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GCFLASH
Hot Off the Press!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - Edition #451
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Weekly Spotlight
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1st Flash:
DON'T GET RIPPED OFF!!
Customer service rarely serves the customer. By this, I'm not referring to the tellers on the front line who handle your banking transaction with ease and accuracy or the checkout clerk who knows the correct price of an item even after the sales tag is scratched off. I'm talking about the line of defense big corporations sets up between themselves and unhappy consumers. With the economy in its current state, consumers get more irate than ever when a product or service doesn't live up to its expectations. But don't get mad, don't get ripped off. In truth, companies realize the value of a satisfied customer. And most will take action to keep you happy. Before you complain, ask yourself two questions: Do I have a valid complaint? Am I expecting a reasonable solution? Sure, it would be nice if GM would give you a new Malibu because yours was in the shop for a minor issue. But it isn't realistic to expect more than a repair of the damaged item. So if you can honestly answer "yes" to both questions, you're ready to achieve results. Decide if your matter is worth pursuing. If the resolution is worth less than your time in chasing it down, cut your losses while you can. Choose your battles wisely. Should you pursue this battle, start with a call to the regular customer service line. If you get stuck in a voice mail loop, push zero repeatedly until you get a human. Find phone shortcuts to navigate through voice mail menu options for hundreds of companies at gethuman.com. When you do reach someone, take detailed notes. Write down the date and time you called. Don't forget to ask the name of the person you're speaking with and include that in your notes. Begin by telling them you encountered a problem that they can help you fix. State the problem clearly in a sentence or two and include options for restitution. If they can't help after you calmly present your problem, ask to speak with someone who can. A supervisor can sometimes override a general policy without the limitations imposed on the first representative. Don't forget to write down the supervisor's name, too, along with whatever information each company representative offered. You'll need these notes in case you have to take your complaint higher up the corporate ladder. Don't be discouraged if it comes to this. Your resolution may be even better than you hoped if someone sitting at the top learns of the issue. One study shows that if a business hangs on to an extra 5 percent of its customers, profits increase an average of 44 percent. The cost of replacing one lost customer is five times the cost of making you happy. Corporate executives are well aware of these figures. Step three is to write a letter. Check out the company at finance.google.com. The corporate address, along with names of its officers, appear under the Management heading. Or visit the company Web site and look at the About Us or Investor Relations section. Prefer e-mail? Visit www.sec.gov to find sample e-mail addresses in press releases. Usually it's something like firstname.lastname@company.com. Begin your letter as you did the phone call. State the problem clearly in a sentence or two and that you're writing because you weren't offered a solution through their regular customer service chain. List the dates and names of who you spoke with along with what information you were given. Conclude with why their advice won't work and what result you are expecting. You won't likely hear back from the company's CEO himself, but you will hear from a representative who is authorized to solve your problem. I recently had occasion to put this advice into action. My husband and I own a small retail and service shop. A regular customer encountered a problem with a product we sold him. In our industry, the manufacturer we represent is responsible for the core product with components falling under the umbrella of each individual provider. Our customer's problem was with a component, someone we did not have a relationship with. After following the standard resolution process, we were assured our customer would be properly served by bringing his unit to one of their authorized service centers. He did so, despite the distance and logistics involved. When he arrived, the service center refused to honor the warranty as promised. I wrote a letter explaining our situation to the company's president. Two weeks later, we got a phone call from their field manager offering reimbursement for expenses incurred by both us and our customer. He also offered an entire new component to compensate for our troubles rather than just the piece they typically change in our situation. Don't take poor quality or service for granted. Don't be afraid to speak up. And don't get ripped off. 2nd Flash:
JOB HUNTING MISCUES PART 2
Now that you've scoured the Web for every page containing your name and cleaned up those party photos that were so funny in college, it's time to take the next step. Learn the art of succinctly summarizing your skills, accomplishments, experience and work history into a brief one-page document called the resume. Your resume makes the first impression a potential employer will see. And while every employer is looking for something unique, there are a few consistent rules that can keep your resume at the top of the stack. Your resume should be written with the employer in mind, not you. This can be tricky since the entire purpose serves as your introduction. But hiring managers can receive hundreds of responses for one open position. If the resume doesn't quickly tell them you qualify for the position, it will be tossed aside without further consideration. Make your resume easy to read. Forget the fancy paper and distracting fonts. A bullet list brings the eyes of a busy hiring manager directly to your key qualifications. A few years back, it was deemed important to state your objective at the top of your resume. Not so today. The objective section has been replaced by a career summary that displays your experience rather than your goals. Read through job postings in your industry and notice which keywords are used in the ads. Use these same keywords and phrases in detailing your history. Many employers use software to scan resumes for certain words to determine which applicants are the most qualified for a job. If you haven't had the specific experience they're seeking, point out your transferable skills that can serve their purpose. But skip the hobbies unless they've earned you a prestigious award. Do not lie. Information you provide on your resume is easy to check out. It's a small world, you never know if there's a connection between the person you're trying to impress and someone you pretend to know. After your resume has opened the door and you're offered an interview, do some research. Learn about the history of the company, goals and any current activities they may be involved with. It will show them you're interested in being part of their team. Keep the interview professional. The interviewer will sometimes try to create a comfortable setting to calm a nervous job seeker. But don't mistake it as a friendly gesture. Details about your personal life have no place here. Do not lie. It bears repeating for the interview process as well as the resume. If you don't know the answer to something, admit it and explain how you would find out. This displays problem solving skills. It's a good bet the person asking the question already knows the answer. Don't risk sounding foolish with a response thought up on the spot. You may be asked common questions such as "What's your biggest weakness?" or "Why did you leave your last job?" They might not be as easy to answer as they seem when you're on the spot. Think of how you would respond in advance. Turn those negatives into a positive by explaining how you work to rise above your weakness, or what you learned by being unemployed. Do not speak poorly about your last boss or the interviewer will think you'll feel the same about them as time goes on. Careerbuilder.com lists real-life examples of folks making a lasting impression for the wrong reason. Among them:
Financial News
As the economists and politicians across the country try to come to terms with the R word - recession, it seems a good time to take stock. Let's compare it to the last big recession which resulted in very high inflation and interest rates in the upper teens. Inflation kept going up with the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates right behind it. Inflation finally stopped climbing when the Federal Reserve shot the interest rate above the rate of inflation. The Fed learned a lesson, cautiously staying ahead of inflation since that time. Now, let's review one of the contributing factors to this spiraling economy, the sub-prime debacle. First, just to remind everyone, a sub-prime mortgage is one made to someone with credit scores below traditional lending limits. Wikipedia defines sub-prime lending as "second chance… lending, at a higher rate than the prime rate." The problem occurred when these mortgages where packaged together and "financially engineered." These lower grade mortgages were segregated into bonds that were rated as high as AAA, traditionally considered very solid bonds. These bonds were then divided into different segments, called traunches, (French for slice!). The lowest level traunche would take the first loss. Many purchasers of these bonds may not have known the details of where their bonds fell, relying on the rating of the bond. The housing market decline caused payment problems with a much larger population since the bonds were sold internationally. So where does that leave us? Institutions that own bonds are evaluating their portfolio to evaluate if they have any problem bonds. Bear in mind that these problems are primarily with bonds backing these sub-prime loans. Banks are working with borrowers that are having problems, although the foreclosure rate is climbing nationally. Many lenders are a little gun-shy to go out on a limb for a more risky lender. However, there is generally more liquidity in the market today than there was back in the eighties. So, we can only hope that this downturn, (not the R-word,) will be short lived. Let's look for those federal rebate checks and pump some of that money back into the economy! Today's National Market Rates
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In This Issue... 1st Flash: DON'T GET RIPPED OFF!! 2nd Flash: JOB HUNTING MISCUES PART 2 Today's Market Rates On the World Wide Web Tip of the Week Financial News Past issues of GCFlash: April 15, 2008 Edition #450 April 8, 2008 Edition #449 April 1, 2008 Edition #448 March 25, 2008 Edition #447 Looking for articles from a past issue of GCFlash not listed above? Find them in our Knowledge Base!
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