Businesses that neglect to invest in customer service are putting their customer relationships at risk, according to the second annual TD Canada Trust Customer Loyalty Poll. Ninety five per cent of Canadians said their customer service experiences can make or break a relationship with a particular brand or company, up 10 per cent from last year. While many businesses explore innovative ways to show their appreciation of their customers, the poll found that good service was most important, with 49 per cent of Canadians ranking “just good customer service” as number one. Reward/loyalty programs and gifts were a distant second and third at 18 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. “Service is the number one deciding factor for people when they are choosing a company to deal with, and it’s the hardest thing to get right,” said Tim Hockey, Group Head, Canadian Banking and President and CEO, TD Canada Trust.
“We’ve found that good customer service has a ripple effect, in fact our poll shows that 89 per cent of people will share their positive stories with their friends and family,” said Hockey. The best customer service levels were reported in British Columbia, at 81 per cent compared to 73 per cent nationally. Additionally, in B.C. price discounts were rated as the best way to show appreciation for their business (24 per cent). Ninety six per cent of people in BC often share stories about good experiences with friends and family.
All of this begs the question, what is your company doing to build a culture of customer service and what are the implications for a business when the most valued factor in customer service is price?
Trends in Customer Service
January 21st, 2010Does the Olympics Really Increase Tourism as Promised?
January 21st, 2010According to the ETOA, “there is no strong link” between hosting any sporting event and growth in tourism. “The audiences regularly cited for such events as the Olympics are exaggerated [and] attendees at the Games displace normal visitors and scare tourists away. Both Sydney and Barcelona had ‘excellent’ Olympic Games, but their tourism industries have not significantly benefited.”
The assumption that billions of people will watch the Olympics on TV and then beat a path to the host city is wrong on both counts, the ETOA argues. “Sports fans watch television in order to enjoy the sport. . . . This activity is notoriously narrowly focused.” As for the global TV audience, the 3.9 billion viewers widely touted for the 2004 Olympics in Athens would mean that 80 percent of the world population with access to electricity was in front of the tube. What isn’t generally understood, the ETOA claims, is that 3.9 billion was the potential, not the actual audience.
The ETOA also notes that people who travel for sporting events are “unlike regular tourists, and more like business travelers.” They “tend not to spend money on [other forms of] leisure and entertainment, and when not in stadia they watch events on TV rather than engaging in other activities.” The greater Los Angeles area recorded a slip in theme park revenue in 1984; in 1992, resort business on Spain’s Costa Brava languished. And though hotel construction is fueled by the buildup to the Olympics, hotel occupancy rates drop off a cliff once the two-week event is over. Hotel occupancy in Barcelona, for example, was 70 percent the year before the 1992 Games, but fell to 54 percent for two years afterward.
A fascinating read on this subject is the Olympic Report by the European Tour Operators Association (2006, updated in 2008), which came to the conclusion that “there appears to be little evidence of any benefit to tourism of hosting an Olympic Games, and considerable evidence of damage.”
Will the HST Make Your Life Easier?
January 21st, 2010PST outdated, costly, B.C. business leader says
Combining the provincial and federal sales taxes has been a priority of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. Here, president and CEO John Winter explains his group’s interest in HST.
Q: Why is this so important for the chamber?
A: It’s largely because of the simplicity of it, avoiding the cost of duplication of efforts. It ultimately avoids the congestion the PST causes in the manufacturing cycle. We recognize that things like the PST are outdated, certainly inefficient and costly. The Maritime example has been very illustrative.
Q: What happened there?
A: The minute the provinces Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland converted to HST, investment grew at a rate beyond the estimates, and it was because they simplified the system and goods in the Maritimes were cost-efficient, compared to not cost-efficient before.
Q: Consumers will see they’re paying more in tax, but may not see the price reductions HST proponents are claiming?
A: The whole notion of the embedded sales tax in the manufacturing process is something the opponents are having a difficult time grasping. The sense businesses will take any savings and not pass them along to the consumer, making the consumer the victim, is mistaken. It doesn’t take into account the competitive nature of business in Canada. If a competitor takes those savings and passes them along as lower prices, the other competitors will have to do so as a response.
What Happened to Canada-EU Free Trade
January 21st, 2010In an age where coupling the words “economic” and “crisis” comes as naturally as the union of rhythm and blues or bacon and eggs, ticking off the projected benefits of the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) evokes the stuff of dreams.
The aim is for completely open, bilateral competition for public and government contracts, harmonization of regulations to make trade transparent, and free movement of qualified, professional employees. The hoped-for result is that within three years there will be a 20 per cent increase in bilateral trade and a $12-billion boost in Canadian Gross Domestic Product.
Too good to pass up? Or too good to be true? Mooted for some years now, the first round of talks aimed at hammering out the agreement took place in Ottawa last year. Public releases were couched in vague platitudes with not a bracing of hard facts. Why?
The reasons break down neatly into three categories. The first is, grandly speaking, the “state of the world.” History shows us that in periods of malaise in economics and politics (funny how the two seem to go together, isn’t it?) the world’s nations tend to, regardless of the consequences, retract into their respective carapaces. When this happens, nationalism and protectionism take the place of international cooperation and free trade.
The second category is more geographically restricted but, ominously, potentially more thorny. The EU has already negotiated a trade agreement with Mexico. Mexico and Canada are both signatories, with the United States, of the equally comprehensive North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). It goes without saying, then, that any EU–Canada accord would be subject to compatibility with the terms of NAFTA.
Finally the third, but certainly not the least, reason for a delay in the negotiation effort is the details that serve as the devil’s principal residence. Issues here range from the seemingly trivial (European restrictions on the import of products made from Canadian seals, and Ottawa’s requirement that Czech citizens obtain visas before travel to Canada), to far more substantive issues of agricultural policy (domestic subsidies to Canadian dairy farmers and European beef producers).
EMERIT Certificate Course
January 21st, 2010The next EMERIT Certificate Course in Food and Beverage Server starting February 1st. This course will run from February 1st to 12th prior to the Vancouver Winter Games. Use this opportunity to gain the most widely recognised certificate in Hospitality in Canada. Take the course from the comfort of home or any where you please as classes are conducted online using cutting-edge technology to deliver an interactive classroom environment like no other. Contact us today to be considered for our special February 1st intake.
New Post for Accounting
January 6th, 2010Hey here the Text 
This Class will be coming soon
January 5th, 2010Soon we will offer classes for Accounting and Payroll, International Trade, Paralegal in the Hospitality and Tourism sector. As well we will offer general training for Hospitality and Tourism.