Important Decision that I Have Taken at Work - Essay Example

Running head: PROBLEM AT WORK Important decision that I have taken at work [Supervisor’s Important decision that I have taken at work In the midst of a raving sunshine I set across for my first day at a job as a sophomore in some bank for an assistant manager position. At the door I was greeted handsomely and was guided to the first floor in a rather huge office where I neatly tucked away my bag and waited for the instructions until my boss arrived. Since my time in a Business school I was been trained to face the challenges similar to the real world and was taught to handle the problems more swiftly, so I took a random file from the desk and started flipping the pages and reading it.

Until noon I realized my boss must have lost his way to his office or he might not be coming today for work till I heard some voices down below from the office and gradually the voice started picking up and converted into an angry yelling tone that started disrupting most of the people at work and they came out of their offices to see the reason behind for the disturbance. I stepped out of my office too and looked down below the balcony as I saw two men cussing over an employee. I couldn’t understand first the reason for such behavior but I preferred listening rather going out there and interfering the matter.

So as I listened, the pieces tried to fill in more and more and I got a clear picture of the situation that must have taken place. It was just another case of employee mishap in which a customer would not have counted the money while leaving his counter and must have realized at home that he was some money short. The customer was bragging something about the bank that it hired thieves and thugs and was directly conveying his message to the other customers there for not trusting this bank and their employees.

The managers were doing a terrible job of restraining this customer and no one dared to come near him. As this situation was damaging to the reputation of the bank, I took a deep breath and made an effort to get down there and solve the problem and get my theories at work before anything worse would happen. Before I headed down those stairs I rephrased every bit of the lecture that I studied in the class of Customer relationship management and those theories that dealt with the handling of bad situations at work and angry clients.

Recovery strategy was all up in my mind right now and how to retain that customer without damaging the goodwill of the company as the guru of Marketing Philip Kotler once said, “One angry customer would share its experience with ten potential customers and it will gradually create a pool of dissatisfied customers” (Silk, 2006). The first step says to ‘listen’, so I walked up to the customer and we exchanged greetings and I took him into a private room as far away I could take him to part from the other customers so they do not get the air of this mishap.

I offered that customer a chair and I listened intently for half an hour of his complaints and I tried to be more empathizing I can be, so to give an impression that the company do care for its customers. The second step that states “Customers are not always right but one does not have to rub it in”. I knew our company had the policy that the Bank would not be responsible if the customer leaves the counter without counting its money but I didn’t had to pursue with that subject because it would have aroused more anger in him and he could have terminated the conversation.

Apologizing is an essential thing by the name of the company even the customer doesn’t understands certain aspects that are obvious from an organization’s perspective. So, I made an apology regarding that employee and the company and made him convinced that it was a mistake after all and we will do everything to solve the matter (Bhushan & Rai, 2004). Since fixing a problem for the customer should be the top priority but letting the customers know that our company has a certain policy regarding exchange of money is also important as to avoid another disruption.

When I saw a trace of calmness on the customer’s face then I pressed the matter of our policy and explained it to him in more courteous tone because the customers will not like being told that they are mistaken. The customer was then filled with the information and it seemed for a moment he realized if he had only counted the money before leaving the counter then this mishap would never have occurred. The last step regarding the service recovery strategy is to give your angry customer’s compensation if you want to keep them happy depending on the severity of the problem (Kaufman, 2011).

I suggested this to my manager and he was certain this would fix the problem. We offered the customer the remaining amount of money that he was very concerned of and more to that we offered him a discount card that would avail him a discount from a certain retail shop which was then our co-branding partner (Kaufman, 2011). The customer didn’t express his excitement in writing but we knew the offer interested him and he couldn’t wait to show it to its family. We exchanged some greetings and he personally thanked me for handling the dispute so calmly to which I replied that it was the least ‘we’ could do for him.

The rule number one of business would never allow me to take the personal glory but instead give major share of success to the effort of a whole group or an organization. Since this had been a positive experience I would pursue with the same decision that I had made that day, but the foremost thing I would try to do differently is my timing to approach to an angry customer. It is better to reach irate customers early before they divulge other customers into their act. I would be more cautious to handle my clients and tell others to follow the same.

References Bhushan, N., & Rai, K. (2004). Strategic decision making: applying the analytic hierarchy process. New York: Springer. http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=ZNvnIwYAjqMC&dq=decision+making+process&source=gbs_navlinks_s Kaufman, R. (2011, August 05). Devising a service-recovery strategy. Retrieved February 16, 2012, from businessweek: http://www.businessweek.com/management/devising-a-servicerecovery-strategy-08052011.html Silk, A. (2006). What is Marketing. Massacheusetts: Harvard Business Press.

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