Week 4 Customer Service Story (Zerene)
Last Tuesday, a gentleman came into our shop and enquired about a Parker Pen. He asked if it would be possible to attain the pen with the engraving by the coming Friday. However normally the engraving of a pen takes about one week before it is ready for collection.

So Sandhya called the supplier whether she can get the engraving be done and deliver to the school on Friday. The supplier promised it can be done and she can deliver it either on the Friday or the next coming Monday. Upon hearing this, the customer then paid and left without leaving his contact number down.

When he came on Friday, the parker pen was still with the supplier. He was unable to collect the parker pen. He was angry. As the parker pen was a birthday gift for his nephew, and he did not wish to pass his nephew a belated birthday so he bought another pen without the engraving. In addition, he wanted to cancel the order for the engraving.

Therefore Sandhya called the supplier to cancel the order was being scolded by the supplier as the engraving was already done. Fortunately, the customer come back again and say he wish to have the engraving pen too.


Learning Point
We have to note down the personal information of the customer of they were to order for something from us or the supplier. So that it were be easy for us to contact our customer if anything goes wrong with their order.

Week 3,Customer Service Story by Sandhya

Last week, a student of NYP walked into the ValueShop asking for a pen to be engraved. He was a demanding customer from the start and insisted we engrave 28 characters for him when only 16-20 are allowed. Upon being told so, he was displeased and asked to speak to my supplier. Finally, the supplier and I convinced him that we would do all in our power to help him out. When he finally decided on his pen, he was complaining that we do not provide good service since we could not oblige to his request.

About three days later, when he came to collect his pen, he insisted that there was leakage. Upon enquiring with my supplier on this matter, I came to know that ink residue was normal when a pen was engraved. When I explained this to the customer, he got angry and demanded me to wipe the pen clean for him. I kept my cool though it was not the easiest thing to do in that particular situation.
I learnt from this experience that I have to inform the customer before hand about the ink residue and I also have to ensure the pen is in sellable quality when the customer come to collect the pen.

Another 9 months have gone, which mean a new batch taking over the valueshop. It been a little late for update ever since we take over the shop two week ago. Our new team consist of Nathaniel (leader), Lyra (Assistant leader), Sandhya, Jocelyn and Zerene.

Customer Service Story.

Value Shop, Week 1.(Lyra)

Summary

There was a group of foreigners from Mongolia that visited our shop this week. Even though we did not understand them one little bit, and they, us, we tried our best to serve with a smile, as that’s what’s most important. It was Zerene, Sandhya, and I tending the shop and we were pretty panicky as it was the first time we had foreigners entering the shop by ourselves. We tried our best to tend to the customers’ needs and wants but I dare say it was difficult. At the end of it, even though I do not speak their language, I knew that they left the shop happy, due to the huge smiles on all their faces.

Solution to Issue

Although there was a language barrier, we served these foreigners wholeheartedly and brought them around the store using mostly hand signals and very simple English. It was tougher due to the fact that it was only Week 1, our first week alone, and there was no one there to help us with translation. But, we’ve realized, the best way to go around being lost in translation in the service industry, is with a smile.

Learning Point

1. Treating customers well, even though you have no idea what they’re saying is very important.

2. Even in retail outlets like our MSC, good customer service is a very crucial tool for all students to attend to the customers.

3. We must be vigilant and serve all customers as quickly and as promptly as possible with effectiveness and efficiency.

Value Shop, Week 2. (Nathaniel)

Summary

A couple of days ago during Week 2, we had a new team mate here in Value Shop, Jocelyn. Being new, she had to learn everything from scratch from us with our little knowledge, as we were also pretty new. We taught the best we could for the first few days. On Wednesday, during the afternoon shift, EMRS returned our unsold stock back to us. Just so happens that they had a few errors with their sales which resulted in us not being able to tally our stock. To dissolve this error, my other two more experienced team mates, Sandhya and Lyra, had to go see our supervisor. This meant that Jocelyn was left alone to tend the shop. At around 2 there were quite a few customers in the shop and being new, Jocelyn had a little difficulty attending to each of them. She called be back down and I returned to help her out until the rest of her shift mates returned.

Solution to Issue

This problem could have been avoided if for one, EMRS did not err with their sales of our products. But, since that is out of our control, we’ve found that we needed to have more experienced staff around to help those that were still learning. Also, there would not have been this problem if we had managed our staff tending to the store better.

Learning Points

1. We’ve learnt that it is important to manage staff tending to our shop so as to help service the customers to our fullest potential.

2. It is important to teach new staff much faster so they can handle the shop by themselves and be up to standard with the rest of the team.

3. This whole TEP is a crucial learning experience for us and it is up to us to attain as much knowledge of our products and get the hang of customer service, especially since we only have 9 weeks to make it or break it.