Delighted? Or Satisfied?

Good question there. That is if you know how to differentiate between the two.

I was a part-time customer service officer at BHG departmental stores when I was having the long holiday after my ‘O’ Levels. I have faced many different kinds of customers before; especially working in a departmental store located in the central area expose me to the international level.

There are customers who are easily satisfied, delighted, and customers who just wants to get you into trouble. Of course, I have the honour to meet customers from all three categories.

Many customers were easily satisfied. All we need to do was to smile and try our best to help them. There was one particular customer who was delighted with our services. He had accidentally left his Blackberry phone at the cashier while making payment. The cashier had kindly handed the phone over to the customer service counter to report lost, and I happened to be in charge of the counter at that point of time. I followed the protocols of recording the item and paging for the owner, but there was no response. Then I decided to be a little bold and look into the phone for contacts that I can call. To my luck, there was a number of the owner’s father. I called and informed him that his son’s phone was with me and if it was possible for him to tell his son to collect it at the counter. When the owner of the phone came, he was delighted. He told me that there were so many important contacts in the phone and it was a relief to have found it. He offered to pay me a sum, which I kindly rejected, said that it was part of my job and it was the cashier who found the phone. He could not stop thanking me and wrote a compliment letter, attached his name card, and offered to treat the cashier and me to lunch.

From the above experience, I can tell that the customer is delighted because he found the service he received is worth to reward me with a sum and treat me to a lunch. He was so delighted he decided to ‘pay back’. That is delighting customers in my point of view since then. However, it changes after this lesson.

What I think now is not totally the opposite as before. Nevertheless, delighting customers can be of different ways. From what I personally think after the workshop, is that delighting customers comes with an element of surprise. It is when you catch the customer off-guard, giving them more than what they expect that there will be a chance for them to be delighted.

However, there are this group of customers who just wants to make your life difficult, probably because of a bad day or bad experience before. Let’s just not make me go into that – it will take eons to finish.

Working in the service sector will require good skills handling customers. They are the most important asset.

It is also important to remember that customer is not always right; we make the customer think that they are right.

I am a straight arrow. What about you?

Wondering what the title is all about? During workshop 7 on Corporate Politics, we were supposed to do a small test on political tendencies. It turned out that there were one or two of us who were company politicians and survivalist, while the rest were straight arrows like me. By ‘the rest’, I mean about three of us (mostly girls) as there were only six students in that make-up workshop. Sad much?

Others would not perceive a straight arrow as being an office politician. A Straight Arrow believes fundamentally that most people are honest, hard working, and trustworthy. A Straight Arrow’s favourite career advancement strategy is to display job competence. However, we all know that it is not that easy.

What I have learnt in Corporate Politics taught me that the ‘real world’ is not all nice and fairytale like, well, at least it is not as perfect as I thought it was. I used to think that everyone would be honest with each other and that if you are nice to someone, your kindness will be repaid. So far, for all the part-time and volunteering work I have been involved, almost everyone was nice and helpful to me. Almost. Apparently, that is only true when you are of no threat to anyone’s salary. In the real-real world, no such luck.

In this topic, the most basic that I have learnt is to make as many people like you as possible. That includes (and especially) your boss.

There is also a scary list of familiar acts by people who play politics in the office. There are people who backstabs in front of the boss, but act as your best of friends in front of everyone else. Then there is this group of people who gets you into deep trouble simply just because their hobby is to gossip. A tutor used to teach me from her experience, the meaning of CYA – cover your *buttocks*, which I find is more than true.

As I have said, I have had some almost-real-world experience. Some of the behaviours of corporate politicians, mentioned in the notes and during the workshop, actually apply in some of my experience. The result of the test for political tendency was also quite true for me. I am almost, always the victim of the politics.

This lesson is definitely beneficial for me. I think I will need to learn to trust myself more than trusting others. Perhaps learn about one’s personality, backgrounds and goals before making good friends with her. That way, I may not be backstabbed as much.

I just have so much more to learn about this topic.

Making a Presence

"We never get a second chance to make a good first impression" - Unknown

The quote got my attention the first time I read it. Most of my friends go like “duh?” but to me, it makes total sense – and I am speaking from experience.

In Professional Presence 1 lecture, we have learnt about the basics for corporate dressing, and as for the workshop, we went through the different types of dressing (such as casual, smart casual, black tie, white tie, etc.). Professional Presence 2 taught us ways to act and speak like a professional, instead of just looking like one. Before the lessons, I honestly did not know that there were so many different ways of dressings and so many things to take note of when meeting ‘important people’ for the first time. This was simply because my life used to revolve around casual wear and speaking like a ‘commoner’. This is also the reason why I had some interesting ‘experience’.

Before this semester, I have had many opportunities to expose myself and gain some real world experience. I merely know that I have to dress up for the interviews. At that time, ‘dressing up’ to me only means no shorts and slippers. Little did I know that I need to be dress in business attire and carry a proper portfolio. No wonder I get sceptical looks and emails to tell me I was not chosen.

The only time when I had a proper lesson on what to dress for interviews was during Communication Skills 2, which was also when I start to get more positions that I interview for.

One of our assignments for Communication Skills 2 was to research on writing resumes and CVs, and prepare for an ‘interview’ by our tutor, which requires us to be in full business attire. When I went to shop for my suit then, I was only concentrating on just getting something. Part of the reason was because, well, I was very much frustrated by the fact that almost all of my classmates bought their suit from G2000 and looked really smart in it while I could not fit the biggest size there and the usual priced items were simply too expensive. Therefore, I gave up trying to find any nice suit and focused on just getting one.

I did not feel the importance of looking the best then. I did not even care about the stark difference between my classmates and I. However, when I entered the classroom for my very first Business Etiquette Service Excellence workshop, I totally regret about what I thought. I did not look horribly like slop but as compared with the others, I might as well have been one. Many of my classmates look awesome in their business suits (who said you could not look nice and fashionable in them?) and I could actually compare the differences among some of us. The major difference I noticed was that some suits just look nice on you while the rest just does not.

I was beginning to realise how looking good and feeling good actually had a link. Since I did not feel that good about what I was wearing, I felt bad. Like I did not have the will to stand up straight and walk with pride, especially when most of my classmates look so much better and confident. I am so going to wear a button up blouse the coming tutorial, in hope of feeling better in it compared to the shirt I had on this week. If it does not work, I will probably end up having a tailor-made suit.

After the lessons on professional presence, I am more confident when facing interviewers. I am also more confident when it comes to choosing the right dress for different occasions. Though it made me regret wearing that pink dress for a smart casual event that happened a few months back, at least I know now that I am never going to do it again.