Handling The Foreign Customers' Complaints By Phone in English at PT.CentroTech Solusindo.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam penulisan chapter I, saya membahas mengenai ketertarikan saya untuk magang di sebuah perusahaan Internet Service Provider, CentroTech. Selama menjalani masa magang di PT. CentroTech Solusindo, saya bekerja sebagai pendamping seorang staf front officer perusahaan dalam

menyelesaikan pekerjaannya seperti mengirim dan membalas e-mail dari pelanggan dalam maupun luar negeri, menerima telepon dari para pelanggan, dan juga melakukan penawaran produk kepada pelanggan. Oleh karena itu, kemampuan dalam berkomunikasi harus diterapkan dengan baik.

Dalam penulisan chapter II dan III, saya membahas mengenai bagaimana menangani keluhan pelanggan asing sebagai siswa pelatihan front officer melalui telepon. Penyebab masalah tersebut adalah kurangnya pengetahuan siswa pelatihan front officer mengenai produk yang akan dijual maupun garansi produk tersebut dan siswa pelatihan front officer tidak menguasai bahasa Inggris dengan baik terutama dalam listening skill. Ternyata masalah tersebut memiliki efek buruk seperti pelanggan yang menjadi marah, menghabiskan waktu klien, dan perusahaan akan bangkrut jika klien tidak percaya lagi pada perusahaan.

Saya mengajukan tiga solusi yang bisa digunakan perusahaan untuk menyelesaikan masalah seperti siswa pelatihan front officer harus

meningkatkan listening skill mereka atau meminta bantuan supervisor dalam melayani pelanggan atau perusahaan mengadakan training bagi para siswa pelatihan front officer. Tentunya, solusi di atas memiliki dampak positif dan negatif. Contoh dampak positif jika perusahaan mengadakan training adalah siswa pelatihan front officer mendapatkan pendidikan tentang produk. Dampak negatif dari jika perusahaan mengadakan training adalah adanya biaya dan waktu yang harus dikeluarkan baik dari siswa pelatihan front officer tersebut atau dari perusahaan.

Berdasarkan hasil analisa yang telah saya lakukan, saya memutuskan bahwa mengadakan training untuk melayani keluhan dari pelanggan asing melalui telepon sebagai pilihan terbaik. Dengan mengikuti training ini tentunya para siswa pelatihan front officer belajar langsung kepada ahli di bidangnya.

Front officer adalah ujung tombak sebuah perusahaan, oleh karena itu

dibutuhkan seseorang yang maksimal untuk menjadi front officer. Training dapat memaksimalkan potensi seseorang.

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APPENDIX

FLOWCHART

Causes:

1. Front officer trainees’ lack of product knowledge; therefore, they cannot solve or handle the foreign customers’ complaints.

2. Front officer trainees are not really competent in English especially in listening.

Problem:

Front officer trainees cannot handle foreign customers’ complaints by phone in English.

Effects:

1. the foreign customers got angry. 2. Front officer trainees waste foreign customers‘ time

3. Company would be bankrupt

Potential Solutions I: Front officer trainees should individually improve their listening skill and speaking skill.

Potential Positive Effects: 1. Front officer trainees get

improvement for their English skills. 2. Front officer trainees’ confidence get improvement.

Potential Negative Effects: 1. Front officer trainees must spend their money to buy audio tools.

2. It takes time to master the English listening skill and

speaking skill. Potential Solutions II: Front officer trainees ask for some help from the supervisor.

Potential Positive Effects: 1. The supervisor as a full time coach can help front officer trainees all the time.

2. Foreign customers’ complaints can be quickly assisted.

Potential Negative Effects: 1. Front officer trainees waste the supervisor’s time.

2. Front officer trainees will be dependent on supervisor.

Potential Solutions III:

Front officer trainees are given a training on how to handle foreign customers’ complaints and improve their product knowledge.

Potential Positive Effects: 1. Front officer trainees will learn how to handle foreign customers’ complaints by phone and products knowledge.

2. Front officer trainees will be able to work by themselves without depend on supervisor.

Potential Negative Effects: 1. Training costs a lot of money.

2. Training uses front officer trainees’ free time.

My chosen solution is to give training to front officer trainees.

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Universitas Kristen Maranatha

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Due to the growth in international business over the years, various international businesses have developed including e-commerce. Electronic

commerces, commonly known as electronic marketing, e-commercehas

international and national markets such as online stores, export-import companies, foreign exchange trading, and many more.

One of the most rapid growing e-companies in Indonesia is an online business which enables people to work in their homes. The success of those online businesses cannot be separated from the role of many companies such as Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies and Web Master

companies. ISP company is a company which provides bandwidth for clients and enable them to use internet. A Web Master company is a company which helps clients to design their webs.

CentroTech is one of the ISP, Web Master, and online store in Bandung which provides bandwidth and all internet tools. Clients can get a Web Master service by using the service of CentroTech. The markets of CentroTech are the people or companies from inside and outside Indonesia. Therefore,

English competence of the staff especially those who have a connection with

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the marketing department is very important, because the good ability of

using English can avoid misunderstanding and mistakes in handling

customer’s orders and complaints by phone.

I am interested in working at CentroTech because I have seen that

nowadays a lot of people employ Internet as a means to help them finish

their job or to get some information. Being able to work there will surely give

me a lot of opportunity to learn about internet business.

During the internship as front officer trainees at CentroTech, my friends

and I found a problem in handling the foreign customers’ complaints by

phone in English. My friends are from SMK 1 Rangkasbitung. I choose to

discuss this problem because failing to handle customer’s complaints

means a big disadvantage for the company which gives the service. The

company will lose consumers and some profits because of the front officer

trainees’ lack of competence in handling foreign customer’s complaints by

phone in English.

B. Identification of the Problem

This study aims at discussing the following questions:

1. Why is it difficult for front officer trainees to handle foreign

customer’s complaints by phone in English?

2. What is the best solution for front officer trainees to handle foreign

customer’s complaints by phone in English?

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C. Objectives and Benefits of the Study

Based on the problem above, the objectives of the study are to analyze

the causes and effects of not being able to handle foreign customer’s

complaints, to find three potential solutions to solve the problem, and to

choose the best solution from all of these three solutions.

The benefits of the study:

a. For the company: I hope this term paper will provide useful

information especially for CentroTech staff knowledge of how to handle

foreign customers well. Therefore, company can improve its service for

customer’s satisfaction.

b. For the readers: I hope this study can make the readers realize the

importance of having good language capability especially English because

nowadays, English becomes a global language and it plays an important

role in every aspect of life, especially in business world.

c. For myself: By writing this term paper, I can share my experience to

the readers and I can also understand the work situation in a company and

get the insights about how to handle complaints from the customers.

D. Description of the Institution

PT. CentroTech Solusindo is located at Jalan Batik Kumeli No. 80A

Bandung 40123 Jawa Barat, Indonesia. PT. CentroTech Solusindo was

established in February 2006 by David Sunanto as the CEO and has

formally became Perseroan Terbatas (PT.) since March 2007 with a vision

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to be the future Internet Service Provider (ISP) and IT solution for

individuals and corporate purposes in Indonesia, especially at West Java.

CentroTech has grown rapidly since it was established. CentroTech has

expanded its vision to become the qualified company that serves and

provides telecommunication needs for Indonesian and international level.

CentroTech is supported by professionals that have experiences in the

web. CentroTech and DeltaNet are partners in Wireless Internet Service

Provider (WISP) and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA).

E. Method of the Study

In this term paper, the data were collected through some methods. First,

they were collected through a journal which was written during the 45 days

of internship. Second, the data were gathered by doing library and internet

research.

F. Limitation of the Study

The study only discusses a problem about how front officer trainees to

handle two foreign customers’ complaints by telephone in English at

CentroTech company. One of the customers was from Bali and the other

one we did not know where he/she came from because we sent him/her to

our supervisor to handle. The data were taken during 45 days of internship,

from 23 June 2009 until 8 August 2009. The working hours are from 9 AM

until 5 PM.

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G. Organization of the Term Paper

This term paper starts with the Abstract, a summary of the whole paper

in Indonesian. It is followed by the Acknowledgements, which contains the

list of people who have the role in making this paper. After that, there is a

Table of Contents which is followed by four chapters. I would like to divide

the paper into four parts: Chapter I is the Introduction, chapter II contains of

the Problem Analysis, chapter III deals with Potential Solutions, chapter IV

is the Conclusion. For the last part of my paper, I put the Bibliography

containing the list of references and Appendix.

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

After doing some observations at CentroTech, I found that the main problem that makes CentroTech hard to develop is that the front officer trainees of CentroTech cannot handle foreign customers’ complaints by phone in English. There are two causes and three effects of the problem. The causes are

trainees’ lack of products knowledge; therefore, they cannot solve or handle the foreign customers’ complaints and trainees are not really competent in English especially in listening and speaking. The effects are the foreign customers got angry, trainees waste the foreign customers‘ time ,and company would be bankrupt. Moreover, I propose three potential solutions for CentroTech to handle this problem. Thus, the solutions have their own positive and negative effects. The first potential solution is trainees should individually improve their English listening skill. The potential positive effects are trainees get

improvement for their English skill and trainees’ confidence get improvement to handle foreign customers. The potential negative effects are trainees must spend their money to buy audio tools and it takes time to master the English listening skill. The second potential solution is trainees ask for some help from the supervisor. The potential positive effects are the supervisor as a full time

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coach at the workplace that can help trainees all the time and the foreign

customers can be quickly assisted. The potential negative effects are trainees

waste the supervisor’s time and trainees will be dependent on supervisor. The

last potential solutions for this problem are trainees are given a training on

how to handle foreign customers’ complaints and improve trainees products

knowledge. The potential positive effects are trainees will get knowledge how

to handle foreign customers’ complaints by phoneand products knowledge

and trainees will be able to work by themselves without depend on

supervisor. The potential negative effects are training costs a lot of company’s

money and training use trainees’ free time.

In chapter IV, I would like to present the best solution to handle

complaints from the foreign customers by phone as front officer trainees at

CentroTech. From the analysis of the potential solutions that I have discussed

in the chapter III, I decide to choose the third solution which is giving a

training to front officer trainees to handle foreign customers’ complaints by

phone in English. The trainees can be better employees by improving

themselves with some help from the experts. The current service of the

trainees at CentroTech sometimes makes the foreign customers feel

unsatisfied and create negative thoughts about the company. Besides that, it

creates a negative atmosphere between front officer trainees and technicians

who know more about the products. To avoid this problem for becoming

worse, CentroTech must improve the front officer trainees’ skill to handle

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foreign customers’ complaints and their products knowledge. Jef Menguin

states that “Providing training for employees not only helps them develop their

skills and knowledge, but it is also motivational and a building block to

organizational success.” (par. 2). It is obvious that providing a training for the

front officer trainees in CentroTech will make the company more productive. I

also think that periodic trainings will refresh front officer trainees’ knowledge

in handling foreign customers’ complaints. Peter Tyndall states that:

No matter how well the complaints system is written, councilors and staff

need training in how the system works. Staff needs to be encouraged to

say if they are having difficulties and need to know to whom they can go if

they need help. And the training needs to be refreshed at regular intervals

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Thus, CentroTech will create good human resources especially front officer

trainees if the company willing to pay the trainings.

To conclude, front officer trainees’ competence in handling the foreign

customers’ complaints by phone in English need to be improved, especially

for a service company like CentroTech because it will maintain relationship

with the foreign customers. I suggest that the company a hold training

especially for front officer trainees. Therefore, it will make the company well

prepared in the midst of tight competition among internet service provider and

products company, considering that CentroTech is a company that still

developing and needs many foreign customers’ loyalty.

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