Topic 1.9.2 Providing a Service
PROVIDING A SERVICE
Warm Up
Read the following quotes about customers and discuss how true you think they are.
- ‘An unhappy customer remembers an incident for 23.5 years and talks about it for 18 months.’ – White House Office of Consumer Affairs.
- ‘If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.’ – Jeff Bezos.
- ‘Whoever complains the loudest and longest wins.’ – Anonymous.
Speaking
Think about a customer service experience you have had recently in one of the following situations and answer the questions.
eating out travelling ordering goods online face-to-face retail call centre service
1.How would you rate the customer service from 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent)?
2.What was good or bad about the service?
Example: The person who served me was very polite, but she wasn’t very efficient. It took ages to get served.
Reading and Listening
Read the introduction to a story about an incident on a train. What do you think the ticket inspector did next.
Money, please
Recently, an elderly passenger was travelling by train from Manchester to London. She had arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare, bought her ticket, and got on the next train down to London. When the ticket inspector came, however, he noticed that she had bought her ticket specifically for this journey. However, he pointed out to her that her ticket was only valid for a later train.
Listening
Work in groups and discuss these questions.
1.Who was right?
2.What do you think the best customer service approach would have been?
Grammar reference
Match the sentences from the text 1-5 with the appropriate descriptions a-e.
Match the descriptions a-e with the correct narrative tense i-v.
Linking words and phrases
Practice exercise
Speaking
Work in pairs. Use the headlines to guess what the news story was.
Listen and compare your version of the story.
Speaking
Work in pairs. Choose one of the stories below and one character each.
Talk about each character’s view of the events and the customer service.
1.Train
Two fellow passengers
Ticket inspector and transport police on arrival at Euston
Tom Wrigglesworth and a colleague
2.Scratch card
Two fellow passengers
A crew member and colleague, the next day
The charity that got the money and a journalist
3.Smartphone
Two fellow passengers
Pilot and airline police
The arrested journalist and her colleague
Tell your side of the story in the situation you chose in the previous exercise.
TASK
Work in pairs or small groups
Tell the story of a memorable customer experience you have had, either good or bad. Describe the background to the story, the main characters and the main events.