Psychology of Service

COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATION

Introduction

People belong to many different social systems. They are members of a hotel, a university and/or many others.

The social system which has been deliberately designed to achieve some specific goal is referred to as an organization. In a formal organization like a hotel, communication can be described as consisting of reports and summaries of operations, decisions, orders or directions and even purely social communication. Much of the purely social communication has a persuasive intent, and much of it is directed towards maintaining the members of the organization satisfied.

The basic concept of organizational behaviors

Each person involved in the organizational process will behave differently, even under the same conditions or in the same situation.

An individual’s response will directly affect the goal which his team or group is trying to achieve.

Communication in an organization

Especially in a formal organization there are many individual characteristics that can affect their reactions to persuasive communication.

The organization of people in the company’s organization from the highest authority to the lowest is often called a chain of command.

The following aspects are the characteristics of individuals that are to be considered to achieve successful persuasive communication:

• Position

If the employee has been able to convince a person who occupies a position of high rank, there is greater probability that the message will be accepted by other people in the work group, than if the person occupies a position of lower rank.

• Role

It can be predicted that persuasion will have more effect on a total work group, if the employees are able to convince a person having a definite communication role among them.

• Role Conflict

The role conflict concept is valuable in predicting how members of a work group are likely to react to the messages that make them choose between conflicting roles.

Prestige and Esteem

Prestige refers to the value that can be placed on the person holding a particular position, while esteem is the value that is placed on a person because of his own effort.

To suggest that to be successful in persuasive communication with an entire group, one should first be able to convince a person having high prestige and esteem.

RELATION WITH STAFF AND MANAGEMENT

Introduction

Many things that employees do in the course of business are basically a matter of courtesy and of consideration for fellow workers. Good business manners help things get done smoothly, just as good manners are a part of the employee’s personal life.

Point of behaviors for the individual

The need for courtesy is not limited to the employee’s dealing with fellow workers; it includes the employee’s individual dealings with the company. The major ways of showing this kind of courtesies are listed:

• Punctuality

One person being late can hold up several people who work with him, and if that person is late often, he will sooner or later be resented by the others who are more considerate and arrive on time.

• Having a good attendance record

The company can hardly expect every employee’s to have a perfect attendance record. Illness and other types of emergencies are not predictable and can happen to anyone.

Excusable absences generally include those caused by:

1.      Illness

2.      Serious illness in the immediate family

3.      Death in the family

4.      Natural disasters

To feign illness is inconsiderate, if not honest. It adds to the workload of the fellow workers and upsets the plans of an entire department

• Sharing the load

The company expects its employee’s to perform a certain job, as naturally they are paid to do so. What he should consider as well is the fact that his fellow workers also expect him to carry out his own workload. Loafing on the job may be hidden from the superior, but will be resented by fellow workers with good reason. If the job is to get done, someone will have to take up the slacks created.

• Be trustworthy

A business firm does not operate in a comfortable vacuum; it must compete with other companies. The result is the company management expects its employee’s to treat the company’s internal operation and its plans for the future as confidential or at least protect them from competitors.

Relation toward superior in the company

As an employee in any company, large or small, he will be expected to show his superiors a certain degree of deference and respect.

• Go through the proper channel

The employee should always follow the chain of command in dealing with people on different levels. It is especially important that he does not go over the head of his immediate supervisor.

• Be loyal

Every company feels it has the right to expect that its employee’s will work for it and not against it. In the same way the immediate supervisor will expect a certain amount of loyalty from his sub-ordinates, not blind obedience, but a willingness to work towards achieving common goals.

• Respect the supervisor’s time

One of the most important and most appreciated business courtesies the employee’s can extend to the supervisor is to respect the supervisor’s time.

Here are a few suggestions for minimizing the amount of time required from the supervisor:

1.      Learn the duties thoroughly. A thorough knowledge of the job enables the sub-ordinate to handle it on his own

2.      Avoid bothering the supervisor with unimportant matters

3.      Be well prepared if you do need to take the supervisor’s time

Behaviors when being criticized

It is the supervisor’s job to tell his sub-ordinates what they are doing wrong and to explain how to do a job properly.

Having trouble in accepting criticism makes the supervisor’s job more difficult than it should be. In addition denying the sub-ordinate an excellent opportunity to learn and to improve himself.

Willingness to cooperate

The sub-ordinate is supposed to show the supervisor by his attitude and actions that he is willing to do what the supervisor asks, as well as he can without grumbling.

By this simple courtesy, the sub-ordinate makes his supervisor’s job easier and helps to create a working atmosphere of mutual cooperation

GENERAL RULES OF BEHAVIORS IN SERVING AND SELLING

Good manners in serving and selling should never make anyone feel inferior, since these are the only ways to effectively deal with the irritations that can arise in work with the public at large.

The world best salesman, no matter how he sells, is truly interested in his customers and convinced these customers would really like the things he is selling.

• Politeness

Politeness is the most important requirement for a sales or service career. It is essential in facing rude individuals who frequently take advantage of discipline under which sales and service people work. When politeness is combined with enthusiasm and sincerity, success in sales and service job is assured.

• Personal appearance

Cleanliness, neatness and simplicity of appearance are essential in presenting an attractive picture to the public.

• Personal habits

Eating, drinking, chewing gum and smoking are prohibited while working. Should you sneeze or need to blow nose, do so as discreetly as possible out of sight of the public.

Avoid touching hair and face while on duty and comb the hair only in private.

• Remember the names

It is a gracious gesture to address by name the employee seen frequently. It is also good business for anyone dealing with the public to make every effort to remember the names of the customers.

• Personal remarks

The employee should use discretion in speaking to customers. Personal remarks that lack respect are to be avoided. A pleasant remark is permissible, but it is best to limit the remark to whatever is necessary to present the service or merchandise.

• Responsibility for inside information

People in service jobs often can’t help acquiring confidential information about the people they deal with or the company they work for. There are some people rude enough to question the employee. In this case just reply smilingly and tell the guests that there are no secrets to be discovered

Selling Tips

• Conversation opener

There are two reasons that a conversation opener will arouse immediate attention in selling:

1. During the first sentence the customers is more disposed to give his attention than at any later time.
2. During the first few words, many customers decide either consciously or unconsciously whether or not to reject the proposition.

An introductory sentence that embodies a question may be especially good, as the question starts a man thinking of the answer and that can catch the attention.

• Stimulating interest

Interesting a customer in proposition means making the customers realize clearly what he gains by accepting it.

The best way of proving advantages is to demonstrate them. A skillful demonstration transforms the attention of the customers in to a direct interest in the offer.

• Matching the needs and desire

The main reason for a man buying any product is a combination that it satisfied a need and that he has the desire to buy it. To arouse the desire of the customers, the salesman should try to discover the decisive facts during the conversation. Watch the responses and reactions and shape the appeal to the customers buying desire in accordance with what has been learned.

• The guests is always right

Naturally the guests won’t always be right, but the salesman should always behave toward him as though he was. Even when common sense shows the guests is wrong, the salesman should refrain from arguing and keep his personal feeling to himself, even though it is not easy.

• Handling the dissatisfied guests

Each and every complaint should be carefully investigated. The individual who handles complaint must be eager and anxious to correct any error. He must strive to maintain goodwill even when he feels the complaint is unjustified.

• Customers do not like to wait

It is the height of rudeness not to offer to help customers immediately. No matter how interesting the gossip, sales people should excuse themselves and give attention to the customers.

POINT FOR GUESTS CONTACT

• Importance of greeting

Just as a good salesman should greet prospective clients in a way that will lead to successful sales, so should hotel staff greet their guests in a way that:

1. Immediately impresses the new arrivals guests
2. Makes them feel that they will find well-being and comfort here
• Welcoming the strangers

Hotel staff should not make any difference between any two guests coming at the same time, even though one of them is well known to the employees. In such cases the thing to do is to temper the greeting to the old guests and make an effort to step up the greeting to the new ones, in order to minimize the difference.

• Questions and arguments

The hotel employees should not allow themselves to get in to discussion of controversial nature relating to politics, religion, race and the like.

• Proper use of guests name

The ability to call a guest by name in connection with the various contacts that arise is the last word in service and something that should be developed continuously. To do this and give a good impression one can repeat the name frequently in any given conversation.

• Being well informed when answering

Guests questions should never be disposed with the answer “I do not know”. Regardless of what the questions is, someone around the hotel or city is bound to know the answer. Obviously the hotel staff cannot be expected to know everything, and may upon occasion be obliged to say they cannot answer the questions. In this case they should whenever it is possible to do so, take immediate steps to obtain the knowledge.

• Treatment of elderly people

The hotel staff should be super sensitive in their attention to elderly people. Elderly people in many cases are physically incompetent to handle themselves without understanding assistance.

• Properly thanking guests

There are many ways of expressing the feeling of gratitude. The following are the important points to remember:

1. To say “thank you” in an uninterested tone is positively worse than not saying it at all.
2. Look at the person addressed and smile for good measure and the voice will be in the right direction.

HANDLING COMPLAINTS

To handle a complaint skillfully and to satisfy a customer, a salesman must see the matter as his customer sees it. The object of this policy is not to encourage complaining but to avoid the most dangerous kind of complaint.

The company really suffers when a customer does not approach it with his complaint. He looks for other place and tells his friends of his unsatisfactory experience.

Types of complaint:

1. Genuine complaint

This is a complaint which is raised at the time of service. This is the case particularly in a complaint concerning the service industry, like a dinner who is not satisfied.

2. Regular complaint

Sometimes the complaints are made by political or social association that bring up certain problems which are not easily solved by the person handling a company’s complaints.

Methods of handling complaint:

• The philosophy of recognizing complaints

All concerned should feel simply that the company wants to make the customer satisfied. The philosophy should be clearly presented both to the complaining customers and to the conscientious employee. Accepting a customer complaint without an argument does not mean agreeing with the guests on the fact or issue. It means simply not contesting the issue, neither denying nor agreeing there is any fault.

• The abusive complaint

It takes two persons to make quarrel and if the abusive customers can not get an antagonist he cannot quarrel. The employee should not try to calm a man by telling him to be calm.

• Making complaints easy for the customers

It is best that the customers should complain to the employee concerned and not to others. The others cannot remedy the complaint, but the employee concerned can. The employee should not prevent the customers from expressing his feeling of dissatisfaction.

• Making a note

Take a precise note of the complaint; tell the customers that this is preliminary and necessary to a thorough inquiry.

• Prevent future complaint

What the employee has learned in dealing with the individual complaint. He can apply to the general relations between the firm and other customers. This can prevent customers from having the same complaint later.