Weekly customer service story by Peiqi

Background:
This happened on the 4th week of the attachment in ValueShop. It occured on Tuesday, 8th of September 2009. A customer who is a staff in Nanyang Polytechnic visited our shop at 9.25am and wanted to get something. However, the shop had yet to be open and there was only one staff managing the store opening. As the customer was in a rush to get a gift for a visitor of NYP, I allowed her into the shop to browse around and get a suitable gift with the NYP logo. However, she spent quite a while deciding what she wanted. Finally, she decided to get the pen and laser pointer set.

Problem:
The pen and laser pointer set was out of stock and the display set was not functioning. Nevertheless, I introduced her to the other popular gifts. About ten minutes later, two of her colleagues arrived and they were deciding if they should get the chess set. While deciding, one of the NYP Hi-Density Black Jacket caught their sight. After much discussion, they concluded that this would be a much better gift as their visitor likes to wear jackets.

At this point in time, it was almost 9.45am and I was supposed to be down at Bazaar for our daily morning meeting. However, my partner Christopher was having a meeting with one of the supervisors and was not in the shop yet. Moreover, the customer wanted the jacket to be gift-wrapped and it further delayed my presence in the meeting. While I was wrapping the jacket for the customer, she decided to print a few photographs at our photo printing machine.

Solution:
Thankfully, Christopher came back on time and took over the wrapping from me. After which, I rushed down to Bazaar for my morning meeting.

Learning Points:
1. Service providers need to be more flexible and meet the expectation of the customers.
2. To notify the OPS team and inform them that I am going to be late for the morning meeting as I was alone in the shop serving customers.

Week 3 Customer Service Story brought to you by Xin Ni

This happend on the 2nd of September 2009. In the afternoon, a lady customer visited ValueShop. The lady was browsing the products in the shop and she looks like she was looking for a particular item. Therefore one of us approached her and offered assistance to her.

She spotted a bag and wanted to purchase it. However she told us that bag she wanted to purchase was a gift. Therefore, she asked if we provide wrapping service. We mentioned that we can help her to wrap the gift for her.

Since it is a bag and there is no base to support the shape, it was quite a challenging task. As we are not familiar with the wrapping of bags, we requested to her to come back in 5 minutes while we wrap the gift for her. The lady said she will then browse around the shopping arcade and come back later to collect her item.

We tried our best to wrap the gift but the outcome of the wrapping was not up to the standard she that she wanted. However, the customer saw that we tried our best to help her and said it is alright. Before she left the shop, we mentioned that we will improve on our wrapping skills.

Learning Points:
1. Know how to wrap the items in a nicely designed way so that we can provide good service for the customers.
2. When the customer comes in the shop, we must stop whatever we are doing and attend to the customer.

Week 2 Customer Service Story by Christopher

This happened on the 25th of August, Tuesday on Week 2 of our shift attachment. During that period, Xuan Hui and I were on morning shift. There was a huge group of China visitors who were led by Mr denis Ang, visited our store. The visitors browsed through every single item that was on display.

Problem:
The China visitor conversed in Mandarin and it was difficult for me to communicate with them as i am not fluent in speaking it.

Another problem was when the visitors wanted to make purchases, the POS machine's cash drawer was stuck. Although the receipt got printed as per normal and the POS machine reflected the correct change to be given but the cash drawer did not open. Moreover, the Open Cash drawer function was not functioning too. Thus, I was unable to give customer his change. as a result, there was a queue of customers waiting to purchase items.

Solution:
Though it might be challenging for me, I tried to communicate in simple Mandarin to the China visitors whil delivering the best customer service to him. In order to minimize customer waiting time, we used the cash box money to return change to the customers.

As I am not familiar in the process of how to handle the cash box, while the customers need to rush to the next programme, we lost some customers eventually. Furthermore, the transactions were slowed down drastically, thus a few of them in the queue did not purchase anything. But fortunately, I managed to pick up the skill fast and it helped to shorten the waiting time.

Learning Points:
1. I need to learn and understand in simple Mandarin. This would allow me to communicate with customers better.
2. Next, those who are tending the shop should be quick on their feet to think, yet calm, whenever a problem arises. Thus they will be able to find solutions to the problems.
3. One should also be flexible with the procedures, such as using the Cash Box money for change when the cash drawer is stuck.

Hey there dear Value Shop Readers!

As you know, we change staff every nine weeks. So.... we're the new staff! We officially took over the shop on the 24th of August. We've been working at this shop for 4 weeks!

The new team: Christopher Dominic Goh (leader), Lim Xin Ni (Assistant leader), Yio Peiqi and Tan Xuan Hui.

Do come down to our shop to get your NYP products such as jackets, shorts, laptop sleeves, tees etc.

Hope to see you soon!