单项选择题
| In recent years, Israeli consumers have
grown more demanding as they’ve become wealthier and more worldly-wise. Foreign
travel is a national passion; this summer alone, one in 10 citizens will go
abroad. Exposed to higher standards of service elsewhere, Israelis are returning
home expecting the same. American firms have also begun arriving in large
numbers. Chains such as KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are setting a new standard
of customer service, using strict employee training and constant monitoring to
ensure the friendliness of frontline staff. Even the American habit of telling
departing customers to "Have a nice day" has caught on all over Israel. "Nobody
wakes up in the morning and says, ’ Let’s be nicer’ "says Itsik Cohen, director
of a consulting firm. "Nothing happens without competition." Privatization, or the threat of it, is a motivation as well. Monopolies (垄断者) that until recently have been free to take their customers for granted now fear what Michael Perry, a marketing professor, calls "the revengeful (报复的) consumer". When the government opened up competition with Bezaq, the phone company, its international branch lost 40% of its market share, even while offering competitive rates. Says Perry, " People wanted revenge for ali the years of bad service." The electric company, whose monopoly may be short-lived, has suddenly stopped requiring users to wait haft a day for a repairman. Now, appointments are scheduled to the half-hour. The graceless EIAI Airlines, which is already at auction (拍卖), has retrained its employees to emphasize service and is boasting about the results in an ad campaign with the slogan, "You can feel the change in the air. "For the first time, praise outnumbers complaints on customer survey sheets. |