Uber Violates Company Policy & Provides Poor Customer Service

       

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      In recent news, a popular transportation company, Uber, has lost some respect as head honcho of the company recommended spending nearly $1 million to find gossip on a journalist who spoke out against the company’s system. In addition, Uber has been in the light as drivers have been tracking customers’ rides, which violates the company’s oath of keeping locations private. Hence, there’s no doubt that customer service is falling below acceptability, so customer satisfaction is dropping quickly as well.

       In our Module 8 PowerPoint notes, Professor Albada defines deception as “knowingly transmitting messages that are meant to mislead another person by fostering false impressions, beliefs, or understandings or by actively concealing the truth.”

       Although Uber has remained a popular transportation company thus far, customer gratification is wavering as the company partakes in negative customer service behaviors. Through violating the company’s promise of privacy and security, the drivers are continuing to deceive the customers. This is a highly damaging act that will most likely break the customers’ trust and drive them away from Uber. According to the article, “there are calls to boycott the company on Twitter, and many have vowed to go to its smaller rival Lyft.”

       As the Module 8 notes stated, some common reasons for deception are to survive, to accomplish a goal, to protect an image, to avoid negative repercussions, to establish a relationship and to maintain a relationship. However, there’s no doubt that the reveal of Uber’s acts has harmed its chances to establish and maintain customer relationships. Also, the company’s image has now been tarnished, which will make it more difficult to avoid negative consequences.

       “You want to create a culture that creates positive reputational capital for the company, particularly if you are a startup," said Maclyn Clouse, University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

       Due to Uber being such a large, upcoming company, it has managed to escape some of the direct repercussions. Through means of distortion, which is making something smaller or larger than it is, the company has been able to display its actions as less harmful than they actually are. Even so, Uber is walking a fine line in which it must regain comfortable footing with positive customer service as its support.  

- Megan 

"Does bad behavior really hurt business?." Daily Democrat. The Associated Press, 23 Nov. 2014. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.

Proximity in Customer Service Situations

       There are several different ranges of space that surround every person.  Each level of this space is defined by who and in what situations it is appropriate to enter them.  The furthest space is designated as public space - anyone can stand in this space without it being considered inappropriate.  The space that very closely surrounds a person is usually only allowed to be invaded by people who share a close relationship with them.  In customer service situations, what space is considered appropriate to reside in?  If one stands too far away from the customer, they may have to shout in order to assist them, which would be considered rude.  However, if one stands too close to the customer, it is an invasion of privacy and would also be considered rude. 

       Hence, it all depends on what position you are in as the employee and what your relationship is with the customer.  Working in a restaurant, I have been able to observe the way in which the servers interact with the customers.  The bartender has many regular customers with whom she has formed relationships.  When she interacts with customers, she stands close to them, sometimes leaning on the table or over the bar in order to listen to what they are saying.  She listens to their stories, nods, and smiles.  She has very positive feedback from her customers and many people only come in on the nights she is working simply because they have grown to like her.  She has the ability to make the customer feel important by standing close enough without invading their privacy, which has produced plausible reactions from the customers.  As a result, they always leave happy and come back regularly.  

       Not all customer service situations are appropriate for this kind of close interaction, however. It is important to judge each customer and each situation carefully to ensure that you give the appropriate amount of space between the customer and yourself.  In some situations, closeness can produce positive results.  Nonetheless, as an employee, you should generally keep a moderate distance so that you are close enough to talk to them and answer their questions, but not so close that you are invading their personal space. 

-Sabrina

Albada, Kelly. "Conversational Space." Module 4, Part 1 Powerpoint - Proxemics. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University, 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.

Olfactics: Chocolate Smell in Bookstores

Check out this video about a study conducted last year that found the smell of chocolate helps to make customers spend more time in bookstores.  The study, conducted by researchers at Hasselt University in Belgium found that people were over twice as likely to look at more than one book before purchasing when the store smelled like chocolate.  The chocolate smell also increased overall book sales and increased the sale of romance novels and food-related books by 40%.  They conducted the study over ten days, making the shop smell like chocolate for half of it’s operating hours.  The researchers observed the behavior of every 5^th person that entered the  bookstore which gave them a sample size of 201 study subjects.

Olfactics (smell) is a really crucial, yet often overlooked part of the nonverbal communication side of customer service.  The smell of both the environment and the employees of a business that customers come into contact with should be considered when assessing the overall customer experience and working on homing your nonverbal skills.  At its simplest level, everything and everyone should smell nice, but not overpowering.  If you wish to dive deeper into olfactics, you should consider what you want your customers to do.  Stay longer?  Relax?  Get excited?  Buy more romance novels?  Once you've decided what your goals are, you can begin to research what smell or combination of smells you should use.  I would suggest contacting a professor at a local university who specializes in nonverbal communication.  They should be able to help point you in the right direction.  Who knows…Maybe they’ll turn it into a cool research study!  Olfactics is a very powerful nonverbal cue.  If used correctly, I believe it can make a big difference and help increase sales and customer satisfaction.  

-Sam

People Spend More Time in a Bookstore That Smells Like Chocolate. Dir. geobeats. 23 July 2013. YouTube. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.

Doucé, L., Poels, K., Janssens, W., & De Backer, C. (2013). Smelling the books: The effect of chocolate scent on purchase-related behavior in a bookstore. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 65–69. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.07.006