Environmental Health workshop at Nyanga Central

Proper management of waste would reduce all risks of contamination and improve the overall cleanliness of the site. All traders were encouraged to adhere to the simple cleaning system of removing all waste in a plastic carrier and dispose of them using the bins that are present all over the site. Animal fatty matter should by no means be dumped in any of the drains and perhaps a mesh covering should be introduced. This would prevent further contamination and assist in the greater pest control initiative. Item was delivered by site manager Marlon Herwel.

Recovery when failures occur

Our operations managers need to constantly decide what they will do when failures do occur.  Our operation benefits regularly from well planned recovery.

The breakdown may be disruptive but not as much as it might be if operations managers had not worked out what to do.

Recovery procedures will also shape the customer’s perception of failure.  It is not necessarily the failure itself that leads to dissatisfaction but our response to the break down.  Mistakes may be inevitable, dissatisfied customers are not.  A failure may even be turned into a positive experience.

A good recovery may possibly turn angry, frustrated customers into loyal ones.  An effective response to failure may yield a high pay-off in terms of the long term success of our organization.  It will also send positive signals to our clients and employees about our policy to encourage corrective action to achieve high customer satisfaction.

Staff failures

People failures come in two types: errors and violations.  Errors are mistakes in judgement; a person shall have done something different and the result is some significant deviation from the normal operation.

Violations, however, are acts which are clearly contrary to defined operating procedure.

Applying furniture polish by Joe Gqabi

Customers are the most important element of any business

Defining customer expectations is a key task for marketing.  Marketing must also understand the ability of the operation so that it does not promise something that cannot be delivered.  In the TQM approach, meeting the expectations of customers means more than this, it means understanding things from a customer’s point of view.

The whole organization should understand the central importance of customers to its success and even survival.  Customers are not perceived as an external entity to the organization but as the most important part to it.  Customers should also be seen as human beings, rather than statistics, with individual needs and expectations and deserving of attentive and courteous treatment.

A definition of Total Quality Management

Our specific TQM is concerned with the following:

·         Meeting the needs and expectations of customers

·         Covering all parts of the organization

·         Including every person in the organization

·         Examining all costs which are related to qualify

·         Getting things “right first time” namely, designing quality rather than regular inspection

·         Developing the systems and procedures which support quality and improvement

·         Developing a continuous process of improvement

Nyanga Junction Site Visit Video

Continuous improvement

Organizations that produce excellence are those that continuously improve. The more granular, no matter how insignificant, and frequent the improvements, the better. How organizations react to "failure" reveals the key reason why innovation comes from startups more often than large organizations. These startups are often a very good training ground for product development and business talent. Startups are just trying to get it right before they run out of money. Our success is built on the foundation of a huge amount of hard work over many years. Continuous adjustments based on frequent feedback eventually lead to long term gains.

Outsourcing encourages fresh ideas!

Making the right decision can add significantly to your organization's bottom line in terms of cost savings and increased efficiency. Beside bringing fresh minds to your business it can also free time for new innovations and other vital tasks. Making the wrong decision can put your business at a competitive disadvantage. You could lose control of proprietary information, or receive components that don't meet your organization's quality standards.
With a professional cleaning company, you can be sure that the property is well cared for and properly maintained. Outsourcing allows decision makers to focus on their specific job and reduce the time devoted to areas outside of their expertise.

You don't have to dedicate your valuable staff resources to routine cleaning tasks!

Your employees will have more work and more stress, which could eventually hurt your business via high rates of absenteeism, poorly done work and higher turnover rates. Not to mention cleaning services not being performed if they are absent!

Outsourcing your cleaning allows you to focus on running your business!

Successful companies know that outsourcing is a necessary factor in their success. Why waste your valuable time and resources on details such as keeping your workplace clean? This will severely reduce the amount of time you have to run your business. It will also free up time you could used instead to focus on your business.

The benefits of ensuring customer satisfaction

Keeping customers happy is certainly good for business. Companies do not have to sacrifice profitability to keep their customers satisfied. Companies which consistently rank high on customer satisfaction also rank high in profitability and hence have more loyal customers. Beside customer loyalty, by providing superior customer satisfaction any organization can gain the following competitive advantage.
Less wasted effort
The organization is likely to get to know its customer better, to know their wants and needs. Less time will be wasted in trying to assess what their needs are. Customers do not always know what they want but by knowing its customers well, the firm can get down to basics more quickly, reducing money spent on fruitless market research surveys.
Customer loyalty
Satisfied customers will certainly be more loyal. They are more likely to keep coming back and buy and this higher repeat rate leads to greater revenue and more profits.
Price advantage
Satisfied customers are willing to pay more for the satisfaction they derive from better service. This is not easy to quantify though but depends on many factors such as whether customers are highly price sensitive, whether the market is competitive, the type of purchase and the way the company positions its product in the market. Yet an extra margin is usually obtainable.
Selling costs
It is often easier to make a repeat sale than to conclude a first time sale with a new customer. Greater customer loyalty translates into lower sales expenses – more time is spent in persuading the customer to buy. The salesperson would merely have to take the order and answer the customer’s questions. Satisfied customers also act as an unpaid sales force through networking. This introduces an element of objectivity and greater credibility to the firm. Communication thus becomes less expensive. Word-of-mouth promotion, also known as referral, can be most effective in assisting businesses to establish their brand in the market.
Brand switching
Satisfied customers are less likely to change to a competitor’s product or chose to use another supplier whose products are cheaper.
Taking the customer for granted
Businesses tend to become less customer orientated and continue to take orders and forget to interact with the customer. The result is that a once loyal customer defects to the competition.
Effective workforce
Staff who deliver good customer service receive their customers’ appreciation and are motivated to offer good customer service in the future.
Creating a niche
By emphasizing customer service during your daily operations as well as your marketing strategy you will indeed set yourself apart from companies who don’t.

Enjoy the health benefits of spring cleaning!

Deep within the fibres of your carpets, wood crevices and the layers of your pillows lurk many creepy, scary allergens. Dust mites, mould fibres, animal residue and mildew can all induce some major pain on your home and your body. These household allergens cause sneezing, headaches and a general feeling of illness - but they can weaken your body from being able to deeply heal itself, renew and detox in the spring season. Spring is a good time for deep cleaning of the body from allergies and general maintenance for wellbeing.

Why do you clean out your refridgerator?

Old foods should be thrown away as they spoil and release toxins like mould and bacteria. Bad odours will eventually become overwhelming and there will be no room for fresh foods which could be contaminated by the spoilt food. If you don't get rid of physical as well as mental clutter it can spoil your life. If you don't get rid of what you don't need, mental junk overwhelms your like, keeping you stuck in the past: failures, criticism and grief. There is no room for self-improvement.

The Internal Customer

The concept of the internal customer is based on the premise that everyone in a company has a service role, even those who never see the customer. This applies to administrators, supervisors and executives. These people spend so much time dealing with information procedures, forms and reports that they lack a social perspective on the business. An organization can only succeed once all staff can focus on knowing how to serve, learning what the important needs are and findind effective ways to meet those needs. Staff members of every department should show consistently high concern about the needs of their colleagues. If staff are unfriendly, unhelpful, uncooperative or disinterested, their colleagues will tend to project the same attitude towards them.

The innovator strategy

Once the organization adopts an enhanced approach to designing its operations, it also expects enhanced customer service from its operation function. It will not only enhance its structure but also its infrastructure. This means a very high degree of integration between service design, operations and marketing in order not only to be flexible in the short term in response to competitive pressure, but also to introduce new services faster and more effectively than competitors.

The customer-orientated approach

The customer orientated approach is eternally focused which challenges your firm to find ways of making and keeping customers as satisfied as possible. Firms that concerntrate on customer satisfaction tend to be more willing to make long term investments in projects whose impact can be seen after several years. They are also prepared to take a short term reduction in profits, if they believe it necessary, to achieve the overall goal of keeping your customers happy.
Customer-focused organisations make it everyone's business to know the customer. In such companies, production, accounts, marketing and company exectives participate in meeting customers, and everyone of them takes pride in knowing as much as possible about their customers. To introduce this customer-orientated approach to your company e-mail washiela@hanover-cs.co.za.for further queries.

Cleaning Supplies

Cleaning materials should be stored in a plastic carrying tray. They'll be much easier to take out and put away and to move out. When arranging your cleaning your cleaning supplies in a cupboard ensure that large and awkward items, such as a vacuum cleaner, is easy to reach.

Winter Cleaning

Homes get very dusty during winter because the air is so warm and dry. Dust your home's surfaces from top to bottom to maintain the dust at a manageable level. Also focus on fan blades, the tops of window mouldings, and the tops of books - all of which are often overlooked and can collect dust easily. Give your lighting fixtures a good dusting as well.

Low service standards in South Africa

One reason why service standards in South Africa is so bad is the bureaucratic nature of government departments where service is provided under duress. For example, if you arrive at the head of the queue after hours of waiting and the clerk happens to go on lunch, it's your bad luck, you'll just have to join another queue. Years of this sort of treatment have ultimately moulded the local market to become helpless, dependant accustomed to being told what to do. Furthermore, a strong history of racial intolerance resulting in the misunderstood concept of service as being a form of servitude. This could explain why frontline staff remains ignorant as employees may be taught skills but very little training is given on how to care for customers.