Passage 1Customer RelationsCustomer relations describes the resources of a company-be it a store, manufacturer, or service industry-that are devoted to discerning and then serving the needs of customers. In earlier times, this was known as the complaint department, the part of the operation that dealt with negative customer comments, returns, and other concerns. Renaming this function customer relations is more than a word game. It reflects the proactive nature of the department in modern industry and retailing. Customer service extends beyond sales and advertising to ensure that the company understands its customer base and what its customers really want. Customer relations works within the business to direct the quality of the product or service, its delivery, and advertising strategy to meet that need. This part of a business operation responds to customer inquiries and complaints and resolves problems so as not to lose customers; at the same time, customer relations works with the marketing department to attract new customers.The short answer to why so much attention should be paid to customer needs and dissatisfied customers is that such attention has been found to support long-term success. Some of the earliest such endeavors began with concern over product reputation-as far back as the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the l89Os. Placing one’s name on a product was considered to be a bond of tie between the customer and the merchant and/or the manufacturers.Over the years, many firms developed a policy of “the customer is always right,” finding that it was more profitable to take a small loss and keep a customer than to argue with customers about alleged defective products or problems that occurred with staff. Firms developed complaint departments to deal with customers who had bad experiences with products or services.As consumer consciousness grew in the late twentieth century the focus of the industry shifted from dealing with dissatisfied customers as they complained, to a more active approach of reaching out to discover why the complaint was made , to ensure that the dissatisfied customers remain customers, and to study each case and improve the product or service and the way in which it was delivered to customers. In the 1 960s the complaint department began to be known as the customer relations department. Customer relations departments still take on complaints. The advent of toll-free numbers makes it easier for people to register complaints-and praise. Customers who phone in praise for or complaints about a product are often offered free coupons and recipes for that product.Studies of the customer relations movement show that the shift to an aggressive policy of customer study is more than “nice”, it is profitable for business. Resources expended in the customer service area are more than offset by savings from customers not lost. Goodwill toward all customers reaps tangible rewards in the form of increased profits for business.In a study of service industries, Ron Zemke cited two studies by Technical Assistance Research Institute (TARI) in Washington D. C., on consumer complaints. TARI found that one in four customers was upset enough about a product or service or both to seek an alternative business for that product or service. Of those unhappy customers, however, only five percent had bothered to complain. The other 95 percent just voted with their cash by switching. To reduce the loss of customers in the future, customer relations tries to analyze the five percent who complained in order to understand the ninety-five percent who did not complain yet were unhappy. Customer relations must anticipate the needs of each individual Customer, up and down the social scale, across the racial and cultural lines that make up the American melting pot.Zemke and others offer many strategies for building a good customer relations department.The best strategies involve learning as much as possible about the customer base and training staff well as to what the customers want and the way they want it. Zemke and others show thata company with excellent service toward customers is one that understands the tie between employee relations and customer relations. A well-trained satisfied employee is better able to satisfy the needs of the customer.An acknowledged leader in customer service in the retailing field is Nordstrom’s department store. Nordstrom’s stresses quality in every aspect of its service and merchandise down to the last detail. A 1994 Washington Post article about a survey of the quality of women’s rest rooms in metro-D. C. stores and malls reported that the heat overall was Nordstrom’s. Nordstrom’s was not seeking to highlight this area. When interviewed the Nordstrom local officials seemed not to understand the fuss. Maintaining their store rest rooms as one would maintain one’s home bathroom for expected guests is just one small part of Nordstrom’s total commitment to customer service. Nordstrom associates are encouraged to learn about their customers, to send thank-you notes, to send postcard reminders to customers when products they might like arrive and to give regular customers advance notification of Nordstrom’s infrequent sales.The conversion of complaint departments to customer relations departments became so widespread that in 1973 the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business was founded.Consisting of more than 3, 000 members who are involved with the management of consumer affairs divisions of business, the society takes the cause of customer relations to a national level, promoting harmonious relationships between business, government, and consumers. The society works on ways to help businesses assess and compare their successes and failures in consumer relations and maintains a library and bookstore of materials on customer relations as well as publishing a magazine, Mobius Quarterly. 回答问题Which of the following is NOT true according to the text?

Passage 2Japanese Style of ManagementTime clocks are banned from the premises. Mangers and workers converse on a first-name basis and eat lunch together in the company cafeteria. Employees are briefed once a month by a top executive on sales and production goals and are encouraged to air their complaints. Four times a year, workers attend company-paid parties. Says Betty Price, 54, an assembly-line person: “Working for Sony is like working for your family.”Her expression, echoed by dozens of other American Sony workers in San Diego, is a measure of success achieved at the sprawling two-story plant, where both the Stars and Stripes and the Rising Sun fly in front of the factory’s glistening white exterior. In 1981 the San Diego plant turned over 700, 000 color television sets, one-third of Sony’s total world production. More significantly, company officials now proudly say that the plant’s productivity approaches that of its Japanese facilities.Plant manager Shiro Yamada, 58, insists that there are few differences between workers in the United States and Japan. Says he: “Americans are as quality conscious as the Japanese.But the question has been how to motivate them.” Yamada’s way is to bathe his U.S. employees in personal attention. Workers with perfect attendance records are treated to dinner once a year at a posh restaurant downtown. When one employee complained that a refrigerator for storing lunches was too small, it was replaced a few days later with a larger one. Vice-President Masayoshi Morirnoto, known as Mike around the plant, has mastered Spanish so he can talk with his many Hispanic workers. The company has installed telephone hot lines on which workers can anonymously register suggestions or complaints. The firm strives to build strong ties with its employees in the belief that the workers will then show loyalty to the company in return, It carefully promotes from within, and most of the assembly-line supervisors are high school graduates who rose through the ranks because of their hard work and dedication to the company. During the 1973 1975 recession, when TV sales dropped and production slowed drastically, no one was fired. Instead, workers were kept busy with plant maintenance and other chores. In fact, Sony has not laid off a single employee since 1972, when the plant was opened. The Japanese managers were stunned when the first employee actually quit within one year. Says Richard Crossman, the plant’s human relations expert: “They came to me and wanted to know what they had done wrong. I had to explain that quitting is just the way it is sometimes in Southern California.”This personnel policy has clearly been a success. Several attempts to unionize the work force have been defeated by margins as high as 3 to 1. Says Jan Timmerman, 22, a parts dispatcher and former member of the Retail Clerks Union: “Union pay was better, and the benefits were probably better. But basically I’m more satisfied here.”Sony has not forced Japanese customs on American workers. Though the company provides lemon-colored smocks for assembly-line workers, most prefer to wear jeans and running shoes.The firm doesn’t demand that anyone put on uniforms. A brief attempt to establish a generalexercise period for San Diego workers, similar to the kind Sony’s Japanese employees perform, was dropped when managers saw it was not wanted.Inevitably, there have been minor misunderstandings because of the differences in language and customs. One worker sandblasted the numbers 1 2 6 4 on a series of parts she was testing before she realized that her Japanese supervisor meant that she was to label them “1 to 64.”Mark Dempsey, 23, the plant’s youngest supervisor, admits that there is a vast cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans. Says he; “They don’t realize that some of us live for the weekend, while lots of them live for the week-just so they can begin to work again.” Some workers grumble about the delays caused by the Japanese system of managing by consensus, seeing it instead as an inability to make decisions. Complains one American; “There is a lot of indecision. No manager will ever say do this or do that.”Most American workers, though, like the Japanese management style, and some do not find it all that foreign. Says supervisor Robert Williams: “A long time ago, Americans used to be more people-oriented, the way the Japanese are. It just got lost somewhere along the way.” 回答问题What is the main idea of the passage?

Passage 2Japanese Style of ManagementTime clocks are banned from the premises. Mangers and workers converse on a first-name basis and eat lunch together in the company cafeteria. Employees are briefed once a month by a top executive on sales and production goals and are encouraged to air their complaints. Four times a year, workers attend company-paid parties. Says Betty Price, 54, an assembly-line person: “Working for Sony is like working for your family.”Her expression, echoed by dozens of other American Sony workers in San Diego, is a measure of success achieved at the sprawling two-story plant, where both the Stars and Stripes and the Rising Sun fly in front of the factory’s glistening white exterior. In 1981 the San Diego plant turned over 700, 000 color television sets, one-third of Sony’s total world production. More significantly, company officials now proudly say that the plant’s productivity approaches that of its Japanese facilities.Plant manager Shiro Yamada, 58, insists that there are few differences between workers in the United States and Japan. Says he: “Americans are as quality conscious as the Japanese.But the question has been how to motivate them.” Yamada’s way is to bathe his U.S. employees in personal attention. Workers with perfect attendance records are treated to dinner once a year at a posh restaurant downtown. When one employee complained that a refrigerator for storing lunches was too small, it was replaced a few days later with a larger one. Vice-President Masayoshi Morirnoto, known as Mike around the plant, has mastered Spanish so he can talk with his many Hispanic workers. The company has installed telephone hot lines on which workers can anonymously register suggestions or complaints. The firm strives to build strong ties with its employees in the belief that the workers will then show loyalty to the company in return, It carefully promotes from within, and most of the assembly-line supervisors are high school graduates who rose through the ranks because of their hard work and dedication to the company. During the 1973 1975 recession, when TV sales dropped and production slowed drastically, no one was fired. Instead, workers were kept busy with plant maintenance and other chores. In fact, Sony has not laid off a single employee since 1972, when the plant was opened. The Japanese managers were stunned when the first employee actually quit within one year. Says Richard Crossman, the plant’s human relations expert: “They came to me and wanted to know what they had done wrong. I had to explain that quitting is just the way it is sometimes in Southern California.”This personnel policy has clearly been a success. Several attempts to unionize the work force have been defeated by margins as high as 3 to 1. Says Jan Timmerman, 22, a parts dispatcher and former member of the Retail Clerks Union: “Union pay was better, and the benefits were probably better. But basically I’m more satisfied here.”Sony has not forced Japanese customs on American workers. Though the company provides lemon-colored smocks for assembly-line workers, most prefer to wear jeans and running shoes.The firm doesn’t demand that anyone put on uniforms. A brief attempt to establish a generalexercise period for San Diego workers, similar to the kind Sony’s Japanese employees perform, was dropped when managers saw it was not wanted.Inevitably, there have been minor misunderstandings because of the differences in language and customs. One worker sandblasted the numbers 1 2 6 4 on a series of parts she was testing before she realized that her Japanese supervisor meant that she was to label them “1 to 64.”Mark Dempsey, 23, the plant’s youngest supervisor, admits that there is a vast cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans. Says he; “They don’t realize that some of us live for the weekend, while lots of them live for the week-just so they can begin to work again.” Some workers grumble about the delays caused by the Japanese system of managing by consensus, seeing it instead as an inability to make decisions. Complains one American; “There is a lot of indecision. No manager will ever say do this or do that.”Most American workers, though, like the Japanese management style, and some do not find it all that foreign. Says supervisor Robert Williams: “A long time ago, Americans used to be more people-oriented, the way the Japanese are. It just got lost somewhere along the way.” 回答问题We can learn from the passage that the relationship between the Japanese employers and their American employees at Sony is ______.

Passage 2Japanese Style of ManagementTime clocks are banned from the premises. Mangers and workers converse on a first-name basis and eat lunch together in the company cafeteria. Employees are briefed once a month by a top executive on sales and production goals and are encouraged to air their complaints. Four times a year, workers attend company-paid parties. Says Betty Price, 54, an assembly-line person: “Working for Sony is like working for your family.”Her expression, echoed by dozens of other American Sony workers in San Diego, is a measure of success achieved at the sprawling two-story plant, where both the Stars and Stripes and the Rising Sun fly in front of the factory’s glistening white exterior. In 1981 the San Diego plant turned over 700, 000 color television sets, one-third of Sony’s total world production. More significantly, company officials now proudly say that the plant’s productivity approaches that of its Japanese facilities.Plant manager Shiro Yamada, 58, insists that there are few differences between workers in the United States and Japan. Says he: “Americans are as quality conscious as the Japanese.But the question has been how to motivate them.” Yamada’s way is to bathe his U.S. employees in personal attention. Workers with perfect attendance records are treated to dinner once a year at a posh restaurant downtown. When one employee complained that a refrigerator for storing lunches was too small, it was replaced a few days later with a larger one. Vice-President Masayoshi Morirnoto, known as Mike around the plant, has mastered Spanish so he can talk with his many Hispanic workers. The company has installed telephone hot lines on which workers can anonymously register suggestions or complaints. The firm strives to build strong ties with its employees in the belief that the workers will then show loyalty to the company in return, It carefully promotes from within, and most of the assembly-line supervisors are high school graduates who rose through the ranks because of their hard work and dedication to the company. During the 1973 1975 recession, when TV sales dropped and production slowed drastically, no one was fired. Instead, workers were kept busy with plant maintenance and other chores. In fact, Sony has not laid off a single employee since 1972, when the plant was opened. The Japanese managers were stunned when the first employee actually quit within one year. Says Richard Crossman, the plant’s human relations expert: “They came to me and wanted to know what they had done wrong. I had to explain that quitting is just the way it is sometimes in Southern California.”This personnel policy has clearly been a success. Several attempts to unionize the work force have been defeated by margins as high as 3 to 1. Says Jan Timmerman, 22, a parts dispatcher and former member of the Retail Clerks Union: “Union pay was better, and the benefits were probably better. But basically I’m more satisfied here.”Sony has not forced Japanese customs on American workers. Though the company provides lemon-colored smocks for assembly-line workers, most prefer to wear jeans and running shoes.The firm doesn’t demand that anyone put on uniforms. A brief attempt to establish a generalexercise period for San Diego workers, similar to the kind Sony’s Japanese employees perform, was dropped when managers saw it was not wanted.Inevitably, there have been minor misunderstandings because of the differences in language and customs. One worker sandblasted the numbers 1 2 6 4 on a series of parts she was testing before she realized that her Japanese supervisor meant that she was to label them “1 to 64.”Mark Dempsey, 23, the plant’s youngest supervisor, admits that there is a vast cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans. Says he; “They don’t realize that some of us live for the weekend, while lots of them live for the week-just so they can begin to work again.” Some workers grumble about the delays caused by the Japanese system of managing by consensus, seeing it instead as an inability to make decisions. Complains one American; “There is a lot of indecision. No manager will ever say do this or do that.”Most American workers, though, like the Japanese management style, and some do not find it all that foreign. Says supervisor Robert Williams: “A long time ago, Americans used to be more people-oriented, the way the Japanese are. It just got lost somewhere along the way.” 回答问题The phrase “to bathe his U. S. employees in personal attention” in paragraph three means______.

Passage 2Japanese Style of ManagementTime clocks are banned from the premises. Mangers and workers converse on a first-name basis and eat lunch together in the company cafeteria. Employees are briefed once a month by a top executive on sales and production goals and are encouraged to air their complaints. Four times a year, workers attend company-paid parties. Says Betty Price, 54, an assembly-line person: “Working for Sony is like working for your family.”Her expression, echoed by dozens of other American Sony workers in San Diego, is a measure of success achieved at the sprawling two-story plant, where both the Stars and Stripes and the Rising Sun fly in front of the factory’s glistening white exterior. In 1981 the San Diego plant turned over 700, 000 color television sets, one-third of Sony’s total world production. More significantly, company officials now proudly say that the plant’s productivity approaches that of its Japanese facilities.Plant manager Shiro Yamada, 58, insists that there are few differences between workers in the United States and Japan. Says he: “Americans are as quality conscious as the Japanese.But the question has been how to motivate them.” Yamada’s way is to bathe his U.S. employees in personal attention. Workers with perfect attendance records are treated to dinner once a year at a posh restaurant downtown. When one employee complained that a refrigerator for storing lunches was too small, it was replaced a few days later with a larger one. Vice-President Masayoshi Morirnoto, known as Mike around the plant, has mastered Spanish so he can talk with his many Hispanic workers. The company has installed telephone hot lines on which workers can anonymously register suggestions or complaints. The firm strives to build strong ties with its employees in the belief that the workers will then show loyalty to the company in return, It carefully promotes from within, and most of the assembly-line supervisors are high school graduates who rose through the ranks because of their hard work and dedication to the company. During the 1973 1975 recession, when TV sales dropped and production slowed drastically, no one was fired. Instead, workers were kept busy with plant maintenance and other chores. In fact, Sony has not laid off a single employee since 1972, when the plant was opened. The Japanese managers were stunned when the first employee actually quit within one year. Says Richard Crossman, the plant’s human relations expert: “They came to me and wanted to know what they had done wrong. I had to explain that quitting is just the way it is sometimes in Southern California.”This personnel policy has clearly been a success. Several attempts to unionize the work force have been defeated by margins as high as 3 to 1. Says Jan Timmerman, 22, a parts dispatcher and former member of the Retail Clerks Union: “Union pay was better, and the benefits were probably better. But basically I’m more satisfied here.”Sony has not forced Japanese customs on American workers. Though the company provides lemon-colored smocks for assembly-line workers, most prefer to wear jeans and running shoes.The firm doesn’t demand that anyone put on uniforms. A brief attempt to establish a generalexercise period for San Diego workers, similar to the kind Sony’s Japanese employees perform, was dropped when managers saw it was not wanted.Inevitably, there have been minor misunderstandings because of the differences in language and customs. One worker sandblasted the numbers 1 2 6 4 on a series of parts she was testing before she realized that her Japanese supervisor meant that she was to label them “1 to 64.”Mark Dempsey, 23, the plant’s youngest supervisor, admits that there is a vast cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans. Says he; “They don’t realize that some of us live for the weekend, while lots of them live for the week-just so they can begin to work again.” Some workers grumble about the delays caused by the Japanese system of managing by consensus, seeing it instead as an inability to make decisions. Complains one American; “There is a lot of indecision. No manager will ever say do this or do that.”Most American workers, though, like the Japanese management style, and some do not find it all that foreign. Says supervisor Robert Williams: “A long time ago, Americans used to be more people-oriented, the way the Japanese are. It just got lost somewhere along the way.” 回答问题By building strong ties with its employees, the Sony company expects______.

Passage 2Japanese Style of ManagementTime clocks are banned from the premises. Mangers and workers converse on a first-name basis and eat lunch together in the company cafeteria. Employees are briefed once a month by a top executive on sales and production goals and are encouraged to air their complaints. Four times a year, workers attend company-paid parties. Says Betty Price, 54, an assembly-line person: “Working for Sony is like working for your family.”Her expression, echoed by dozens of other American Sony workers in San Diego, is a measure of success achieved at the sprawling two-story plant, where both the Stars and Stripes and the Rising Sun fly in front of the factory’s glistening white exterior. In 1981 the San Diego plant turned over 700, 000 color television sets, one-third of Sony’s total world production. More significantly, company officials now proudly say that the plant’s productivity approaches that of its Japanese facilities.Plant manager Shiro Yamada, 58, insists that there are few differences between workers in the United States and Japan. Says he: “Americans are as quality conscious as the Japanese.But the question has been how to motivate them.” Yamada’s way is to bathe his U.S. employees in personal attention. Workers with perfect attendance records are treated to dinner once a year at a posh restaurant downtown. When one employee complained that a refrigerator for storing lunches was too small, it was replaced a few days later with a larger one. Vice-President Masayoshi Morirnoto, known as Mike around the plant, has mastered Spanish so he can talk with his many Hispanic workers. The company has installed telephone hot lines on which workers can anonymously register suggestions or complaints. The firm strives to build strong ties with its employees in the belief that the workers will then show loyalty to the company in return, It carefully promotes from within, and most of the assembly-line supervisors are high school graduates who rose through the ranks because of their hard work and dedication to the company. During the 1973 1975 recession, when TV sales dropped and production slowed drastically, no one was fired. Instead, workers were kept busy with plant maintenance and other chores. In fact, Sony has not laid off a single employee since 1972, when the plant was opened. The Japanese managers were stunned when the first employee actually quit within one year. Says Richard Crossman, the plant’s human relations expert: “They came to me and wanted to know what they had done wrong. I had to explain that quitting is just the way it is sometimes in Southern California.”This personnel policy has clearly been a success. Several attempts to unionize the work force have been defeated by margins as high as 3 to 1. Says Jan Timmerman, 22, a parts dispatcher and former member of the Retail Clerks Union: “Union pay was better, and the benefits were probably better. But basically I’m more satisfied here.”Sony has not forced Japanese customs on American workers. Though the company provides lemon-colored smocks for assembly-line workers, most prefer to wear jeans and running shoes.The firm doesn’t demand that anyone put on uniforms. A brief attempt to establish a generalexercise period for San Diego workers, similar to the kind Sony’s Japanese employees perform, was dropped when managers saw it was not wanted.Inevitably, there have been minor misunderstandings because of the differences in language and customs. One worker sandblasted the numbers 1 2 6 4 on a series of parts she was testing before she realized that her Japanese supervisor meant that she was to label them “1 to 64.”Mark Dempsey, 23, the plant’s youngest supervisor, admits that there is a vast cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans. Says he; “They don’t realize that some of us live for the weekend, while lots of them live for the week-just so they can begin to work again.” Some workers grumble about the delays caused by the Japanese system of managing by consensus, seeing it instead as an inability to make decisions. Complains one American; “There is a lot of indecision. No manager will ever say do this or do that.”Most American workers, though, like the Japanese management style, and some do not find it all that foreign. Says supervisor Robert Williams: “A long time ago, Americans used to be more people-oriented, the way the Japanese are. It just got lost somewhere along the way.” 回答问题What do the workers think of the Japanese style of management?