ming’s musings

Home of the Terracotta Army

In May, I went to my first Service Manager 3-day annual conference and it was something I really looked forward to ever since I became a Service Manager. Being a newbie and not really knowing any better, I ‘volunteered’ to do a national training to be delivered to 40 managers on behalf of our region. Working with another Service Manager, David, we set about planning a training on the topic of quality service training for the company’s Customer Service Assistants.

In a single morning over breakfast at Element Fresh, David and I came up with the bare bones of the training along with the storyboard to an intro and exit video to our training. We wanted the training to be as interactive and entertaining as possible and light on PPTs. The idea was to film a ‘before’ clip of team of rag-tag receptionists giving awful service and an ‘after’ clip of the same team giving quality service.

To give you some context before you watch the clips, I work in an English training company in Beijing and the people in the films are fellow Service Managers involved in the training. We didn’t have a budget and we filmed the whole thing in about an hour. Enjoy.

Before - Examples of Bad Customer Service

After - Great service

The training was a success and few days of meetings was followed by a few days in around the city of Xi’an. I went to see the Terracotta Army which was pretty breathtaking. The city of Xi’an used to be the capital of China in ages past and is culturally and architecturally rich. The ancient walls encircling the original city centre are still standing and I had the chance to ride all way around atop the walls on a bicycle. A great way to see the old city and burn a few calories!

…Must come to an end

In April, Eric had to go back home for family reasons and our project had come to an end.

The following months would prove to be the most challenging for me in 2010 and they would make or break me as a manager.

The sales team continued to do well after the transition in management and the student population grew 5-fold to over 500 students. My team doubled in number but issues with hiring of foreign and local staff due to quality issues, stricter visa requirements and staff turnover made it difficult to reach and stay at headcount.

After 4 months and many a Skype interview with candidates in England and around the country, I got the right people into the job openings I had. Right now (at the time of writing) I can honestly say I have a quality team of guys who I can trust do a great job. With the stability and quality in place, I could focus on overall centre direction and try to compete with the best centers in the country for levels of service and KPI performance.

To reward myself after a very tough few months, I decided to take a holiday to Hong Kong. It ended up being the best holiday I’ve ever had. My finances have never really recovered from that holiday!

Happy Chinese New Year!

It seems that the only posts I make on this damn ‘blog’ are the bloody “What did I do in 20xx?” ones. The truth is, rarely do I get time to sit down in front of my laptop in a non-distracting environment and bang out a couple of blogs. The reasons? I will explain in the coming posts.

Thankfully, today is one of those days where I got my lazy ass out of bed, away from Starcraft 2 (blarg), out of my centre and into a nice cafe surrounded by fellow be-spectacled, indoor scarf-wearers and ready to write my musings.

So, without further ado, here we go…

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I can be proud to say that I don’t have many addictions.

I don’t smoke, I don’t drink heavily (not that often anyways), I don’t do drugs of any sort.

But I do have one.

Just as people may reminisce about their first cigarette, their first alcoholic drink, their first kiss, their first time for whatever, I’ll never forget my first…

…Match of the Day programme.

This epic British sporting establishment broadcast on Her Majesty’s broadcasting corporation played, and still does, an important part in any growing boy’s social development.

How it Began

It was a cold crisp Autumn night in the sleepy village of Lindford, Hampshire. I was 9 years old, and was slouched on a comfy black leather sofa watching BBC 1 on an old Ferguson TV set with my dad.

Back then, Saturday nights was THE best night in the week for television, hands down: Noel Edmond’s House Party, Gladiators, Big Break, Generation Game and other cheesy 90s crackers.

However, the highlight of the night was always when Match Of The Day’s distinctive theme music rang out of the TV speakers and mustachioed maestro Des Lynham’s comforting voice filled the living room.

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