UNIT 8 DEALING WITH PROBLEMS

UNIT 8  DEALING WITH PROBLEMS

8.1 What seems to be the problem?

A. Look at these pictures:

- What do you think has happened? They had a problem.

- What are the people going to say? They are upset and worried.

- What would you do in each situation? I would organize my time and my things.

C. Discuss these questions with your partners.

- What problems have you had in your work or work experience that led to complaints or apologies? None, because I haven’t worked.

- What is the worst mistake you’ve made in your work or work experience? None. What happened? How could you have avoided it?

8.2 We all make mistakes – sometimes!

A. You work in the buying department at Zenith Internacional. You have just got back from holiday. While you were away Max, the 19-year-old son of your director, was in charge of your office…

This is a note you left for Max before you went away:

Max, while I’m away please place an order for 45 x 100 metre reels of 40mm MCL88 cable from Uniflex SpA in LaSpezia, Italy. All the details are in the files.

This is a repeat order – just copy the previous one and charge the dates.

and this is a note that Max has left to you:

MCL 88 cable ordered as you instructed. You’ll be pleased to know that the price has gone down since your last order! And Uniplex seem to have moved from La Spezia to Pisa.

Their new address is:

Uniplex srl, viale Dell’Industria 131,

56100 Pisa

Best wishes,

Max

P.S. Hope you had a good holiday!

ð What do you think may have happened? What should you do?

The order didn’t show up because the name of the company was not correct. I would make a call to the company and I would apologize about the mistake he committed.

D. Draft a fax or e-mail to Uniplex and other to UNIFLEX, which you could have sent instead of phoning or visiting them.

From: Zenith International                                                                      01/02/11 

To: Uniplex srl

Re: Apologize

Last week I placed an order for 45 x 100 metre reels of 400mm MCL88 cable. I sent the order to the wrong company. I would prefer to cancel it. We are very sorry about the mistake.

We offer our most sincere apology.

Sincerely,

Leticia Valdiviezo.

From: Zenith International                                                                           01/02/11

To: Uniflex SpA

Re: Our order

We wish to place an order for 45 x 100 metre reels of 400mm MCL88 cable for next two weeks.

Sincerely,

Leticia Valdiviezo.

8.3 Complaining and apologizing

B. Complete each sentence. Then decide what to write in your reply to each as if it were your fault in each case.

- We are concerned that the order we placed by letter on 8 June may have got lost in the post. Could you please check if the letter has arrived?

- The order has not yet arrived at our warehouse, even though we received advice of shipping from you ten days ago. Would you please wait until the order arrives?

- According to your scale of charges the price of a single room with bath is $55 including tax. However, on checking my account later I discovered that I was charged $69.50 per night. Will you please correct the mistake?

- Our order was for 80 boxes containing 144 items each. Each box we have opened so far contains only 100 items. Will you please send us the missing items?

D. Look at this information and decide what other excuses you can add to the list below.

If things have gone wrong, the person you’re talking to will want to know the reasons.

He or she may assume that someone (or everyone) in your firm is to blame and that they’ve been:

-       Inefficient

-       Clumsy

-       Slow

-       Careless

-       Impolite

-       Forgetful or unhelpful

-       Distracted

-       Irresponsible

-       Useless

If you don’t want to accept responsibility or blame another person, you could offer an excuse. For example:

-       A clerical error

-       A computer error

-       A shortage of staff

-       System failure

8.4 Friday afternoon: Delivery problems

Decide what you are going to do:

- What will you tell Mr. Robinson? I will wait for the order.

- Will you telephone Ocean View, fax, e-mail or send them a letter? Send an e-mail.

- What will you say or write? I would accept his apologize.

C. Discuss these questions:

- How do you prefer to deal with problems: face-to-face, by phone or in writing? Why? Face-to-face because I think it is the best way to say what you feel.

- Is it better to take the blame, or to blame someone else for your mistake? To take the blame because I made the mistake, I’m the only guilty.

- Is it always best to tell the truth when someone is at fault? Why/Why not?

No, because the person who is guilty has to confess his or her fault.

8.5 Only the best is good enough…

Which do you agree with and which do you disagree with?

-“Customers will pay top prices for a high quality product.” Agree

- “Customers generally prefer a low cost product.” Agree

- “Nobody’s perfect – we all make mistakes sometimes.” Agree

- “In every firm there are some people who aren’t interested in improving the quality of the products.” Disagree

- “You can’t rely on workers to produce high quality goods unless someone supervises their work all the time.” Agree

- “A company can’t influence its suppliers’ manufacturing methods.”  Disagree

- “It’s easy for big companies to force small suppliers to obey their rules”  Agree

C. Discuss these questions:

- What are your reactions to each of the documents? I’d be surprised.

- What other kinds of goods or services could such documents be used with? In Universities, banks, etc.

- Would customers in your country like to receive documents like these? Yes, they would.

- What are the advantages of ensuring customer satisfaction and encouraging customer loyality? The customers are comfortable with the company and it would have more customers.

- Why is customer loyality important to a firm? Because, that way, the company can grow up every day and can offer a better service.

- What other methods can be used to promote customer satisfaction and loyality?

A phonecall

8.6   Monday morning: After-sales problems

Discuss these questions:

- How do you, as a customer, deal with bad service or after-sales service? I wait until I have a solution, it’s just matter of patience.

- Suppose someone complained about your service or alter-sales service: how would you deal with this? I would propose a solution and I would make a deal with the customer.

- Does anyone in the group have any “horror stories” of cases of particulary bad alter-sales service? No, they don’t.