We need a responsible budget

The 2013  budget should be a resolution  and  the only legislative vehicle that view government comprehensively. It should provide the framework for the consideration of other legislation. Ultimately, a  budget is much more than series of numbers. It also serves as an expression of principles, vision, and philosophy of governing. Unfortunately, we are lacking of policy person in drawing economy policy and can just see the short-sighted incentives, figures and the sweetener that make Malaysians feel “good” and focus on political gain. The worst part is sharply increasing in our federal operational spending, especially in government servants’ emolument.

We must have a long-term blueprint for safeguarding Malaysia from the perils of debt, doubt and decline. Malaysians, not Putrajaya deserve  to choose the path our nation takes. Our budget should presents a clear choice between bleak future toward which the nation is currently headed and the prosperous future that Malaysian can build together with a government that limited and effective.  Effective government is impossible without limits. It is no surprise that trust in government has reached all time lows as the size of government has reached all time highs. We should not only put more limits on government and we should understand the limit of government and hence we must reduce the size of government in total economic share, allowing private sector to growth and create jobs. For years, short-sighted decisions and policies advanced by our government has contribute to an irresponsible build-up of debt in the economy, and this debt now poses a fundamental challenge to Malaysian way of life.

Our leaders failed to use their full control to offer any plan to lift the debt and foster sustainable growth. Instead, the debts are used as an excuse debt driven development. A massive spending and expensive stimulus package failed to deliver promise to boost our economy performance than what we achieve now and translate into high national income per capita, disposable national income and high quality of lifestyle among Malaysian. An effective fiscal spending should be used in key areas and change our economy structural that is no longer our merit in globalization and more competitive age. I afraid that  that government fiscal position will be further deteriorated, and total debt will surpass 55% of entire size of economy and threaten entire government project such as it will weaken our education, and health security.

We should have a more responsible budget for Malaysian renewal and be guided by timeless principles such as free enterprise, economic liberty, limited government and spending restraint, traditional & community values. The budget should offer a set of fundamental reforms to put the federal fiscal position on the right track.

The looming crisis also represent an enormous challenge, but it  also represent a defining choice: whether to continue down the path of debt, doubt and decline or put the nation in the path of prosperity. It also represent a tremendous opportunity for this and our children generation with a freer and prosperous future.

Tips for Delivering Great Customer Service

The essence of delivering great customer service can be distilled into ten key areas.

 

1. Effective customer intelligence
One of the issues we come back to time and time again with our blue-chip clients is not working out how best to interact with customers – but how to figure out who those customers actually are in the first place!  Developments like loyalty cards and the internet have certainly made it easier to track customers and their buying habits – but it is still a huge challenge for companies.  Effective customer intelligence is based on three essential questions: Who are our chosen customers? What do they need and expect from us as a service provider?  How are we doing in meeting their needs?


2. Have faith in your front-line customer service staff
It is people that deliver great service, not companies.  Some of the best customer service is delivered by companies which empower their customer service agents to think for themselves, act independently and be flexible. Nothing annoys customers more than a centre agent who is completely unable to deviate from an obviously pre-prepared script.


3. Understand how customers think
Few firms have begun to consider how they can test for the emotional elements of the customer experience.  This is where Enterprise Feedback Management comes in – proactively surveying customers when they are likely to have experienced a service issue (i.e. a water company surveying a group of customers where a leak has occurred in their area would be a classic example) enables companies to plug into their customers’ experiences and resolve issues before the relationship breaks down.


4. Work for and with people who believe in service excellence
If the people at the top of an organisation don’t believe in service excellence, it won’t happen.  Customer service has to be an issue that the board takes seriously.  If it’s not, all the money in the world won’t give you a decent customer service operation.


5. Master the art of organisation design
Service excellence is a function of how the organisation is designed.  Its key elements are what the leaders do and how effective the management processes are in facilitating the desired outcome.  This is particularly obvious in the area of customer complaints.  How are complaints handled?  Are they treated as a priority and sorted according to urgency?  Or are they chucked in a pile, to be dealt with as and when possible?


6. Make the link to the bottom line
Masters of service excellence understand that customers who have a great experience are more likely to continue to buy from their companies and more likely to recommend them to others.  They also understand that even customers that complain can become brand advocates – if their complaint is resolved quickly and satisfactorily.


7. Make everything a little better every day
Leaders in service excellence train their people to drive continuous improvement.  Companies which settle for a set level of service – even if it’s good – will inevitably fall behind the competition over time.


8. Understand that the future will be different
Technology is changing the way service is delivered all the time.  Failing to grasp the opportunities and threats presented will mean failure.  In customer service, webchat, email, SMS, and Enterprise Feedback Management are just a few of the technologies changing the landscape significantly.


9. Learn from your mistakes
Everybody makes mistakes, but winners learn from them, giving their front-line people as much freedom as possible to fix problems.  When individuals or teams make mistakes, use them as opportunities to learn.  A customer service charter is a great idea – but a willingness to change and develop your customer service strategy based on feedback from your customers and changing market conditions is even better.


10. Make things easier for customers
Too many firms still make buying and dealing with the customer service department unnecessarily difficult – for both retail and business customers – with unclear pricing, long delivery times, insufficient information and poor support and service.  Customer patience is limited – and is only likely to become more constrained in our cash-rich, time-poor society.  But for those companies that get it right, the prizes are immense.


(Retrieved from http://www.callcentrehelper.com/tips-for-delivering-great-customer-service-2303.htm)

Great Customer Service in Banking Industry

You should feel good about yourself and we will find it is easy to give great customer service.

Rapport with callers is best supported when rapport exists between the team leader and agents and between agents themselves. This helps deliver great service as agents will support one another, keep promises on behalf of one another and take ownership to find solutions for customers. It will feel easy to do business with contact center and this is the essence of great service.

Great banking customer service comes from a great internal culture.

Whilst it is vital to develop and support the front-line staff, it is also important to develop the rest of the service chain, who might be delivering critical parts of the service. Middle and back-office staff, processing officer, branch staff, receptionists or other representatives need to be aware of the high service levels needed in the work they do, even if they feel they never see or speak to a customer directly.

If these areas understand how they can support the contact center staff and communicate what the contact center staff can do to help them, it helps to ensure that a ‘them’ and ‘us’ culture does not exist, where finger pointing and blaming abound.

Equally, senior management should role model the values of great service, communicate well and encourage people to challenge the status quo if it helps improve the customer experience.

Curse of Natural Resources - Malaysia

Singapore currency is going to appreciate against ringgit Malaysia. SGD1.00 = MYR2.51. We're well endowed with abundance of natural resources compared to Singapore.

We should shame to admit that the government is failure in administration to promote and enhance the efficiency of our national economy for this 50 years. We are plunged in a typical middle-income country trap. Yes, we are favorable in resource endowment of petroleum and minerals, however, the high resources wealth is no guarantee of development success. Conflicts over the profit from these industries often leads to a focus on the distribution of wealth than its creation and social strife, undemocratic governance and high inequality, in what is called "curse of natural resources". Singapore, was just a fishing village and due to its lack of the resources endowment, it makes their leader to make human capital development as a main economy agenda since they independence from Malaysia and they are outperform than us. In the realm of human capital development, not only are sheer numbers of people and labor skill levels important, but also the cultural outlooks, attitudes toward work, access to information, willingness to innovate and desire for self improvement. Low levels of living, characterized by low minimum incomes level, inequality, productivity, high rate of population growth and dependency burdens, substantial dependence on low value added industrial products and agricultural production, prevalence of imperfect market and limited information are the common characteristics that we are facing now. We are in urge to address these issues so that we are not lag behind by Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong.

It is pity that our government and opponent parties leader are still always in thinking take over the administration power by convince us with their political language and not by their economic policy.

IRD and RCA

Under the new cheque clearing and truncation system to be implemented tentatively end May 2008, you will not receive the original physical cheque returned by the paying bank.

Instead, either an 'Inward Return Document (IRD)' with a return reason that allows re-depositing or a 'Return Cheque Advice (RCA)' which cannot be re-deposited will be issued. If you receive a RCA, you will need to request the cheque issuer to issue you a replacement cheque. 

• Inward Return Document (IRD) – Cheque return reasons that ALLOWS    re-depositing	• Return Cheque Advice (RCA) – Cheque return reasons that CANNOT be    re-deposited
- Refer to Drawer - Exceeded Arrangement - Effects Not Cleared - Not Arranged For - Post Dated	- Signature different from mandate - Irregularly drawn - Date required - Payee name required - Altered cheque - and etc.

How Credit Card Transaction Works?

There are billion credit cards transactions are processed annually. But have you ever wondered what exactly happens after your card is swiped? There are 4 steps to credit card transactions processing

1）Authorization
2）Batching
3）Clearing
4）Funding

Here are how your credit card transactions processed. 

 

 

Authorization

1) The cardholder requests a purchase from the merchant.

2) The merchant will submit the request to acquirer (merchant bank)

3)The acquirer sends a request to issuer to authorize the transaction

4)An authorization code will be sent out by card issuer to the acquirer if there is a valid available balance

5)Acquirer authorizes the transaction

6)Cardholder receives the purchased item

Batching

1)At the end of the day, the merchant will review all the day's sales to ensure they were authorized and signed by cardholder.

2)The merchant will transmit all the sales at once, called a batch to acquirer to receive payment

Clearing

1)The batch is sent through the card network (Visa / Master) to request payment from card issuer.

2)Card network distributes each transaction to appropriate card issuer

3)The card issuer subtract its interchange fees, which are share with card network, and then transfer the amount.

4)The card network routes the amount to acquirer 

 

 

Funding

1)The acquirer subtract its discount fee and pays the merchant

2) The merchant receives the payment, which minus the interchange and discount fee

3) The cardholder is billed for the transaction

Glossary:-

 1)Interchange fee = A fee paid by merchant to credit card issuer and credit card network as a fee to accepting credit card. They generally range from 1% - 3%.

2)Discount fee = A processing fee paid by merchant to card acquirer to cover the cost of processing credit card

政治家与政客的差别

政治家（英文：Statesman），在中文裡是一個正面的名詞，用於正面肯定的用法，與具有貶意的「政客」一詞的用法不同。「政治家」一般是指從事或积极投入政治的人，且其有理想，能為國家與人民著想，其動機著眼於民眾的福祉、世界的和平與發展。許多人確實在政治上相當有建樹，堪稱國之棟樑，或為後世之楷模。

西方有這樣一句形容詞:「政客是為了下一次的選舉，政治家卻是為了下一代」。政治人物若能為了下一代子孫的尊嚴、自主與幸福著想，才是真正的政治家；相對地，有些政治人物為了繼續保有自己的權位與利益，總是想盡辦法與用盡手段，祗為了當選與連任，那就是政客。

政治家"和"政客"是两个感情色彩十分鲜明的不同概念，一般人都认为政治家是遵守基本职业道德的人，政客则反之，比较油滑且投机。被公认为二十世纪西方最有影响的哲学家之一的罗尔斯有一句话讲得十分透彻，「政客的眼睛只盯着下届选举，而政治家的心中装的却是下一代」，他想表达的意思是，「政治家」不同于「政客」的其中一点就在于：政治家俱有长远的历史眼光，而政客却目光短浅，没有宏观涛略。

马来西亚只有一群不知所谓没脑袋的政客。。。。。。悲哀！