Warming up
Ex. 1. Read the text and discuss the following questions.
Customer satisfaction is an important part of a company’s sale strategy, so companies try to provide good customer service. That means offering high quality products and services, answering queries, making it easy for customers to order and pay for goods, and delivering on time. Companies also need to have a system for handling complaints, so that if they make a mistake or offer poor service, they can deal with the problem. Most companies train their customer service staff to deal politely with customers.
1. What problems can you deal with at work?
2. What is ideal customer service for you?
3. How would you describe the quality of service in your country?
Ex. 2. In which of these situations should the customer complain? If not, why not?
1. The food in the restaurant is overcooked.
2. You don’t like the music in the café.
3. You wait 10 minutes to be served in a shop.
4. There’s a cigarette ash on the floor of an expensive hotel room.
5. Your flight is delayed with no apparent weather problems.
6. After ordering a book online, the wrong book is sent. You sent it back but after three weeks, the right book still hasn’t arrived.
7. A car hire firm didn’t provide maps on local roads.
8. You have booked a round trip ticket but the return trip was canceled because of the volcano ashes and you lost a lot of money because of that including hotel other air fares.
9. When you get your bag at the baggage reclaim area you see that the zipper has been broken due to extreme handling.
10. The air company lost your luggage.
Ex. 3. Feedback on service. Complete the comments to a holiday travel company with the following words.
apology dissatisfied friendly pleased wrong excellent
useful mistake dirty rude poor
| We had (1)... service from first enquiries on the telephone to arrival at the resort. Staff is very (2)... and efficient. |
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| Very (3)... to receive the receipt and confirmation the day after booking. |
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| The holiday representative had good local knowledge and gave (4)... information. |
| We were very (5)... with the service at the hotel. Our room was (6)... and the hotel receptionist was (7).... |
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| When I booked my holiday, your representative quoted me the (8)... price. I pointed out the (9)... but she made no (10)..... |
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| The service in the hotel restaurant was (11).... |
Ex. 4. Read the comments about poor customer service. Which of these experiences have you had? Which one is the most annoying?
“If you’d like to hear all of your options again, press 49.
If you’ve forgotten why you called in the first place, press 50.”
1. “You have to wait so long to speak to someone”.
2. “They put you on hold and you can’t turn off their awful music”.
3. “They ask you to repeat the information so many times and then nobody can help you”.
4. “They try and sell you other services”.
5. “They are very polite, but don’t do anything to help you”.
Ex. 5. Read the six rules for good customer service and discuss the questions below.
1. Do the companies you know follow these rules?
2. Do you have experience of them as a customer?