Customer Service

I used to work at Lee’s Marketplace in Smithfield, Utah. There was always one topic that would come up during our training meetings: customer service. When customers came to the grocery store I was supposed to greet them using the 10-4 rule. This rule meant I had to greet a customer if they were within ten feet of me, and I had four seconds to do it. Another rule was to ask customers if they needed help finding anything. I memorized where to find every last item in that store so I could help shoppers find what they needed. Also, we were told to resolve conflicts peacefully. For example, if a customer had a price disagreement we were to call for a price check from a manager. Basically, my training in customer service meant that I needed to be courteous and kind and keep to the rule “the customer is always right.”

I did my best to use these rules of customer service. However, sometimes I thought these rules were ridiculous because I thought it was tedious and unnecessary to talk to everyone. I only began to appreciate the customer service at Lee’s after I saw the customer service at other stores. For example, I was shopping at Wal-Mart and I asked a worker where to find cream of tartar (I was making cookies). He didn’t know where to find it so he asked three other coworkers. None of them knew where to find it! I finally found the cream of tartar after hunting through several aisles. I felt so un-helped by the Wal-Mart employees. I also felt ignored because I walked by several workers who never greeted me or asked if I needed help finding anything (apparently they couldn’t help me anyway).

Another example of bad customer service is when my sister and I shopped at K-Mart. My sister bought a Halloween costume that was clearly marked 50 percent off. When we got to the checkout, the cashier rang the costume in at the full price of $20. My sister and I told the cashier it was marked down 50 percent to $10 dollars. The cashier was rude and accused us of reading the sign wrong. My sister paid the full price of $20, but we went back and asked a manager if the costume really was $20 dollars. The manager said the 50 percent off sign was correct but it wasn’t in the computer system. So my sister got $10 back and our rude cashier got in trouble.

I really admire good customer service after having these experiences. As a message to my peers at USU that are going into business I just want to say that good customer service is a great skill to learn. I believe that having good customer service skills helps promote a positive image of a business. A business can succeed by having customers who come back after having positive experiences with customer service. However, if customers have negative experiences they may never come back and the business will fail. “When customer service is handled without any effort to establish a relationship or connection, it often leads to stressful interactions and frustration on both ends. You can build greater customer loyalty by exhibiting compassion and making the person feel as if he or she has been listened to and understood” (Gullickson).

Gullickson, Betsy Raskin. “The Start of a Beautiful Friendship.” Strategic Finance. June 2009. Pg. 8

Ethics

When I think of ethics I think of being honest in everything I do. I believe I would never do anything to be dishonest. However, I also ask myself if I would give into doing something unethical if enough pressure and stress was put on me. I was reading in my Intermediate Accounting textbook when I found a section on ethics. In this section, Robert Sack, a noted commentator on ethics, said,” It’s very dangerous to think that your armor is all in place and say to yourself, ‘I would never give in to that.’ The pressures don’t explode on us; they build, and we often don’t recognize them until they have us.”

Most of my business classes at USU teach about ethics. My first accounting professor, Ryan Larkin, said that some people who are faced with desperate situations usually make poor decisions and act unethically. Robert Sack reemphasizes this point about those in the accounting profession. He said, “Companies that concentrate on ‘maximizing the bottom line,’ ‘facing the challenges of competition,’ and ‘stressing short-term results’ place accountants in an environment of conflict and pressure.”

This opened up my mind when I read this section. Business classes at USU teach about ethics and now I understand why. By studying ethics I should be able to make tough ethical decisions when they arise in the future. Before reading this I thought I could just ignore ethical decisions, but even ignoring a situation can be unethical. Robert Sack stated, “Doing the right thing is not always obvious. The pressures to ‘bend the rules’, ‘to play the game’, ‘to just ignore it’ can be considerable.” My accounting textbook also says, "Ethical considerations are presented to help sensitize you to the type of situations you may encounter in the performance of your professional responsibility." I know ethical decisions will arise and I hope I will be prepared to do the right thing.

Professionalism

One of my hobbies is to play musical instruments such as the clarinet, piano, and the organ. Playing in a band or an orchestra at USU has taught me a lot about professionalism. To play an instrument requires hours of study and practice. My clarinet professor, Dr. Nick Morrison, said that when a musician doesn’t practice the whole band suffers. When a businessperson fails to study and prepare, they bring the team down. Musicians are required to arrive on time for rehearsals, and dress appropriately for concerts. Business people should arrive early for meetings and wear business attire.

The greatest musicians I’ve ever known were extremely passionate about what they do. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” I believe the biggest thing about professionalism is being animated. If a student is going to be a professional accountant they better enjoy accounting. Dr. James Kennedy, a retired forestry professor from USU, taught about “becoming a professional.” He emphasized that students need “to care” about what they’re studying. He also said that if a student truly loves the field they study, they wouldn’t have to work a day in their life.

Pass the Word Along

Communications in any business is key to its success and efficiency. I work for a manufacturing company that produces electronic weather equipment such as thermometers, barometers, and rain gauges. Instructions on how to build these product are constantly changing as updates and modifications are made. Therefore, it is very important that the engineers communicate the changes to the production floor by updating the instructions. When an instruction is changed, it requires the approval of the engineer, the manager, and the production worker. This helps to ensure the information is understandable, accurate, and up-to-date.

There have been failures in communication when a set of instructions have been altered. During injection molding, a plastic mold is made to cover circuit boards. The instructions stated to simply place the product in the mold, and press "inject." However, when the worker followed the instructions, the circuit board broke inside the mold. Why did this happen? The engineer who wrote the instructions neglected to write how to put the circuit boards inside the mold. The worker had put the circuit board upside down within the mold. Although the engineer understood what needed to be done, he did not properly communicate it through the system.

The instructions needed to be complete in order to avoid failure. Other examples of failures in the instructions were too much information and data crammed into every page which time consuming to read. It was also impossible to find clear instructions on what needed to be done. Concise writing needs to be practiced. It saves people time and stress from reading meaningless data. Fortunately, since the instructions must be approved by engineer, the manager, and the production worker, miscommunication of instructions do not happen very often. But, all of these people must be on the look out for handling miscommunication errors. This requires asking each other if the information is up-to-date and correct.

What Can Professional Blogs do for Businesses?

There are several companies already using blogs to promote their businesses. Here is a definition from About.com of how businessces can use blogs.

Business Blogs: a corporate tool for communicating with customers or employees to share knowledge and expertise. Business blogs are sweeping the business community. Blogs are an excellent method to share a company's expertise, build additional web traffic, and connect with potential customers (http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/ecommerce/a/bblogs.htm).

One company that is leading in blog communication is General Motors. In fact, it is reported that GM retracted $10M in advertising from the Los Angles Times and started to use blogs for advertising. The blogs GM uses are also helpful in establishing communication with customers. The company can now hear suggestions and complaints about their cars (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm). Business communication is growing rapidly and blogs can help those businesses succeed.