maintain its integrity when printed on various fabrics or materials where the shape of the product may distort the logo.
5. Displays basic design principles (space, color, from, consistency and clarity), represents the brand name appropriately.
Today there are many corporations, products, services, agencies and many other entities using a sign or emblem as logo. As a result, only a few of the thousands of signs people are faced with are recognized without a name. It makes less sense to use a sign as a logo, even together with the name, if people do not duly identify it. Therefore, the trend in recent years has been to use both images and the company name to emphasize the name instead of supporting graphic portion, making it unique by its letters, color and additional graphic elements.
However, for a brand to provide benefits, it must offer more than a recognizable name and image. There must be a corresponding organizational commitment to deliver products that are consistent with the brand’s positioning.
There are different factors that have a direct impact on the reputation of a company:
1. Management. This refers mainly to the approach, integrity and ethical compliance of management with regards to enhancing the reputation of a company.
2. Risk of associating with companies or product that could have a negative impact on the reputation of a company.
3. Reinvention or merger. The purpose is to highlight situations where companies try to introduce new products and completely side track their primary goals.
4. Physical accident. Accidents are created through intentional and unintentional means. Intentional means occur when someone purposely tries to destroy the company’s image by tainting its product. Unintentional means occur when damage is incurred as a result of external factors.
5. The media. Due to the fishbowl effect it is difficult for companies to squash rumors effectively, without the media creating a proverbial media event with the story. This, therefore, creates the factor of publicity which could seriously impair the reputation of a company if it is not handled correctly.
In order to ensure good reputation companies must ensure that the primary requirement for any management policy is that of transparency: in other words, management must be open and honest, with no hidden agendas. Decisions that are made openly make corporate life simpler, whereas decisions that are surrounded by a high level of secrecy are bound to expose sooner or later.
VOCABULARY PRACTICE
1. Translate into Russian:
1. disciplinary stance adopted
2. how people interpret your identity
3. should not be subject to confusion
4. a corresponding organizational commitment
5. integrity and ethical compliance of management with regards to enhancing reputation
6. companies completely side track their primary goals
7. damage is incurred as a result of external factors
8. due to the fishbowl effect
9. with no hidden agendas
10. decisions surrounded by a high level of secrecy are bound to expose
2. Explain the meaning of these words in English:
perceive, stem from, reflection, integrity, consistency, entity, occur, taint, impair
3. Find the English equivalents in the text:
тем не менее, соответствовать чему-либо, сохранить, ткань, искажать, подписывать, выгода, подавлять слухи
4. Do the translation on the active vocabulary of the text:
1. То, как люди воспринимают компанию, является отражением её политики честности и согласованности.
2. Логотип должен быть ясным, не вызывать путаницы и соответствовать определенным требованиям.
3. Руководство организации должно подавлять слухи, которые распространяются сотрудниками, т. к. это может исказить действительность и ухудшить репутацию.
4. Внешние факторы могут причинить вред развитию нашего бизнеса.
5. Так как в современном мире мы все живем на виду, очень сложно иметь скрытые намерения.
6. Бесполезно скрывать эту информацию: дела, ведущиеся в обстановке строгой секретности, непременно будут раскрыты.
7. Он подписал договор, тем не менее, все еще сомневался в правильности этого поступка.
8. На фирме принята очень четкая позиция по поводу дисциплины, поэтому опоздания и прогулы случаются крайне редко.
9. Мы должны постараться сохранить прежние партнерские отношения: выгода этого всем очевидна.
10. Ткань для свадебного платья была безнадежно испорчена, а до церемонии оставалась всего неделя.
ORAL SPEECH PRACTICE
5. Answer the questions:
1. Why, do you think, preserving identity is of paramount importance to a company?
2. Is it easy to create a favorable positive image? Give your grounds.
3. What is the identity of a company made up of?
4. Give definitions of image, identity and reputation. Why do many people mix these notions up in their perception?
5. Why do many companies make a mistake when they try to enhance their reputation first of all?
6. In which circumstances is the reputation of a company badly affected?
7. Do you agree that “buying” a reputation from a PR agency is a short-term investment? Why?
8. What are the basic elements of a good logo?
9. Logos of which companies correspond to all the requirements and look creative in your opinion?
10. How can you comment on the recent trend to use not only the logo but also the image of a company?
11. How does management influence the reputation of a company?
12. To what extent should a company associate with those companies and products that may have a negative impact on its reputation?
13. What do you know about the process of merger or reinvention?
14. What do physical accidents have to do with the issue of reputation?
15. What is the role of mass media in enhancing or spoiling the image of a company?
16. In what way is the policy of transparency connected with creating a positive image of a company or a product?
6. Give your opinion on the following issues:
1. The identity of a company is made up of its people.
2. A good reputation starts with identity.
3. Many organizations these days mistakenly overestimate the importance of enhancing their reputations.
4. A reputation “bought” from a PR agency is a short-term investment.
5. Techniques of making a company’s logo unique and easily recognizable.
6. Tips on how to make a brand provide benefits.
7. The necessity of avoiding dealing with companies with negative reputation.
8. External and internal factors of damaging a company’s reputation.
9. The role of mass media in ruining/whitewashing the reputation of a company.
10. Transparency as the key requirement for any management policy.
7. “make a summary of the text “Identity, Image, Reputation” using the active vocabulary of the text.
8. Write a 250-300-word essay on one of these quotations:
1. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” (Warren Buffet)
2. Repetition makes reputation, and reputation makes customers.” (Elizabeth Arden)
3. “There is no advertisement as powerful as a positive reputation travelling fast.” (Brian Koslow)
TEXT 2
Read the following text and be ready to speak on the significance of creating a brand image and the main ways of doing it:
WHAT BRAND MEANS
So what is brand? Brand is defined as “a perception resulting from experiences with, and information about, a company or a line of products.
Why does one brand have twice the share of another when there is no difference in product attributes or performance and both brands sell for the same price? The answer is – a difference in perceptions. A brand is basically a perception, not a logo on the side of a package. A brand exists only in people’s heads and hearts. In the marketplace perceptions are the collective result of everything a customer or other stakeholder sees, years, reads, or experiences about a company and its brands. A perception can be influenced through positive and negative communication experiences.
A brand differentiates a product from its competitors and makes a promise to its customers. From a corporate perspective, a company’s brand should drive the corporate strategy. To determine what this means, a company must answer the following question: “What are all of the ways that our customers can form an impression of our brand, our company, or our products?” Since company-customer contact can happen almost anywhere, anytime, the brand must be the driving, unifying force directing all functional areas on an ongoing basis.
A brand is more than just a product. Cars, checking accounts, candy bars, shoe repair, computers, and medical care are all products. What differentiates one car or one checking account from another, however, is the brand. Take universities. In their most basic form they all offer the same product – education. They all have instructors, courses, students, and most have classrooms and buildings. Yet, despite this list of commonalities, there are major differences among them. These differences are determined by the type and quality of instructors, variety of courses, location, number and type of students, success of athletic teams, quality of facilities, and size of endowments among other things.
Branding, the process of creating a brand image that engages the hearts and minds of customers, is what separates similar products from each other. Brand identity tells the source of a product and often suggests a personality for the brand. Keep in mind that both companies and products have identities and images that differentiate them from competitors.
Customers and prospects are influenced by a wide variety of messages that are sent by both the tangible and the intangible attributes of a brand. Tangible attributes are characteristics you can observe or touch, such as a product’s design, performance, ingredients, components, size, shape, and price. Although brand managers have input on the messages sent by these tangible attributes, brand managers’ primary responsibility is to influence a brand’s intangible attributes, such as its perceived value, its image, memories associated with the brand, and even the perceptions and impressions of those who use the brand. Intangibles are important in brand building for two reasons: they are hard for competitors to copy and they are more likely than tangible attributes to involve consumers emotionally.
Although a company may own a brand name and logo and greatly influence what people think about its brands, the actual brand meaning that influences behavior resides in the heads and hearts of customers and other stakeholders. If no one were aware of the brand, the brand would have no value because it would have no impact on anyone’s buying decision. Of course, you don’t know or care about the brands of some of the products you buy – low-risk purchases, such as a broom, milk, or matches. But you can be sure that the retailers who decided to buy and resell these items cared very much about the brands they selected for their stores to sell. Keep in mind that brands operate at different levels and have different meaning at different stages in the distribution chain along which products move from manufacturers to end users. Just as you make a different impression on the people you meet at college, at work, etc., the impression a brand makes depends on the point where customers come into contact with the brand. A brand image is the sum total of all these brand impressions.
Discuss the following:
1. “People do not buy products. They buy brands”, a famous scientist Trout says. “Your brand is as good as your last product”, post marketing experience teaches. “Product differences can be copied easily. Loyalty to the brand is the advantage that holds the customer”, state the marketing classics.
2. Recently the US market has seen significant growth in the high-end luxury market, with more consumers spending more of their money on luxury goods than ever before. High-end products from Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, etc. are benefiting from this change in consumer spending habits. Interestingly, it is not just the wealthy who are purchasing these very expensive products, but the middle class is doing so as well. Leading marketers apply labels such as “massification of luxury”, “luxflation”, or the “new luxury segments”.
3. A brand’s value can be greater than the value of goods and services when its image is positive. The financial community measures this support in terms of brand equity, which represents the goodwill that accrues to brand from its brand relationships.
4. How powerful is branding? A brand and what it represents can affect what people are willing to pay for a product. In blind taste tests respondents were asked which of the two samples of cornflakes tasted better. Unknown to respondents, the samples were identical, yet the number of those who chose sample A over sample B increased from 47 to 59 per cent when the respondents were told that sample A was Kellogg’s (sample B was not given a recognizable brand name.) People perceived “the brand cereal” as tasting better even though both cereals were identical.
TEXT 3
Render this text in English and say how the perception of “quality” has changed over the years:
WHAT QUALITY REALLY MEANS
Even most dictionaries find it extremely difficult to pin down the meaning of the word quality. To somehow explain it, they have to use other vague words like, for instance, excellence. Why is quality so hard to define? Is it because it is such an abstract word and may mean so many different things? Or because its meaning depends so much on what it describes?
How can you define high quality when applied to the things you buy, such as a CD, a pair of shoes, a meal in a restaurant? You’ll probably have three different definitions of quality for these three different things.
It’s not so easy to define quality also because it can be a very subjective word at times. It means quite different things to different people, even when they use the word to describe the same thing. A Pink Floyd album may in your view have quality, whereas someone else may consider it a waste of good money.
Yet another problem is that the meaning of quality changes over the years. Older generations no longer regard this or that thing as being of high quality, but younger generations think in the opposite way. Just go ahead and ask your grandma what she thinks of some world famous modern pop singers.
Let’s consider the following ads. Both advertise clothes for men. Advertisers stress the points which they think might promote the commodity and sell it to the prospective buyers. The selling points that are stressed in the 1897 ad are durability, craftsmanship, dependability, tradition.
What about the ideas of quality in the present-day ad?
Contemporary ads don’t talk about durability or craftsmanship any more, neither do they concentrate their attention on tradition and dependability. They stress the virtues of newness, of being different, sometimes of being way out. Cheapness may be emphasized, too, the fact that almost everyone can afford this product. Does this mean that the quality in the manufactured goods is disappearing now that most things are mass produced?
Creative assignments;
1. Choose any product you like and compare the way its quality used to be emphasized a few years ago with the way it is done now.
2. Imagine any new company/business you’d like to set up, draw its logo and say a few words about how you’d create its image, identity, and reputation.
TEXT 4
Do the translation of the text given below from Russian into English:
ИМИДЖ КОМПАНИИ
Изречение известного специалиста в сфере рекламы Бове Аренса: «За имидж платят во всех сферах жизни», – сегодня актуально как никогда, особенно для развития и продвижения компании на рынке. Конкуренция не стоит на месте, и поэтому компаниям приходится постоянно бороться за преимущество перед другими фирмами, постоянно подтверждать свою готовность идти навстречу клиенту и свое стремление к совершенствованию.
Ведь не секрет, что от того, какой образ компании сложился в представлении потребителей, зависит не только уровень продаж и прибыль, но и дальнейшее процветание и развитие бизнеса. Связующим звеном между образом компании, который она хочет создать у потенциального покупателя, и представлением, которое уже существует о ней у ее клиентов, является имидж. Кроме того, клиентами компании могут быть не только внешние покупатели, но и сами сотрудники, поэтому формирование имиджа должно быть направлено, как на внешних, так и на внутренних потребителей.
Имидж компании всегда состоит из двух тесно взаимосвязанных компонентов: первый – это действия самой компании, которые направлены на активное формирование и позитивное восприятие ее клиентами, второй – это собственно образ компании, который закреплен в сознании клиента. Позитивный имидж компании может приносить двойное преимущество – воздействовать на потенциальных клиентов и быть мотиватором активного участия работников в развитии компании. Кроме того, сотрудники компании могут стать прекрасным источником внешней рекламы для потенциальных клиентов.
Для достижения максимального положительного эффекта, над имиджем компании должны работать кадровая и маркетинговая службы. Они должны вместе разрабатывать и проводить мероприятия, привлекая к этой работе менеджеров других служб. Кадровая служба имеет полную информацию о каждом сотруднике, что позволит лучшему привлечению новых сотрудников к жизни компании. Специалисты из отдела маркетинга должны заниматься созданием положительного имиджа компании на рынке.
Имидж компании должен очень ярко подчеркивать ценности целевой аудитории. В процессе формирования положительного образа компании и бизнеса в целом, ценности должны быть подчеркнуты и акцентированы очень четко. Это поможет внешней аудитории более благосклонно принять, предлагаемый компанией образ. Понимание сознания потребителя – это и есть ключевая черта любой рекламной деятельности. И ничто так не способно испортить имидж компании, как навязывание аудитории чуждых ей ценностей и устоев.
Go over the information of the unit and prepare a talk on the following topics:
1. Ways of building and enhancing the positive image of a company.
2. Brands and branding.
3. The role of a PR-specialist in tainting or whitewashing a company’s reputation.
4. Internal and external factors that lead to damaging the reputation of an organization.
UNIT 12
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Do the exercises on Customer Service:
Which of the following irritates you most when dealing with customer service departments?
· Being put on hold
· Speaking to a disinterested person
· Choosing a series of options during your call
· Finding the Customer Service number is continuously engaged
· Being cut off
· Unhelpful customer service personnel
· Stressed or indifferent staff
· Salespeople with poor product knowledge
· Too few staff at peak times
· No company policy on customer service or complaints
· Delays on repairs
· Delays in getting money back
· No replacement equipment while repairs are carried out
1. Choose the best and the worst advice on dealing with customer complaints:
1. Show the customer you are listening by checking that you understand.
2. Allow the customer to show their emotions if they are upset or angry.
3. Say you are sorry that the customer is upset.
4. Admit that the problem was your fault as soon as possible.
5. Make sure you get full details of the problem.
6. Summarize and make sure that the customer understands what you’ve said.
7. Ask the customer to put the complaint in writing.
8. Be firm if you are sure of your facts.
9. Keep an open mind at all times.
10. Do not end up arguing with the customer.
11. Do not be defensive.
12. Concentrate on the situation, not on the personalities.
13. Don’t force your solution to the customer.
14. Try to find out what result the customer wants.
15. Tell the customer what you can and cannot do.
16. Offer compensation of greater value than the goods or service complained about.
2. Complete the beginnings of sentences with the highlighted words. Then finish each sentence with the correct ending:
standards products rapport complaints reassure
1. When you handle _____ it is important _____.
2. You can establish a _____ with a customer if _____.
3. A key element in customer care is to _____ people _____.
4. Companies which do not meet their _____ of service _____.
5. Many companies will replace _____ free of charge if _____.
a) …when they are worried.
b) …will lose customers.
c) …they are faulty.
d) …you know about their buying habits.
e) …to be diplomatic.
3. Match the idioms to their meanings:
1. Pass the buck
2. Get to the bottom of the problem
3. It was the last straw
4. Get straight to the point
5. Slipped my mind
6. Ripped off
7. Talking at cross purposes
a) Forgot to do something
b) Paid far too much for something
c) Avoid responsibility
d) Find the real cause of something
e) Talked about the subject directly
f) The last in a series of irritating events
g) Misunderstanding what someone else is referring to
4. Use these idioms to complete the sentences appropriately:
1. She was very helpful. She promised to _____ and find a solution.
2. He’s the person responsible. He shouldn’t try to _____ and blame others for his mistakes.
3. Several customers have complained about our service contract. They say they are paying far too much and fell they have been _____.
4. I meant to send him a brochure but we were very busy and _____.
5. They wanted to place a larger order. I thought they wanted a bigger discount. We were_____.
6. They ignored my complaints but _____ when they refused to refund my money.
7. I saw no point in arguing with him. I _____ and said I wanted my money back.
5. Translate into English:
1. Покупатель принес в магазин телефон, который плохо работал, и потребовал или вернуть ему деньги за покупку или обменять на похожую модель.
2. Очень часто продавцы не спешат признавать вину за некачественный товар и пытаются переложить ответственность на покупателя, заявляя, что он неправильно пользовался товаром, что привело к поломке.
3. Сотрудникам компаний очень важно избегать споров с клиентами, нужно постараться установить вежливый контакт и не грубить в ответ, даже если клиент ведет себя агрессивно.
4. Людей часто раздражают ситуации, когда они звонят в службу поддержки клиента с какой-то конкретной проблемой, а им приходится выслушивать массу ненужной информации или подолгу оставаться на линии, ожидая ответа специалиста.
5. В этом магазине бытовой техники предлагают товары очень высокого качества и по приемлемым ценам. Единственная проблема, с которой нам приходится постоянно сталкиваться, это равнодушный и некомпетентный персонал.
6. Она была настроена очень решительно и хотела жаловаться администратору на грубость официанта. К её удивлению, администратор сразу же признал вину, извинился за своего сотрудника, пообещал, что тот будет оштрафован, а также принес ей бесплатный десерт в качестве компенсации за причиненные неудобства.
TEXT 1
CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Increasing competition is forcing businesses to pay much more attention to satisfying customers, including by providing strong customer service.
Servicing a customer is a part of every purchase and interaction with internal and external contacts. It can last a few seconds up to hours. So if we all do it and experience it every day in almost everything we do, why isn’t good customer service the norm?
We all have stories about when we were treated exceptionally well or extremely poorly. We tend to share these extraordinary stories with others. We all know that word of mouth marketing can be the absolute advantage or the worst drawback for a company.
Warren Buffett said it best: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about it, you’ll do things differently.”
A few basic rules about customer service:
Honesty is the Best Policy. Integrity – Be honest admitting your mistakes. Communicate what you plan to do to change or prevent the same mistake from happening again. Don’t be fooled into believing that a regular ‘mea culpa’ will get you off the hook. At some point the plan to fix the problem must take effect!
Break Glass in Case of Fire. Response Time – The best tact is to quickly get on the phone with the customer to explain your company’s mistake. Don’t rely on email for this communication if it can be done quickly one on one. If you are communicating to a large customer base then email is certainly the fastest and most effective way to quickly notify your customers that you are aware of the problem. Frequent updates and a brief overview of how you will prevent it from happening in the future will give your customers confidence that you are aware of the customer impact.
Keeping it Real: Set a Realistic Expectation – Customers who have been promised something that isn’t delivered as promised are far more frustrated and disappointed than if they are notified at the outset they won’t have it sooner than later. In other words, under promise and over deliver is the best policy. This may take some arm wrestling with other departments who want to take a feature or product to market before it is ready. Set the expectations correctly internally as to what the fallout may be so everyone understands the impact to customer satisfaction and ultimately customer retention.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Everyone in your company should love your customers. Without them, you have no company. This doesn’t mean you won’t have difficult customers who will push the limits and try everyone’s patience. But if you don’t have a company philosophy to respect and appreciate your customers, the opposite tone will infect customer interactions from all departments. All departments, customer facing or not, should care about customer satisfaction.
From Gandhi, “We must become the change we want to see in the world.”
Use these 4 tenets as the foundation for your customer service mission. What do you do to ensure your customers are treated as your most important asset?
Top Four Customer Service Metrics
First question you should ask yourself…How do you measure customer satisfaction?
If you are measuring by complaints you are or are not receiving, you are in trouble. Not everybody bothers to take the time to tell you about his/her horrible experience. If you are asking your customers if they are satisfied, you are telling them that their satisfaction matters.
There are many different ways to ask: post-purchase and post-support surveys, enclosures in the monthly invoice, follow-up phone calls and quarterly or annual surveys. The right method depends on your business and your customer base. Try different ways. Just do it.
Let’s be clear: if you’re not measuring any part of your service delivery, you are missing a huge opportunity to improve, grow or even save your business during these scrutinizing, tight economic times.
Service Level – For call centers, support, and service desks, first call resolution is the Holy Grail. For a shipping operation, product delivery and project implementation, on-time performance is the measuring stick. In a high transaction business, the first interaction with a customer will be a key determinant of whether the customer will return. Don’t underestimate the importance of timeliness and thoroughness.
Response time – You’d be surprised how many customer surveys come back with comments such as “your service is great, you got back to me right away…” “I was surprised with how quickly you responded to my inquiry and it made all the difference even if I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for…” In today’s world of electronic relationship management, response time is one of the only ways we can communicate our sense of urgency and concern for our customers and their experience with our product or service. Want to really blow away a customer and cement your relationship? Pick up the phone and give them a personal call.
Time with the Customer – Are your customer-facing employees incentivized to keep calls short or to move too quickly from customer to customer? If so, you are sending the wrong message and subsequently affecting the quality of the customer interaction. There is a definite happy medium between the overly chatty service provider and the thorough and efficient provider. Set your benchmarks for call duration and general time with the customer in relation to the ultimate goal of first call resolution, NOT the other way around.
Churn – Cancellations and returns are the equivalent to churn. If you don’t know how much business you are losing, you won’t be able to understand how much new business you will require to stay out of the red. As important as knowing how much, is understanding WHY you are losing customers. Take it to the next level and use follow-up surveys, phone calls, personalized ‘how can we get you back’ emails. This survey information is the real business insight for understanding your lost business.
VOCABULARY PRACTICE
1. Explain what these expressions stand for by paraphrasing them:
1. word of mouth marketing
2. mea culpa
3. get you off the hook
4. a brief overview
5. customer retention
6. the Holy Grail
7. overly chatty service provider
8. to stay out of the red
2. Give definitions of the following words:
integrity, impact, deliver, fallout, tenet, asset, invoice, incentivized, churn, insight
3. Find the English equivalents in the text and use these words in the sentences of your own related to the sphere of customer service:
извещать (уведомить), частый, сначала, вложение в письмо, тщательно изучить, применение, недооценить, своевременность и тщательность, критерий
4. Do the quiz to test your knowledge of the active vocabulary of the text:
Give definitions of the following words and use them in the sentences of your own:
word of mouth marketing, get smb. off the hook, fallout, underestimate, incentivize, benchmark, insight, churn
Give synonyms using the Active Vocabulary:
1. honesty, decency
2. the process of admitting one’s fault, “my fault”
3. current, regular, something that happens quite often
4. not to think highly of smb./smth., not to have enough confidence in smb./smth.
5. great care and attention in doing something
6. the one who talks too much, a garrulous person
7. to inform, create an awareness, let somebody know
8. to transport, transmit
9. the basic principle, the main criterion
10. to study something carefully, to go deeper into a problem
11. to owe somebody a certain amount of money, to be indebted
12. at the beginning
Translate into English:
1. Честность в обслуживании клиентов – «Священный Грааль» в политике любой компании.
2. Во многих случаях компании недостаточно просто признать свою вину, нужно принять меры, направленные на сохранение клиентов.
3. Менеджер по продажам вложил в письмо счета, удостоверяющие факт покупки оборудования.
4. Клиенты были своевременно извещены о том, что поставка заказа задерживается, поэтому у них не было оснований для беспокойства.
5. Частое применение этого метода позволило увеличить прибыль и послужило стимулом для дальнейшего развития бизнеса.
6. Сначала продавец показался нам чересчур болтливым, но мы его недооценили: он дал нам несколько полезных советов и помог сделать правильный выбор.
7. Он тщательно изучил все возможные последствия и негативное влияние обстоятельств, что помогло спасти компанию (вызволить из беды).
8. После краткого обзора текущих задач фирмы директор заявил о необходимости соблюдения основных принципов, которые помогут не иметь долгов.
ORAL SPEECH PRACTICE
5. Answer the questions:
1. Do you agree with the author who claims good customer service isn’t the norm? Give your reasons.
2. How important is the role of word of mouth marketing in enhancing/ruining the image of a company?
3. What did Warren Buffet say about a reputation of a company? Comment on his words.
4. Can you say that the principle “Honesty is the best policy” is always effective? Is admitting your fault always sufficient? Why?
5. What means of communication are efficient when dealing with a customer? Does the choice of communication media depend on the number of customers? Which do you consider the most effective? Why?
6. What makes a customer the most frustrated and the least satisfied? How important is it to set realistic expectations, in your opinion?
7. Do you agree that even those departments that do not have to deal with customers on a regular basis should care about customer satisfaction? Why?
8. How do you think it is possible to make all the employees of a company understand that they must if not love, by all means, respect their customers?
9. Comment on Gandhi’s words about changing the world. Do you believe we must really change something about ourselves first if we want to change the world? Why?
10. How can customer satisfaction be measured?
11. Do you find measuring customer satisfaction by complaints efficient? Give your reasons.
12. Do you agree that there are many people whom prefer not to complain even when they were not satisfied with the product or service provided? Do you find it right?
13. How significant is it to get regular feedback from the customers to see if they are satisfied?
14. Do you share the author’s opinion that the best way to cement a company’s relationship with the customer is to give the latter a personal phone call? Why?
15. How is it possible to find the golden mean between being too chatty and effusive and being really helpful to the customer?
16. What does the author mean by “churn” in the text? Are there any positive aspects of this process?
6. Give your comment on the following points:
1. Give an image of a perfect customer.
2. The best way to handle customer complaints.
3. “Honesty is the best policy” principle in customer service.
4. Peculiarities of serving a client depending on various financial institutions.
5. Forms of compensation for the inconvenience caused.
6. Ways of improving customer service.
7. New forms of getting feedback from customers.
8. The role of PR-practitioners in establishing good rapport with the customer.
7. Solve the following problems:
1. The customer complains about some rude service.
2. The customer brings the faulty product back to the store.
3. The customer was not served the way he or she had been promised.
4. The customer complains about the incompetence of the staff.
5. The customer is dissatisfied with a delay in product delivery.
6. The customer believes their complaints have been ignored and neglected.
TEXT 2
Read the tips on improving customer service, choose one of them and speak on its efficiency, advantages and disadvantages. Then think of a company you know and speak on the way they implement this tip:
SEVEN STEPS TO REMARKABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
by Joel Spolsky, co-founder of Fog Creek Company
As a bootstrapped software company, Fog Creek couldn’t afford to hire customer service people for the first couple of years, so Michael and I did it ourselves. The time we spent helping customers took away from improving our software, but we learned a lot and now we have a much better customer service operation.
Here are seven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. I’m using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark.
1. Fix everything two ways
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to prevent this particular problem from ever happening again.
Sometimes that means adding more intelligence to the software or the SETUP program; by now, our SETUP program is loaded with special case checks. Sometimes you just need to improve the wording of an error message. Sometimes the best you can come up with is a knowledge base article.
We treat each tech support call like the NTSB treats airliner crashes. Every time a plane crashes, they send out investigators, figure out what happened, and then figure out a new policy to prevent that particular problem from ever happening again. It’s worked so well for aviation safety that the very, very rare airliner crashes we still get in the US are always very unusual, one-off situations.
This has two implications.
One: it’s crucial that tech support have access to the development team. This means that you can’t outsource tech support: they have to be right there at the same street address as the developers, with a way to get things fixed. Many software companies still think that it’s “economical” to run tech support in Bangalore or the Philippines, or to outsource it to another company altogether. Yes, the cost of a single incident might be $10 instead of $50, but you’re going to have to pay $10 again and again.
When we handle a tech support incident with a well-qualified person here in New York, chances are that’s the last time we’re ever going to see that particular incident. So with one $50 incident we’ve eliminated an entire class of problems.
Somehow, the phone companies and the cable companies and the ISPs just don’t understand this equation. They outsource their tech support to the cheapest possible provider and end up paying $10 again and again and again fixing the same problem again and again and again instead of fixing it once and for all in the source code. The cheap call centers have no mechanism for getting problems fixed; indeed, they have no incentive to get problems fixed because their income depends on repeat business, and there’s nothing they like better than being able to give the same answer to the same question again and again.
The second implication of fixing everything two ways is that eventually, all the common and simple problems are solved, and what you’re left with is very weird uncommon problems. That’s fine, because there are far fewer of them, and you’re saving a fortune not doing any rote tech support, but the downside is that there’s no rote tech support left: only serious debugging and problem solving. You can’t just teach new support people ten common solutions: you have to teach them to debug.
For us, the “fix everything two ways” religion has really paid off. We were able to increase our sales tenfold while only doubling the cost of providing tech support.
2. Suggest blowing out the dust
Microsoft’s Raymond Chen tells the story of a customer who complains that the keyboard isn’t working. Of course, it’s unplugged. If you try asking them if it’s plugged in, “they will get all insulted and say indignantly, ‘Of course it is! Do I look like an idiot?’ without actually checking.”
“Instead,” Chen suggests, “say ‘Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?’
“They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, ‘Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks.’”
Many requests for a customer to check something can be phrased this way. Instead of telling them to check a setting, tell them to change the setting and then change it back “just to make sure that the software writes out its settings.”
3. Make customers into fans
Every time we need to buy logo gear here at Fog Creek, I get it from Lands’ End.
Why?
Let me tell you a story. We needed some shirts for a trade show. I called up Lands’ End and ordered two dozen, using the same logo design we had used for some knapsacks we bought earlier.
When the shirts arrived, to our dismay, you couldn’t read the logo.
It turns out that the knapsacks were brighter than the polo shirts. The thread color that looked good on the knapsacks was too dark to read on the shirts.
I called up Lands’ End. As usual, a human answered the phone even before it started ringing. I’m pretty sure that they have a system where the next agent in the queue is told to standby, so customers don’t even have to wait one ringy-dingy before they’re talking to a human.
I explained that I screwed up.
They said, “Don’t worry. You can return those for a full credit, and we’ll redo the shirts with a different color thread.”
I said, “The trade show is in two days.”
They said they would Fedex me a new box of shirts and I’d have it tomorrow. I could return the old shirts at my convenience.
They paid shipping both ways. I wasn’t out a cent. Even though they had no possible use for a bunch of Fog Creek logo shirts with an illegible logo, they ate the cost.
And now I tell this story to everyone who needs swag. In fact I tell this story every time we’re talking about telephone menu systems. Or customer service. By providing remarkable customer service, they’ve gotten me to remark about it.
When customers have a problem and you fix it, they’re actually going to be even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in the first place.
It has to do with expectations. Most people’s experience with tech support and customer service comes from airlines, telephone companies, cable companies, and ISPs, all of whom provide generally awful customer service. It’s so bad you don’t even bother calling any more, do you? So when someone calls Fog Creek, and immediately gets through to a human, with no voice mail or phone menus, and that person turns out to be nice and friendly and actually solves their problem, they’re apt to think even more highly of us than someone who never had the opportunity to interact with us and just assumes that we’re average.
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to actually make something go wrong, just so we have a chance to demonstrate our superior customer service. Many customers just won’t call; they’ll fume quietly.
But when someone does call, look at it as a great opportunity to create fanatically devoted customer, one who will prattle on and on about what a great job you did.
4. Take the blame
One morning I needed an extra set of keys to my apartment, so on the way to work, I went to the locksmith around the corner.
13 years living in an apartment in New York City has taught me never to trust a locksmith; half of the time their copies don’t work. So I went home to test the new keys, and, lo and behold, one didn’t work.
I took it back to the locksmith.
He made it again.
I went back home and tested the new copy.
It still didn’t work.
Now I was fuming. Squiggly lines were coming up out of my head. I was a half hour late to work and had to go to the locksmith for a third time. I was tempted just to give up on him. But I decided to give this loser one more chance.
I stomped into the store, ready to unleash my fury.
“It still doesn’t work?” he asked. “Let me see.”
He looked at it.
I was sputtering, trying to figure out how best to express my rage at being forced to spend the morning going back and forth.
“Ah. It’s my fault,” he said.
And suddenly, I wasn’t mad at all.
Mysteriously, the words “it’s my fault” completely defused me. That was all it took.
He made the key a third time. I wasn’t mad any more. The key worked.
And, here I was, on this planet for forty years, and I couldn’t believe how much the three words “it’s my fault” had completely changed my emotions in a matter of seconds.
Most locksmiths in New York are not the kinds of guys to admit that they’re wrong. Saying “it’s my fault” was completely out of character. But he did it anyway.
5. Memorize awkward phrases
I figured, OK, since the morning is shot anyway, I migh |
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