Unit 4.

3 Communication Skills
 Executive Summary

SHDE Holdings Mission Statement

The Mission of SHDE Holdings is to successfully supply electrical parts and products to
customers and businesses of all sizes for every need in Singapore. It is SHDE Holdings
customer oriented mission that is uphold in the Corporate promise:
 Offer diverse profile of electrical parts and products as well as services from
simple to premium prices and at competitively affordable prices.
 Provide excellent customer service with good knowledge, friendly and helpful by
SHDE Holdings staff from all levels.
 Provide sufficient and prompt replacements, repairs and refunds for any
dissatisfied customers.
This is the mission that carries the principles of SHDE Holdings onto the operations,
retail floor as well as into the customer services and e-commerce environment.

Objective
SHDE Holdings has a potential growth for Singapore and South East Asia. It anticipates
a further 100% growth in the next 3 years. Presently, SHDE Holdings faces high staff
turnover and conflicts within both external and internal parties between staff and
customers due to lack of guidance and without any proper published standard operations
procedures and training structure in place.
Training Solutions is pleased to offer recommendations to SHDE Holdings for a long-
term solution to rectify the High Turnover of staff and put in place standard operations
procedures for communications as well as training systems for the staff to address the
importance of communications and clarity to avoid and prevent misunderstandings and
conflicts.
Contents

Introduction to SHDE Holdings……………………………………………… page 4

Summary of SHDE Holdings.............................………………………………page 4

Research Methods................... ………………………………………………..page 5

Findings.………………………………………………………………………page 6

Conclusions…………………………………………………………………..page 8

Recommendations…………………………………………………………….page 9

Annex………………………………………………………………………..page 11

References…………………………………………………………………..page 13
 1. Introduction of SHDE Holdings

SHDE Holdings is one of Singapore’s most established household name in South East
Asia with over 10 years of experience in suppling electrical products to regional repair
centers and shops. It has grown moderately with salaries as well as the turnover had been
tripled. SHDE Holdings is forecasting 100% percent in the coming next 3 years.

Training Solutions has been invited to provide consultation services and assist to built the
corporate’s internal communications solutions due to its rapid growth. Training Solutions
is pleased to proposed two issues addressing the following:

a) Training Manual and Training Sessions for Employees of SHDE

b) Training Solution and Resolve on how to report, to inform and Influence SMT
and Line Managers.

2. Summary of SHDE Holdings Case Study

SHDE Holdings has been in business for over 10 years since founding in 2006, January
by a group of partners with its goal to serve customers to supply electrical products to
both corporate and shops with a difference and profit. And in the last three years
especially, SHDE Holdings experience rapid growth and demand resulting triple
growth in profit and salaries has also tripled as well.

However, SHDE Holdings has also recently seen a raise of complaints written to the
founding partners due to poor customer service and communications as well as high
turnover of staff which is a worrying behavior and health of SHDE Holdings. This
reflection is causing loosing consumer and stake holding confidence for short and long
term.

SHDE Holdings has decided to employ Training Solutions Pte. Ltd to quickly arrest the
problem and address the issues and train the staff on customer relations as well as
creating standard operations policy on communications and why it is important and the
importance of clarity.
 3. Research Method

During the week of 15th June 2016, Training Solutions spend 3 days at SHDE Holdings
conducting research and interviewing employees of SHDE Holdings of the following:

 Desk Review of Customer Complaints

 Desk Review of Policies and Procedures
 Interviews with 10 Staff personnel including the Managing Director, Operations
Manager, 2 Shop Floor Staff, 2 Delivery Staff, The Human Resource Manager,
One payroll assistant, the receptionist and the Premises Manager.

(See Graph A at Annex page 10)

How the research is done is by two methods:

Face to Face Interview of 30 mins in an enclosed environment with recording with Staff.

Reading of Feedback Forms and Interview with Clients on the phone.

(See Annex Page 12 for Survey Questions used for Interviews, Annex B, C and D)
 4. Findings and Outcomes from the Interview and Research

SHDE Holdings has grown very quickly over the last 3 years, and increase of complaints
from both customers and suppliers with also steady growth of low morale and staff
turnover at a alarming rate.

It is also found that SHDE Holdings value its customers and has a good historical record
of excellent internal and external customer relations, on the contrary the Senior
Management Team is shock to find that complaints have increase over 50% and staff
turnover is high. They have acknowledged that the cause is the internal communications
within the company. (see graph 1 at Annex page 11)

Consumer complaints rose to 50% with the 12-month period, and the cause of the
complaint are varied, with 3% concern about the product itself and 55% of complaints
concerning delivery. The subject matter concerning delivery related were about late
delivery and delivery to incorrect address. The delivery staff acknowledge these
problems and they have sent notes in the internal post about the changes to the delivery
details without delay which by the time they receive the package they were inform the
changes verbally but failed to have any documentation written or recorded and there is no
formal system or standard operations procedures for communicating changes to orders.
(see graph 2 at Annex page 11)

According to the interviews and findings at SHDE Holdings, 25% percent of complains
were concerning poor face to face communication during the delivery of customer service
on the premise of the shop floor. Some complains on the other hand also referred to
rudeness for example there was one particular report about a conflict between staff on the
shop with a customer which includes misunderstanding in lieu of the subject matter raise
was the store sent text messages to advise delivery times and older age customers are not
accustom to such practices and in view of this case, the management and staff could have
explain clearly and address the issue on how to communicate to such customer
demographic needs that could contribute. (see graph 2 at Annex page 11)
Another issue that needs to be address is that there SHDE employees have poor skills in
grooming, poor letter skills and communication receive which are inappropriate.

What was more disturbing there were no formal communication policies and procedures
which resulted the following:

 No protocol for answering the phone

 Complaints are often not acknowledged
 No Standard Protocol for Internal Communication and found some use internal
post, others use email or word of mouth.
 The Company Facebook page is used to inform customers of product changes
 Suppliers are not communicated nor dealt with consistently.
 Communication between line managers and their staff is random, No regular
meetings to disseminate and gather information.
 The Senior Management Team does not have a regular meeting schedule.
Conclusions

Communication is key to SHDE Holdings success and it is the only way to ensure all
misunderstanding and conflicts can be prevented. All levels of staff have found that what
hinders their progress is due to poor communication within the company without any
proper standard policy operations on why, when, where, what and how communications
is managed between staff, customers and suppliers that needs to be address. SHDE
Holdings has a bright future and growth potentially can be enlarge into the South East
Asia region can only be established once these issues are dealt with and new policies on
communications are structured.
Recommendations

There will be three groups of employees at SHDE Holdings that will be sent for a three-
day training on communications, grooming and how to deal with conflicts which also
includes new standard operations procedures induction. The three groups are –
Operations, Office Staff including Customer Services and Senior Management.

The next step for improved performance the Senior Management Team will be advised
and discussed among themselves for best practices in terms of organizational
communication, examples will be supplied to them to structured according to the
organizational needs.

Why is implementation of standard operation procedures on communication important?

And what are the benefits, impacts and implications to SHDE Holdings?

The aim of the solutions that we provide will help to increase the strength of SHDE
Holdings to all stakeholders is fivefold or five S in communication to be effective and
productive:

1. Be Selfless - Be Selfless is about being focus on the message solely on the

receiver not just about the sender.
2. Be Specific - Be Specific is about including special details to customers’ needs as
well as operations.
3. Be Sincere - Be Sincere is about showing honest feelings with conversations and
unpretentious.
4. Be Spontaneous - Be Spontaneous is to make the message natural, fresh and
direct.
5. Keeping the Message Short and Clear - Keeping the message short is keeping it
short and clear and with good will.
With these recommendations, this is to meet the organizational needs of SHDE Holdings
with three main objectives:

 To train and produce standard operations procedures on communications for all

departments staff and senior management
 Training materials on how to handles conflicts and communications
 Reward System and Happiness Index recommendation to reduce high staff
turnover.
Annex

2.
5

1.
5

0.
5

0
M OPS Shop Del HR MgrPay Roll AsstReceptionist
D M Staff Staff
Column2Column1Column3Column4Column 5Column 6Column 7Column 8

Graph A
Consume r Complains Index
5%

15%

50%

30%

1st Qtr2nd Qtr3rd Qtr4th Qtr

Graph 1 – Consumer Complains Index Growth 12-month period (January 2016 –

December 2016)

NATURE OF
COMPLAINS
Others 3%
Product
17%

Face to
Deliver
Face
y
25%
55%

Graph 2 – Nature of Complains (January 2016 – December 2016)

Annex B - Survey Questions for Staff at SHDE Holdings

 How is your experience with working with customers on the phone?

 What are the most difficult problems you face at work?
 Are you happy with the system? How can it be improved?
 How long have you been working for SHDE Holdings?
 If there is a training session on how to deal with difficult customers and conflicts
at work will you attend?

Annex C – Survey Questions for Customers from SHDE Holdings

 How is your customer experience with SHDE Holdings?

 Are you happy with how customer service is handled?
 How long did you wait for your product to be delivered after you place your
order?
 Is the staff on the phone, as well as at the retail and even the delivery honest and
polite? Do they go an extra mile to help?
 Any suggestions on how SHDE Holdings do better to serve you?

Annex D – Survey Questions for Suppliers to SHDE Holdings

 How is your experience working as the supplier with SHDE Holdings?

 Are you happy with the ordering system service is handled?
 How long did you have to wait to deliver all the products to SHDE Holdings and
payment?
 Are the staff at SHDE Holdings polite and professional with you as a supplier?
Have your delivery operations had any conflicts with SHDC staff or
misunderstanding in the past or recently?
 Any suggestions on how SHDE Holdings can do better to work together?
References

1. Essentials of Business Communication by Mary Ellen Guffey, Bertha Du-

Babcock and Dana Loewy, ISBN 13: 978-9814687-102
2. http://www.business2community.com/strategy/standard-operating-procedures-
in-internal-communications, Standard Operating Procedures in Internal
Communications – Helpful or Just a Hassle? by Dawn Springett
3. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-executive-summary-cover-letter-
13290.html, Examples of an Executive Summary for a Cover Letter by
Tammi Metzler
4. http://library.bcu.ac.uk/references.pdf, How to write references by Library and
learning Resources How to Write it, A Complete Guide to Everything you’ll
ever write by Sandra E. Lamb – ISBN 13 – 978-1607740-322
5. How to Say it, Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences and Paragraphs for every
situation by Rosalie Maggio – ISBN 13- 978-073204-379
6. How to Write it, A Complete Guide to everything you’ll ever write by Sandra
E. Lamb – ISBN 978-160774-0322
7. Business Data Communications and Networking by Jerry FitzGerald, Alan
Dennis and Alexandra Durcikova, ISBN-13: 978-11189-1681