英语口语学习及心得

where customers are satisfied along with where they are dissatisfied and to identify where applicable what causes this disappointment in the customer experience.

Finally we can use this data to help prioritize the service areas in need of improvement in the future.

C: What’s important when managing a project?

To manage projects involves heavy workload and requires much of the company’s energy and human resource. However by using teamwork we can make this complicated work become simple and easy. First when we set up a project-oriented teamwork all members of the projects are united and work in a teamwork spirit. That means they work more systemically and coordinate more with each other. As leaders we won’t worry about the time we will have to waste on the coordinating procedures anymore. Second by using teamwork we can create a sound and effective communication with the project and monitor the communication between members as well as the communication between boss and subordinates. Third in a team everyone tries to help others in their work and a lot of problems can be solved quickly after they occur. The managers can thus save the energy and time for trouble-shooting.

Task sheet 12

A: What’s important when motivating staff?

I think financial benefits play a very important role in staff motivation. As managers we should treat our employees as valuable members of our team and pay them a salary that reflects their worth. To some extend, money can be the main motivator for staff to do an excellent job. A poor salary will ensure that you lose good staff, and that leads to higher staff turnover.

Therefore we must ensure that financial benefits are available to our staff members in relation to their expected contributions. Furthermore we should consider our staff’s real performance expectations and work processes and then use pay to reinforce what is important, without harming the rest of performance.

B: What’s important when dealing with competition? Pricing policies

Advertising strategies Customer service

A wide range of goods or services

C: What’s important when planning health and safety training?

Task Sheet 13

A: What’s important when choosing new office equipment?

There are three important points you should consider when you choose new office equipment.

First, discounts. Aggressive discounting is rampant in the office equipment dealer channel. Even if you are buying only one piece of furniture, you can still expect to receive about a 30 percent discount off the suggested retail price. As the volume of your purchase increases, the discount should continue to increase to nearly half the original list price

Second, be careful where you shop. If you've never heard of the vendor before and if they offer prices that sound too good to be true, be on your guard. Take steps to verify that the company is legitimate, that the quality of the goods they sell meets your requirements, and that they are indeed authorized to sell the products they offer.

Third, industry standards. The products you are going to buy have to meet or exceed certain industry standards. They

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must have been subjected to a series of tests for durability.

B: What’s important when entertaining foreign business clients? Venue for entertainment Cultural differences

Information about the client Cost of entertaining them

C: What’s important when aiming to reach new markets?

Market research is our top priority when we aim to reach new markets.

First, Market research enables us to better understand how consumers use a product or service and how they regard the product or service. Market research also determines the types of people most likely to buy our new products-namely our target market.

Second, before reaching new markets, we usually have limited budgets so knowing who is most likely to buy a particular product helps us spend our budget more efficiently. Market research is used after the advertising has run and seeks to determine how well our potential consumers remember the advertising message and how persuasive it was.

Task Sheet 14

A: What’s important when choosing a management training course to attend? (see task sheet 6 c)

B: What’s important when relocating a business?

I think the quality of the local workforce is very important when we relocate our business. We should relocate a business to the place where the workforce is highly educated. If we choose the location where we can only hire mediocre or poor performers, we cannot be successful long even if we have perfect plans, a sound organizational structure, and finely tuned control system.

Besides, the location we are going to select should provide direct access to our market. It must have a great airport or seaport that goes anywhere and it should be more centrally located. We won’t worry about flying for long hours to our market.

C: What is important when advertising a new product?

You must first consider the choice of media first. Different types of media have different effects and advantages. Which type of the media to choose is dependent on the purposes you want to achieve.

If you want to advertise your products on a regular basis, you can choose newspaper. The immediacy of a daily newspaper's news will cause readers to pick it up within a predictable time frame. So you so know when readers receive your messages.

If you want to make your advertisement relatively cost-effective, the internet is your best choice. The internet ad costs can be independent of the size of the audience. A Web presence will cost the same regardless of how many viewers your site has.

Task Sheet 16

A: What’s important when choosing people to work in teams?

We must see to it that the team members have a variety of work experience. Usually we build a team in order to manage a systematic project rather than a single one. Therefore we need specialists in many business domains, not

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professionals in just one field. For example, in order to build a team to develop our new products, we need members with various work background like production, pricing, advertising, purchasing and selling. If we only recruit members from advertising or purchasing department, we cannot accomplish the project at all.

B: What’s important when dealing with a heavy workload?

I think time management is very important when we deal with a heavy workload. We can apply time management skills to decide our work priorities and find out what to spend our time on. When facing a heavy workload we need to know our priorities and deadlines so that we can focus on what we need to do and find out what the key targets to be achieved are, and how achievement will be measured.

Time management skills also explain how to clarify our job with our employees, and concentrate on doing well in the areas he or she considers being most important. By concentrating on the right priorities we can ensure that our employees are always working as effectively as possible when dealing with a heavy workload.

C: What is important when developing new products?

Pricing is the most important consideration when we develop new products.

On the one hand, we should set our price at an appropriate level. We should not set the price too high without the consideration of the affordability of our customers. Unrealistic high price will undermine our customer base and make us loss loyal customers.

On the other hand, we should not attempt to gain business by slashing prices regardless of costs. The price level we set should at least include all the cost and investment and make us gain some margins. Short-term price slashing does not assure a way of gaining financial profits; it can only create a stormier business environment and cutthroat competition. We must avoid hostile price slashing. We must not damage our profession's reputation by sacrificing quality for price. We should carry out an investigation or market research in the target market to see what price level can be accepted by our potential customers. Only in this way can we develop our new products successfully.

Task Sheet 17

A: What’s important when being interviewed for a job?

The interviewer will always ask you some general and detailed questions about the job you apply. Most of them are about the company which could be your future workplace. During the interview the interviewer will consider your answer and your feedback and make his or her own judgment on your quality and personality according to your answer. If you for example can demonstrate your understanding of what the company is dealing with and your idea of the company’s future development you are very likely to be hired because your answers which contain plenty of information about the company show that you have taken this company and your future with it into serious consideration. Therefore it is important for you to get as much such information as possible. B: What’s important when exhibiting at trade fair？

Your aim of exhibiting your products at the trade fair is to show your customers the high quality of your products through fine demonstration and careful explanation, which will only be achieved by selecting right staff to attend the trade fair. The staff you select should at least have a good understanding of the products you display. They must know the quality function description production packing and other important fields of your products. Besides they must have strong ability of promoting and marketing. These elaborately-selected staff can answer any kind of question produced by the customers about your products and can secure contracts with them skillfully, which will make your display a complete success.

C: What’s important when introducing a reward system for staff?

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It is very important for you to ask yourself what you expect from the reward system when you consider the introduction. That is to say you must first make it clear the purpose of the reward system. Will it be used to stimulate your staff’s morale or will it be used to keep your staff working with high efficiency. Without the understanding of these it is difficult for you to place the reward system at the right place. The staff will probably get confused or even annoyed with the system because you fail to explain to them the purpose of it. Besides a system without clear purpose won’t achieve much as you expect it.

Task Sheet 18

A: What’s important when entertaining clients?

We must choose appropriate types of activities to entertain different clients. Different clients have different tastes interests and hobbies. In order to make them feel satisfied and comfortable we must choose the activities they prefer and are interested in. For example if you find your client has a taste for art or music then take him or her to a concert. If he or she is a sports fan take him or her to the sports event. Besides we seek to find chances to do business with our clients while entertaining them. Therefore we must first create a sound environment in which we can discuss our business comfortably. Different types of activities can help us create different environments. No place is more suitable than a gulf course where you can possibly sign a contract successfully while enjoying playing games with your clients. And no place is more suitable that a stadium where you can negotiate the import of your sportswear while experiencing the excitement of the match.

B: What’s important when choosing retail premises to rent?

Location plays a very important role when we choose retail premises to rent. In fact the premises we choose will become our store shop or branch in the future. So it should be at least located in the downtown area or near the high-street facilities where we can easily find our customers and promote our goods. A good location itself is a good advertisement and can help us to increase our sales to a large extent. In addition a good location means an easy transportation which can make our goods delivery fast and convenient. We don’t have to worry about any delay caused by isolated location of our shop.

C: What’s important when deciding on packaging for products？

The packaging of our products is in fact a kind of advertisement for our products. So when we decide on packaging for products we must first consider if the packaging can reflect the image of our products. It must best represent the quality of our products through its design and layout which can attract our customers to buy our products. The packaging should show the distinctive features of our products so that every customer can have a better understanding of our products after just taking a look at our products. And we should make sure that the customers can identify our products immediately through the packaging.

Task Sheet 19

A: What’s important when selecting staff for promotion?

The only criterion when we select staff for promotion is his or her performance. Performance demonstrates your employee’s ability to sell products promote products communicate with your clients and deal with crisis. All of these abilities are what you and your company need in many fields of your business. Therefore when you promote an employee who might become the core of the management of your company it is important for you to consider his or her performance. In addition judging an employee by his or her performance in itself is also an universally-recognized rule applied by many companies in promoting their staff.

B: What’s important when considering a career change?

As an employee the opportunities you can get for future promotion from your career is very important and therefore

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