Help Wanted

We are STILL looking for a few good people. If you have retail sales experience, print experience, retail management experience and enjoy a fast paced environment then consider the UPS Store Winnipeg Downtown. We have the following openings: Store Manager and Sales Associate. Please send resume and salary expectations to gaduke@theupsstore.ca.

Store Manager, The UPS Store, Downtown Winnipeg & Selkirk

SUMMARY: To manage and be responsible for the successful operation of a The UPS Store franchise in Downtown Winnipeg.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Include the following. Other duties may be assigned:
• Motivate, train and develop all center associates, focusing on excellent customer service and rapport building.
• Ensure that center achieves its targeted revenue projections.
• Ensure that the center is fully staffed with a competent team and ensures necessary training to perform job requirements effectively.
• Maintain staffing levels to ensure the smooth operation of the center open to close.
• Develops the skills of store associates to ensure maximum profit potential.
• Maintain a high level of cleanliness and orderliness throughout the center.
• Consistently maintain and improve center imaging, impact zones and display areas. Train staff to effectuate the above.
• Communicates with General Manager regarding all areas of center operations.
• Ensures that operational systems are in compliance with company guidelines.
• Pro-actively handles customer concerns to resolution.
• Accurately performs daily close-out procedures, general ledger administration, bank deposits and other accounting functions in accordance with company policy and procedure.
• Efficiently utilize computer systems in support of communication, reporting and other business requirements.
• Plans, prepares and conducts meetings, develops incentive programs and other associate related activities.

Requirements
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Education and/or Experience
1 – 5 years retail sales experience. Printing sales, marketing or graphic arts experience preferred. A degree or diploma in related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Language Skills
Ability to use tact and diplomacy to maintain harmonious relationships with customers and co-workers, in person and over the phone.

Other Skills and Abilities
Ability to lift 50 lbs. regularly. Ability to stand for extended periods of time. Manual hand dexterity required to operate POS, printers/copiers and complete customer paperwork.

Salary
We offer a generous base salary plus commission and bonus. A successful manager can expect to earn $50k upwards. Salary is unlimited for the right person.

This is an excellent opportunity for the right person. Please send resume to gaduke@theupsstore.ca.

Store Associate, The UPS Store, Downtown Winnipeg

The UPS Store, Canada's leading franchiser of business services, has an excellent opportunity for a customer service associate in a fast-paced, upbeat and fun team environment. We have 3 locations in Downtown Winnipeg with open full-time positions available.

The ideal candidate will have at least six months retail experience, must be customer service oriented, well organized and possess excellent attention to detail skills. The candidate must also be dependable, professional and be able to lift up to 50lbs safely. Experience with Microsoft Office and other office equipment is desired. Graphic arts skills and related software experience is a plus.

Compensation consists of an hourly wage plus additional team bonuses and commissions, depending upon your experience. We are an equal opportunity employer with friendly, diverse and professional staff members.

Please send resume and salary expectations to jwilliamhogan@theupsstore.ca.

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Top 5 reasons why “The customer is Always Right” is wrong

When the customer isn’t right - for your business

by Alex Kjerulf

One woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.

She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO of Southwest] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”

The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

1. Convince customers that they will get good service at this company
2. Convince employees to give customers good service

Fortunately more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim - ironically because it leads to bad customer service.

Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

1: It makes employees unhappy

Gordon Bethune is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher, coincidentally) who is best known for turning Continental Airlines around “From Worst to First,” a story told in his book of the same title from 1998. He wanted to make sure that both customers and employees liked the way Continental treated them, so he made it very clear that the maxim “the customer is always right” didn’t hold sway at Continental.

In conflicts between employees and unruly customers he would consistently side with his people. Here’s how he puts it:

When we run into customers that we can’t reel back in, our loyalty is with our employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day. Just because you buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees . . .

We run more than 3 million people through our books every month. One or two of those people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When it’s a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?

You can’t treat your employees like serfs. You have to value them . . . If they think that you won’t support them when a customer is out of line, even the smallest problem can cause resentment.

So Bethune trusts his people over unreasonable customers. What I like about this attitude is that it balances employees and customers, where the “always right” maxim squarely favors the customer - which is not a good idea, because, as Bethune says, it causes resentment among employees.

Of course there are plenty of examples of bad employees giving lousy customer service. But trying to solve this by declaring the customer “always right” is counter-productive.

2: It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage

Using the slogan “The customer is always right” abusive customers can demand just about anything - they’re right by definition, aren’t they? This makes the employees’ job that much harder, when trying to rein them in.

Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back.

3: Some customers are bad for business

Most businesses think that “the more customers the better”. But some customers are quite simply bad for business.

Danish IT service provider ServiceGruppen proudly tell this story:

One of our service technicians arrived at a customer’s site for a maintenance task, and to his great shock was treated very rudely by the customer.

When he’d finished the task and returned to the office, he told management about his experience. They promptly cancelled the customer’s contract.

Just like Kelleher dismissed the irate lady who kept complaining (but somehow also kept flying on Southwest), ServiceGruppen fired a bad customer. Note that it was not even a matter of a financial calculation - not a question of whether either company would make or lose money on that customer in the long run. It was a simple matter of respect and dignity and of treating their employees right.

4: It results in worse customer service

Rosenbluth International, a corporate travel agency, took it even further. CEO Hal Rosenbluth wrote an excellent book about their approach called Put The Customer Second - Put your people first and watch’em kick butt.

Rosenbluth argues that when you put the employees first, they put the customers first. Put employees first, and they will be happy at work. Employees who are happy at work give better customer service because:

• They care more about other people, including customers
• They have more energy
• They are happy, meaning they are more fun to talk to and interact with
• They are more motivated

On the other hand, when the company and management consistently side with customers instead of with employees, it sends a clear message that:

• Employees are not valued
• That treating employees fairly is not important
• That employees have no right to respect from customers
• That employees have to put up with everything from customers

When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. At that point, real good service is almost impossible - the best customers can hope for is fake good service. You know the kind I mean: corteous on the surface only.

5: Some customers are just plain wrong

Herb Kelleher agrees, as this passage From Nuts! the excellent book about Southwest Airlines shows:

Herb Kelleher […] makes it clear that his employees come first — even if it means dismissing customers. But aren’t customers always right? “No, they are not,” Kelleher snaps. “And I think that’s one of the biggest betrayals of employees a boss can possibly commit. The customer is sometimes wrong. We don’t carry those sorts of customers. We write to them and say, ‘Fly somebody else. Don’t abuse our people.’”

If you still think that the customer is always right, read this story from Bethune’s book “From Worst to First”:

A Continental flight attendant once was offended by a passenger’s child wearing a hat with Nazi and KKK emblems on it. It was pretty offensive stuff, so the attendant went to the kid’s father and asked him to put away the hat. “No,” the guy said. “My kid can wear what he wants, and I don’t care who likes it.”

The flight attendant went into the cockpit and got the first officer, who explained to the passenger the FAA regulation that makes it a crime to interfere with the duties of a crew member. The hat was causing other passengers and the crew discomfort, and that interfered with the flight attendant’s duties. The guy better put away the hat.

He did, but he didn’t like it. He wrote many nasty letters. We made every effort to explain our policy and the federal air regulations, but he wasn’t hearing it. He even showed up in our executive suite to discuss the matter with me. I let him sit out there. I didn’t want to see him and I didn’t want to listen to him. He bought a ticket on our airplane, and that means we’ll take him where he wants to go. But if he’s going to be rude and offensive, he’s welcome to fly another airline.

The fact is that some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better of without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.

So put your people first. And watch them put the customers first.

About Alexander Kjerulf

Alex is the world’s leading expert on happiness at work. He has long known that happiness at work is the most important factor that contributes to good careers, happy lives and business success.

Here’s how you can contact Alex.

Alexander Kjerulf
Phone: +45 70 26 26 47
Email: alexander@kjerulf.com
Skype: alexanderkjerulf

Address:
Tagensvej 126, lejl. 613
2200, Copenhagen N
Denmark

Source

FOURTEEN WAYS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY

The idea of increasing productivity and efficiency often brings up images of someone with a stopwatch timing every activity with a watchful eye. Henry Ford first used the talent of an efficiency expert to build cars faster and more economically. What resulted was the assembly line where the same motion is repeated over and over to eliminate any wasted motion. You don't have to work on an assembly line to take advantage of the time-saving tips they offered, however. By taking a little time to plan and prepare, you can find extra hours in your day to complete the work you want to do and still have fun. These useful and effective exercises will only be beneficial if you are productive and efficient with your time. Victor Hugo says, "He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life."

Listed below are ways to use your time in the most productive way possible:

1. Plan your work.
   Plan your work and work your plan. Set aside 10 to 15 planning minutes at the start of each day or at the end of your day to create a to-do list for your upcoming activities and you will know what your important tasks are before you start the day. This advance planning can save more than an hour a day.
   
   Action step: Take a moment right now and decide which time of the day is best for you to set aside for this planning period. Whether it's 6:00 a.m. or midnight, commit to a time period now.


2. Use time efficiently.
   Be productive with your time. Remember, we all have exactly the same number of hours each day as were given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Da Vinci and Einstein.
   
   Action step: You can use time waiting for appointments or waiting in line to catch up on material you need to read and use today's tools to greatly increase productivity. Look at the activities that fill your day and determine ways they could either be done more efficiently or eliminated. By shaving minutes off of several tasks throughout the day, you can free up a larger block of time later. Think of two ways you could save time in your daily schedule.


3. Use your most productive hours for your most important tasks.
   Some of us are early risers, and others are night owls. If you need time to wake and truly get started in the day, don't attempt to force an early morning deadline into your schedule. Ask yourself, "What do I need to get done today in order to feel complete?" and "When am I most productive?" Focus more on what is important and less on how fast you are going. Spend 20 percent of your day on the most important tasks and you will accomplish 80 percent of your results.
   
   Action step: Choose a daily goal you want to achieve and decide what time of the day you have the most energy or creativity to get the job done. Commit that time to your goal. List one sample goal here to get you started:


4. Prioritize your most important activities.
   Write down the important tasks and set them in order of priority. Focus on only the three most important projects. What are the most important tasks?
   
   
   • If I can only accomplish one item today, which will it be?
   • Is this activity the best use of my time, knowledge, creativity, and experience?
   
   Concentrate on the most important activity until it's finished. After completing this task, recheck your priorities and tackle the next most important one. This process leads to a greater sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Schedule appointments with yourself to work on the projects that are most important to you.
   
   Action step: Think of those tasks you want to accomplish and write the top three here in order of importance:


5. Start now.
   However big your long-term project may seem, it's important to begin. Hesitancy, fear, and self-doubt fade with action. For example, if you want to write a book, write one word on a piece of paper. Expand this one word into a sentence, then a paragraph, and before long you will complete the entire chapter. What steps can you take now? Don't wait; do it!
   
   Action step: List a first step you can take for the number one task you listed above. Commit to taking action on that first step today.


6. Say no to small projects.
   Learn to say no to activities that may seem urgent but distract you from accomplishing your important, long-range projects. If you spend the majority of your energy putting out fires, you'll never find the time for the important activities in your life. Action step: When someone asks you to do something that doesn't specifically need YOUR particular touch, memorize this phrase and say it with a smile: "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't have the time to take care of that in the way it deserves. Thank you for thinking of me".
7. Take baby steps.
   Many long-term projects are never started because the whole endeavor seems so daunting. We take on the entire project all at once and overwhelm ourselves. Take small steps that you know you can accomplish. The more realistic your expectations the better. When you gain momentum, you can let the energy and excitement of the project take over, and you'll be fully engaged.
   
   Action step: Look at the number one task you chose and the first step you listed above. Break that step into its smallest components and work on the first one of those.


8. Organize life on a weekly basis.
   On Sunday evening, plan your long-term projects for the week. During the week, spend time each day focusing on prioritized projects, and you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results. Integrate aspects of the long-term goals into your daily to-do list, and you will accomplish your most important projects.
   
   Action step: Choose a quiet place and plot out your activities in a daily planner for the week ahead.


9. Carve out time for non-urgent activities.
   Schedule time during your day when you work only on non-urgent activities (For example, phone, e-mail, paying bills).
   
   Action step: Try to set aside a 30-minute period when you don't have a project deadline filling your mind. The best time may be after a break or meal when you can come to this task fresh.


10. Using an as-you-go task system.
    As activities and information come into your day, complete them on an as-you-go basis, instead of putting them on your to-do list to complete later.
    
    Action step: Your goal should be to "handle it once" and then be done with it. This increases your productivity and also enhances your sense of accomplishment when you see all the tasks you have completed.
11. Treat each day as unique.
    As you schedule each day, take into consideration the most appropriate activity for that day. Fridays might be your creative, planning days, while Mondays can be for organizing. Action step: Look at the activities that fill your days and try to group them by what you do. For example, by organizing all of your errands on one day and your creative pursuits on another day, you can increase productivity and efficiency on all fronts. List the activities that take up the major part of your day and see if you can group several similar tasks into a specific day or time period.
    
    
12. Manage your voice mail and email messages twice daily.
    Allow for two discrete sessions per day to check and respond to voice mail messages and email messages. During these sessions you will be doing only this activity and nothing else. Sort your phone calls and emails into low and high priority. During the rest of the day you will limit use of your phone and email in order to focus only on the project at hand.
    
    Action step: Decide the time frame that works best for you. Possibly first thing in the morning and right after lunch, or just before lunch and just before the end of the workday. Write down the times of day you think will work best for you.


13. Take breaks.
    When your energy level drops or you are becoming too reactive to others, take time to rejuvenate yourself by taking a break.
    
    Action step: A break may involve physically moving away from the work area and getting some fresh air, listening to some relaxing music, or talking with a friend. Find something that helps you recharge. List some activities that rejuvenate you.


14. Have an end of day review.
    Review your to-do list to examine what you accomplished, what you could have done more efficiently, and what you need to get done tomorrow.
    
    Action step: Look at your daily planner and actually check off those items you've completed. This will give you a great sense of accomplishment and help you determine those tasks that require more time than originally anticipated.




Copyright 2004, Joel Garfinkle, All Rights Reserved Joel Garfinkle leads managers and executives to higher levels of professional and personal achievement. Partial client list includes: BofA, HP, GAP, Citigroup, and Eli Lilly. Visit Joel on the web at Garfinkle Executive Coaching.

Time Limited Sale

$100 off

Any print order. On orders of $1000 or higher.

This week only.

Offer good for the week of February 19 through February 23, 2008.

For more details and to order, contact any of our four stores...

• The Shops of Winnipeg Square, 958-4240
• cityplace, St. Mary & Hargrave, 958-4243
• Downtown West, 955 Portage, 784-6500
  
• 63B Main Street, Selkirk, 204-452-4960