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business communication essentials
Business Communication And Character 11th Edition Amy Newman - Solutions
Read the neutral messages you received recently, identified in Exercise 3. Where is the main point in each? What percentage of the messages include the main point up front?Analyze the messages that don’t have the main point up front. What conclusions can you draw about these messages and the
Whether you’re graduating this year or a few years from now, you may want to join a local alumni organization. Write an email to the head of the alumni association in the area you might live. Include two questions that you can’t find answered on a website. You might ask about specific club
Find a company’s website that provides a form for submitting questions or requests online. Complete the form and analyze the process with a classmate. How easily could you find and complete the form? Also compare responses when you receive them. Did the company representatives follow the
In small groups, discuss a request you received that you didn’t fulfill. Provide context, including relevant background about the person making the request, your situation at the time, and what the person was asking.Explain why you didn’t fulfill the request. Could the sender have done
Imagine that your favorite high school teacher asks you to speak to the junior class. You receive the following email:Write a response to your high school teacher to accept the invitation. Next, exchange responses with another student for feedback. How well did your classmate follow the guidelines
Imagine that you’re a store manager for a local Costco. Brian, one of the sales associates who reports to you, has a reputation of going above and beyond to help customers. You just received a copy of this email, which a customer sent to Brian. As a good manager who takes the time to recognize
Imagine that you just received an offer for a summer internship. You got the job through someone you know, who connected you to the hiring manager to discuss possibilities at the company.Write an email to thank your contact for making the connection. Invent whatever details you would like, for
Think about someone you know who recently suffered a significant loss—e.g., a job, a health issue, a divorce, or a death. Write a message that you can send as a handwritten note or in an email. Will you send the message? Why or why not? Consider your own feelings about offering compassion and
During the next week, write one quick goodwill note—email, text, or handwritten—every day. At the beginning of each day, think about someone to recognize, congratulate, thank, or offer compassion. At the end of the week, discuss the experience in class. Did you find it difficult or easy? How
On Glassdoor, search for a company for which you might like to work. How well is management responding to reviews? Discuss your analysis in small groups.
Imagine that the company you searched for in Exercise 15 hires you as a social media consultant. They want your recommendations for ways they can improve management responses on Glassdoor. Write a short report to provide the value of responding to employee reviews on Glassdoor, a strategy for
To provide further guidance to the company you focused on in Exercises 15 and 16, write a sample management response. Choose a highly positive employee review on Glassdoor and follow Yelp’s advice: thank the employee for providing feedback and highlight something positive in the review.Switch
Choose a company that interests you and visit at least three social networks where it has a presence. Screen-capture a few posts from each site to compare. Does the company convey a similar voice across all platforms? Does the writing reflect the brand and sound appropriate for the brand? In other
You read about American Airlines’ principles for writing tweets. Read a few recent tweets at https://twitter.com/AmericanAir and compare them to another airline’s writing style. Which sounds more genuine and authentic? Which do you prefer and why? Now compare these tweets to organizations in
Now choose one of the organizations from Exercise 20 and visit it on different social platforms. What does the company do to engage customers?Write a short report to the VP of marketing to identify what the company does well and how it could improve. You might recommend changes in writing style or
In small groups, have students describe their intranet experience, if any, from an employer or other organization. For the rest of the group, discuss how a company where you worked could have used an intranet. What social networking functionality might have been useful?What could have been the
Describe the value of positive messages in business.
Explain how to organize a neutral message.
Apply guidelines for writing a goodwill message in a business situation.
Apply guidelines for responding to online feedback in a business situation.
Explain ways to engage customers and employees on social media.
Have you ever persuaded someone to do something that was in your self-interest but not in their best interest? Most of us have at some point. Describe the situation. What was your motivation? What was the other person’s resistance? What strategies did you use? How did the action affect the other
Now reflect on a time when you were the victim of someone else’s persuasion. Apply the same questions above. Taking the two examples together, what do you learn about yourself, and what changes might you consider for the future?
Do you often find yourself duped? Do you tend to fall for marketing ploys and buy products you don’t need? Do you follow clickbait online and end up on irrelevant ads or websites? Which persuasive strategies were used, and how could you ward against them in the future?
How do you decide whether to complain about a company’s product or service? To another student, describe two situations: one in which you complained and one in which you didn’t. What were the circumstances and your thinking process in these situations? Discuss how each turned out and what you
How comfortable are you in offering apologies? Do you tend to avoid them, or do you offer them easily when you are wrong or make a mistake? What prevents you from offering apologies more freely? Or, do you offer them too freely, for example, when you are not wrong? Spend some time considering the
Identify a company’s ad campaign—something you have seen in print or online—and analyze the ethics. Who is the audience? Does the product or service benefit them in some way? Could the purchase affect people negatively? How comfortable would you feel promoting the product or service in a
Some companies hire college students to promote their products. What’s your view of this strategy? Consider how the company, the hired students, and the customers are affected. Who benefits most and least in these arrangements?
Think about a team you know well, e.g., a volunteer organization, a school club, a small group at work, or a sports team. Now think about an idea you might introduce to the team— an idea that team members might resist.What would be important to know about each team member that might influence how
Think about something you want for which you need to persuade someone. Describe the person’s possible resistance. What makes the situation difficult? How can you, ethically, overcome each point of resistance?
Find an email you received from a nonprofit organization trying to persuade you. How well does it focus on you and convince you that you should care? How are issues framed? Explain other ways the issues could be presented to inspire the reader.
Rewrite the following excerpt to stress benefits instead of features. In addition, instead of the paragraph format, write a list of bullet points that focus on the reader. Consider starting each bullet with an action verb, and you may invent whatever details you would like. Our headphones are soft,
In the movie Boiler Room, Giovanni Ribisi’s character (Seth) is a trainee working at a shady brokerage firm that sells stock in fake companies. During a sales call to a prospective customer (Harry), Seth uses persuasion—but not in a professional, ethical way. You’ll find the clip on YouTube
Find a speech online. You might watch a commencement speaker or a company executive. Identify examples of credibility (ethos), emotional appeals (pathos), and logical arguments (logos). Which of the three are used more than the others? Do you find the balance appropriate given the situation and
To discourage people from signing up at the Promise/Cash Center site shown in Figure 18, write an article for a blog that warns consumers about questionable business practices. Your objective is to convince people that, even though fast cash sounds good, it’s not in their best interest in the
Similar to Grace Lee’s suggestion in Figure 8, write an email to a current or previous employer. Think of an idea that would improve the business: a new procedure, an upgraded system, an innovative product, or some other way to increase sales, improve service, or increase operational
Using the bullets you created for Exercise 6 as a starting point, design a web page to sell the headphones. In addition to the bullets, what other text and graphics will you include?You can use web design software—or just draw a mock version in PowerPoint or another program. Consider ways to
a. Write a message for your school website. Imagine that you’re working for your college’s alumni office. You’re asked to write text for the website about donating to the school. What will you emphasize, and how will you encourage alumni to donate? Compare your final text to your school’s
Think about a negative customer service experience you had recently. Draft a message you can send to the business manager by email to explain what happened. Be sure to use a credible tone and specific examples to persuade the company that your experience is valid. Also find a way to encourage a
After you complete Exercise 13, switch emails with another student. Imagine that you’re the business manager receiving this complaint. Use the form in Figure 19 to give feedback to your partner. Circle a rating for each question and prepare comments to justify your feedback.Exercise 13Think about
Rewrite your customer complaint email from Exercise 13 for an online review. For your post to an online review site, you have a different reader: the public. Consider making changes for a broader audience, who, like the business manager, cares about your credibility, tone, and details. But, unlike
Find an example of a company that doesn’t respond well to online feedback. Look on Glassdoor, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or another review site. Rewrite the management response according to principles in this chapter.
Imagine that you’re the customer service manager at a small company, and one of your employees has escalated a customer complaint to your attention. The customer reported that a custom luxury product does not function as advertised, and the customer is demanding a refund.Write an email to this
Find an example in the news of a company that has made a mistake or suffered some backlash. Write a blog post that meets the criteria for effective apologies. As always, consider the context—the situation and audience—as you write your message.Compare your message to one that the organization
Identify ways to tailor persuasive messages to different audiences.
Compare strategies to persuade an audience in a given situation.
Describe parts of an effective internal or external persuasive message.
Describe parts of an effective response to negative feedback.
Think about a time when you had to deliver bad news. What was the context, who was the audience, and how did you approach the situation? What were your main points, and what medium did you choose? How did you feel, and how was the message received?Consider the principles described in this chapter.
Now answer the questions from the first reflection question about bad news you received. If it’s not too painful, think about a time when you received news that was disappointing or upsetting. Could the sender have done anything to make it less difficult to hear?
Now think about a time when you either delivered bad news or received bad news via a text message. Why did you choose—or why do you think the sender chose—a text message instead of a richer, more personal medium? What was the outcome, both on how the news was accepted and on the long-term
How do you typically prefer to receive bad news? Do you want news directly, with the main point up front, or do you prefer being eased into it? Do you prefer straightforward language, or do you prefer a softer tone? How do your preferences differ based on the situation or the person delivering the
Review your responses to the reaction statements in Figure 16. Why do you think you react the way you do? Can you identify something in your history or personality that might drive your response?What did you identify as possible ways to change your typical reaction? How realistic are these changes
Watch Arne Sorenson’s video discussed in this chapter. (Go to https://youtu.be/SprFgoU6aO0, or search YouTube to find “COVID-19: A message to Marriott International associates from President and CEO Arne Sorenson,” March 20, 2020.) Discuss the following questions in small groups:a. Identify
When products are recalled for safety reasons, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posts company messages on its website. In groups of three or four, discuss the Whole Foods announcement shown in Figure 17.Although these messages tend to be rather formulaic, analyze the context, audience, and
Imagine that you’re closing a restaurant that is part of a large chain. Use the communication plan template in Figure 2 as your guide for how to deliver the bad news to different audiences. Identify at least five internal and five external audiences for your messages, and work across the columns
Discuss these situations in small groups and decide what medium—for example, email, text, video meeting, or in-person meeting—to use for each message. Try to come to consensus, although you may not find a perfect answer. You also may consider multiple messages.● If you managed a restaurant
In small groups, find as many bad-news messages as you can—rejections from colleges or jobs, emails you received, or public messages. In each message, how quickly does the writer get to the bad news? Do you notice an introductory sentence or a longer buffer? How does the message end? What do the
Find a sample layoff email online. (You may use one posted by the Society for Human Resources. Search for “SHRM layoff letter.”) Revise the template, which sounds cold and stilted. Use your own, professional, natural style to provide employers with one approach to delivering the bad news.
Think about a public company that had a difficult year. Find the annual report and read the CEO’s letter, which is typically at the beginning of the report. Consider the context, audience, message, and medium, and describe how the CEO explains the bad news. What is effective about the message,
Imagine that you built a successful company with 40 employees and decided to sell to a major corporation. You will leave, and the acquiring company has indicated that most employees will be laid off. A few employees in specialized technology roles will stay on—at least until the new company fully
Imagine that you run a local used bookstore, where you receive the email shown in Figure 18 from a new employee.Figure 18Write an email response to this employee rejecting the suggestion. You can invent whatever rationale you’d like, and keep in mind that this employee did not put a lot of
Imagine that you own a website design firm, and an employee asks you for a favor: a onemonth salary advance. This is one of your best employees, someone who has worked with you for more than five years, and you know she’s buying a house. But you cannot advance her the money for these reasons:●
You’re the president of a campus business club that is offering students mock interviews with a school alumnus. An interested student emailed you to sign up after the deadline, asking to be added to the schedule. All time slots are already taken, and you decide not to ask the alumnus to add a
Imagine that you work for a bank’s credit card division, and you’re trying to resolve a complaint from a customer. Through an online form on the website, you receive a customer’s message, requesting that the bank waive $75 of overdraft fees accrued over the past three months.Your policy
Write a statement that would appear on a website about an increase in the price of a service, product, or subscription. Choose the company and invent whatever details you would like.If the company has announced an increase, write your message first, and then compare it to the company’s. Which do
Based on the Whole Foods recall, shown in Figure 17, write an email to employees. This is a different audience, so consider how the tone and information provided might differ.Exchange drafts with another student to compare your approaches.Figure 17 Company Announcement Whole Foods Market is
Prepare a statement for a company’s website about one of your favorite products. Sadly, the product will no longer be available. How will you explain the decision and still keep good customers like yourself? Invent whatever details you would like.
Think about a time at a former job or internship when a coworker’s performance didn’t meet your expectations. Imagine that you are that person’s manager and plan to give feedback.Follow these steps:a. Identify the issue. What are a few specific examples that illustrate that the performance
After your meeting with the employee, described in Exercise 19, write an email confirming what you talked about. Try to be supportive but avoid “sugar-coating” the feedback.Exercise 19Think about a time at a former job or internship when a coworker’s performance didn’t meet your
As you did in Exercise 20, document your feedback to the employee. But this time, imagine that the employee was defensive and got angry during the conversation. If the employee had argued about the feedback, how would that change what you write in your follow-up email? Share your draft with other
Identify goals in communicating a bad-news message.
Describe factors to consider when writing a bad-news message.
Write a bad-news reply to a given business request.
Compare bad-news announcements about operations, the organization, and jobs.
Describe principles for giving and receiving constructive performance feedback.
When you want to find an answer to a question, how do you start? Do you use different sources for different types of information, or do you rely on Google or another web browser for your answers?Why do you use this approach? What other approach could offer better results, even if it takes more time
Think of a time when you struggled with too much information, not enough meaning, the need to act fast, or limited memory. What was the result? To which of the biases in Figure 3 are you most prone? How can you avoid this problem in the future?Figure 3 AA 1 Too Much Information Because of
Where do you get your news? How might those sources—and your social media sites—give you biased information? What could you do to get additional points of view?
Think about a time when you liked, forwarded, or reposted something online that turned out to be untrue or misleading. Or have you told a friend or family member something you read that wasn’t verified? What was the result? Which of the steps in Figure 4 did you miss?In retrospect, what could you
Have you participated in primary research, for example, by taking a survey online? What was the purpose, and who or what organization asked for your responses? What inspired you to participate? How thoughtful were your responses? In what ways do you believe your participation helped the researcher?
Choose a public company to research. If you’re not sure whether a U.S. company is public, search the Securities and Exchange Commission database at https://www.sec.gov/edgar/ searchedgar/companysearch.html. Next, find the following information:● Number of employees● Headquarters location●
Choose one of the following small business situations—or another situation that interests you:● You own a clothing store and want to know whether to offer hats.● You own a jewelry store and want to know which precious gems are most popular.● You’re developing an app for booking youth
Enter a few keywords into Google, Google Scholar, and a library database. You may use a scenario from Exercise 2 or choose a different situation. Try to get the most relevant, reliable results from each search by narrowing results a few times.Exercise 2Choose one of the following small business
If you could start any business, what would it be? Maybe you have already been working on a business or have done so in the past. Write a list of questions you need answered before deciding whether the business is viable. Then, find information for each of your questions.Provide citations for all
With a friend, compare social media feeds. What type of information do you see on each feed? Does the content reinforce what you think you already know? Now try to change what appears in your feed. Do your favorite platforms allow you to see the latest or most recent information instead of what is
Find a media bias chart, which shows political leanings of news organizations. In small groups, discuss what might surprise you or confirm what you previously thought. Also consider the limitations of this type of information.
Imagine that you’re giving a presentation to middle school children to help them distinguish between credible and false information online. Using the steps in Figure 4 and your own thinking, make the process relevant to kids. Provide a couple of examples to illustrate your points. Create a few
Select two internet resources and evaluate them based on the criteria in Figure 4. You might search for news about a company that interests you. Submit a one-page summary of your analysis to your instructor.Figure 4 Assess the Website Are the organization and author identified? What is the purpose
Imagine that a person you admire is coming to speak on campus. You have been selected to introduce the speaker to your entire graduating class. Of course, you want to ensure you have accurate information about this person. Search the internet for information about the person and identify at least
Find an article about a study that was retracted from an academic journal. You might search for “retractions in academic journals” or something similar. Choose one that interests you. Read two or three articles and write a summary about the situation. Include background about the research
Find a survey you were asked to complete recently. You might see one in your email, or you might see one appear when you’re on a web page. As you complete the survey, answer the following questions:a. How persuasive is the message asking you to complete the survey? What is the stated purpose and
Return to Exercise 4, which asked you to collect information on a new business idea. Now create a survey to collect primary data by following these steps:a. Identify your audience. Who is the ideal respondent to answer your questions?b. Identify information that you want answered. What information
Working in small groups, imagine that you’re planning a business targeted to students. First, decide on your business concept. This can be anything: a service (e.g., laundry or grocery shopping) or a product (e.g., custom T-shirts or imported hats).Next, write about ten questions to determine
For Exercise 14, you worked in a group to create a survey for other students in your class. Pair up with another group to evaluate each other’s survey. In class, meet with your partner group and provide each other with feedback on your surveys. Which questions were most effective, and why? Which
Find a messy chart online. Look for garish colors, too many lines or variables, shadows or shading, and other distractions from the main point. Create a new chart without these design features. Compare revisions with a classmate and suggest additional improvements.
The text and chart in Figure 19 are from the U.S. Federal Reserve.36 In small groups, identify a list of questions you have about the data collection and presentation. In other words, what else do you want to know before drawing conclusions based on the data?Figure 19 Percent 255 20 1514 10 5 13 5
Review the chart in Figure 19. How could the data be presented in a better way to improve comprehension? Also include a more descriptive title to summarize the main point. Redraw the chart and compare your approach with that of other students.Figure 19 Percent 255 20 1514 10 5 13 5 5 Figure 4:
For the following situations, select the most appropriate visual aid for presenting the data and explain why it is the best option. First, identify the primary purpose: comparison, parts of a whole, trends over time, stories and compilations, or something else. Then, decide what type of
Imagine that you’re the F&B director for a hotel group with four properties in the New York area. The owner has asked you for data about food quality at each location.You collected the guest feedback shown in Figure 20. Ratings are based on responses to the question, “How would you rate the
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