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1、-Customers first: the message for this or any other year- 翻译 Customers first: the message for this or any other year 客户第一:永恒的主题 By Michael Skapinker 迈克尔斯卡平克 What, the caller from Hewlett-Packard wanted to know, did I think the big business issues would be this year? 来自惠普的电话调查员想知道在我看来今年的重大商业问题是什么。 We
2、ll, I replied, in thought the issues should be that my new HP printer-scanner-copier refused to scan when I bought it and it took me weeks to sort it out. 嗯,我回答说，在我看来问题应该是当我购买了新的惠普打印扫描复印一体机后，它拒绝扫描，而这花费了我数个星期去解决问题。 Also the machine could not print on lightweight card, as it was supposed to, without J
3、amming. 还有就是这台机器并不像预想的那样，可以不卡壳儿的在轻量级卡片上打印。 The man from HP laughed nervously. 惠普的电话调查员尴尬（紧张）的笑了笑。 Were there any other big Business issues I would like to mention? 问我还有没有其他重大的商业问题想说。 No, I said. 不,我说。 If HP took care of those small ones, the big ones would take care of themselves. 如果惠普能处理好这些小问题，那么那些
4、大问题可以自行解决。 I could have talked for longer, but I had to call Powergen. 我本可以谈更长时间，但我不得不给尓根产品服务热线打电话。（不确定Powergen的翻译） I should not have been using the FTs time to sort out my electricity difficulties but no one had answered the 24-hour Powergen helpline the previous evening. 我不应该一直使用在金融时报的上班时间解决我自己的电子
5、产品的问题，但是昨天晚上24小时尓根产品服务热线却没有人接电话。 This time I got through and, after a few false starts, they sorted out my problem. 这次我终于接通了电话，在尝试几次失败后，他们解决了我的问题。 Why is it so hard for companies to get things right? 为什么对公司来说把事情做好久这么难呢？ The British utilities seem to have surrendered all their post-privatisation cust
6、omer-service improvements. 英国公用事业似乎在私有化之后放弃了他们所有的顾客服务改进。 Some have gone back to their tricks of 20 years ago, including not turning up at the appointed time and then claiming to have rung the doorbell and found no one home. 一些公司的顾客服务回到了20年前的把戏，包括不在约定的时间出现，然后又声称按了门铃却没有人在家。 Many banks, retailers and t
7、he rest are no better. 许多银行、零售商和其他的一些公司也好不到哪去。 Some seem to have cut back on the essentials of customer service training: please, thank you - that sort of thing. 一些公司似乎削减了像“请、谢谢你之类的”必要的客户服务培训。 I know this is not just a British phenomenon: every time I write about deteriorating customer service, many
8、 of you e-mail from elsewhere with the same complaints. 我知道这种现象不仅仅在英国出现：每次我写关于不断恶化的客户服务的文章，都会收到来自世界各地的邮件抱怨相同的问题。 What is the problem? 问题是什么？ Some of it is industry specific: either there is insufficient competition or dissatisfied customers cannot be bothered to change because they doubt they will f
9、ind anything better. 一些问题是行业特有的: 要么是缺乏充分的竞争，要么是不满意的顾客由于怀疑是否可以找到更好的商家而懒得去改变。 But I sense a deeper problem: many companies seem to have forgotten what business is about. 但是我意识到了更深层次的问题：许多公司似乎已经遗忘了商业是怎么回事。 They think it is about cutting costs: hence the Mania for outsourcing. l am not attacking outsour
10、cing as such, it is not, on its own, responsible for deteriorating customer service. 他们认为生意就是削减成本：因此引发了外包的狂热。我并不这样抨击外包，外包本身并不应该对不断恶化的客户服务负责。 Rather, the problem is the mindset that so much outsourcing represents, the idea that a startling reduction in employment costs is all you need to succeed. 相反,
11、问题在于外包所代表的理念，这个理念是为了成功，对人工成本进行惊人的削减是所有你需要做的。 Costs do matter. 成本的确重要。 If they exceed revenues, you have no profit and no company, or individual, can carry on for long without profits. 如果成本超过了收入，你将没有利润，没有公司或个人可以不盈利的长期运行。 But making a profit, essential though it is, is not the purpose of business eith
12、er. 尽管盈利是必须的，但商业的目的不在于此。 It is its consequence. 盈利是经营的结果。 As Peter Drucker wrote: Profit is not the explanation, cause or rationale of business behaviour and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity. 彼得德鲁克写道:“利润不是商业行为和商业决策的解释，原因或论据，而在于测试商业行为和商业决策的效度。” The purpose of a business is to
13、 provide something that a customer wants at a price he or she is prepared to pay. 商业的目的在于为顾客提供他或她所准备支付价格的所需的商品。 In Prof Druckers words: It is the customer who determines what a business is. 德鲁克教授说:“是顾客决定了生意是什么。 It is the customer alone whose willingness to pay for a good or for a service converts ec
14、onomic resources into wealth, things into goods. 惟有愿意为商品或服务付款的顾客才能将经济资源转化为财富，将物品变为商品。” It is a simple idea. 这是一个简单的理念。 You provide goods or services that customers are pleased with - so pleased that they come back, and tell all their friends to buy from you too. 你提供能使客户满意的商品或服务，顾客如此高兴以至于他们不仅会再次光顾，还会
15、告诉他们所有的朋友从你这里购物。 You then sell more. 然后，你可以销售更多的商品。 Result: happiness 结果:幸福 Carrying this out, of course, is less simple. 当然,实施起来就不那么简单了。 Others may have found a way of providing the same goods at far lower prices, in which case costs will have to be looked at again and you may have to move jobs to
16、low-wage countries. 其他商家可能已经找到了以更低的价格提供相同商品的方法，在这种情况下，成本再次被关注，你可能不得不将工厂搬到低工资国家。 There is also the difficulty of execution: the bigger your business becomes and the more widespread your suppliers and customers, the harder it is to deliver. 还有执行的困难：企业变得越大，相应的供应商和消费者所覆盖的范围更广，（信息）传递更加困难。 You may need information technology systems to keep track of supplies and to ens
