Monthly Archives: November 2010

Nov 9 2010

Haitian Business and Poor Customer Service: Synonymous?

By VAYOLA PROPHETE

Published: November 09, 2010

Before I get to the crux of this piece, please understand I love my Haitians despite their flaws and imperfections. That’s part of what gives us our distinct character. This piece is being written to shed light on a chronic and pervasive issue in the Haitian business community. To be quite honest, this piece could extend to also incorporate the entire Black community, but I’ll focus on our people for now.

I’m a chronic bootlegger. If I can download it for free, I will. Hey, there’s no shame in my game. Times are hard. The avenue with which to download anything I am looking for is easily accessible and super convenient. For some reason, though, I decided to support the Haitian music industry (HMI) by purchasing a few Haitian CDs. I took it a step further and decided to order from a Haitian website: everythinghaitian.com (EVH). I’ve been on the site before. I’ve even made purchases before. I had an issue in the past, but it was resolved; I thought nothing of it. I figured I’d give EVH another chance. I mean they are Haitian, so why not, right?

So I made my purchase back on September 20, 2010. I spent a little less than $45 on this site, which was debited from my account the very next day. I received two receipts immediately. That was new! I was excited that from the last time I made a purchase, a few things had changed for the better. I figured by the end of September -early October the latest- I’d be blasting my Kompa. Boy was I wrong!

Today is November 9, 2010 and I still haven’t received my CDs. Attempts made at contacting someone from the company has been met with silence. The only form of contact available is e-mail, which is also new. At least I had a phone number to call to speak to an actual person last time. I’m fairly certain that e-mail account was set up to avoid having to speak to customers. Better yet, is anyone actually monitoring it?

I’ll give another example. When I’m feeling too lazy to cook, I’d order from a Haitian restaurant. When you call in, you’re greeted with attitude from whoever is on the other end of the line. The specials are never listed over the phone; the wait for the food is exorbitantly long, and a simple “Thank you! Please come again!” is never uttered. God forbid you go to the restaurant to eat. It’s very likely you’ll leave before being served. Between the inefficiency in the kitchen, rude waiters/waitresses, and the total disregard of your presence in the establishment, most people will leave with their money in tow!

Basic customer service skills are necessary to sustain any business, especially when contact with the consumer will be made regularly. A greeting, a smile, and a genuine effort to be of service go a long way in assuring the customer that their hard-earned dollars are appreciated. Which begs the question, why then is it so hard for Haitian businesses to adapt to such a customer service model? Don’t get me wrong. Not every single Haitian business out there has poor customer service, but it seems as though there’s a majority that do and that’s a HUGE issue if they are to be financially viable in this economy.

So here’s my overarching question: how do I support a business that obviously doesn’t value me as a customer? I can answer it: I DON’T!!! I take my business (and MONEY!!!) elsewhere. If enough customers follow my lead, there won’t be any Haitian businesses left standing. That would be a shame, indeed!

A quick word of advice to current and future Haitian business owners: if you want customers, you have to learn to appreciate them while servicing their needs to the best of your ability. Learn what it means to provide superior customer service and make that a practicing standard in your business. Relying on Haitian camaraderie to get by is simply not going to cut it! Haitian or not, my money goes to the person(s) that is/are trying to make me happy as I spend it. If you happen to be Haitian, awesome! If not, your loss. Get yourselves together and I guarantee your returns on investment and profit margins will increase exponentially!

Thanks for reading!

Nov 7 2010

WAS JESUS A SEXIST BY CONFORMITY?

Was Jesus a sexist by conformity, or did he have deep-rooted hidden issues with women? I personally have problems with his silence on and total disregard of women’s rights.

It is no secret that the role of women in his society was very limited to domestic obligations/duties and submission to a very patriarchal society. Women were treated as second class citizens, and they were subject to all kinds of physical and psychological abuses from their male counterparts. Yet, nowhere in his ministry has it been reported of his advocacy specifically for women’s rights. He addressed every single issue -taxation, law and order, governance, etc… -affecting his society, except that human relations glitch.

Also, how come his disciples, his pals or members of his immediate entourage were all men? That could not be a random misstep or a rare, simple and exceptional coincidence. What could it be exactly? Were the women not good enough to be in his close circle? What key role if any did women play in his ministry anyway?

I think the selection-elimination process by which he proceeded to select his disciples has got to be discriminatory or prejudicial. That was a well-thought-out decision to conform to the norms of his time. In other words, the decision to ostracize the women was not a simple and isolated coincidence.

I know some of you are going to use the storyline of the woman prostitute whose life he had spared from the people who wanted to stone her to death for violating an established societal law against overt and covert prostitution to rebut. Well, let me say to you that he did not defend her rights, which had never existed in and been recognized by her society to begin with. Rather, he wanted to pinpoint the hypocrisy that existed in the people of his time.

Maybe he was not an overt sexist, but he was a conformist who went silent on the ways women were being treated. The problems women were facing then are basically the same as the ones they are facing in today’s society. If he was alive today, how would he address unfair treatments of women in our society?

Nov 5 2010

WE NEED TO ELIMINATE PUBLIC EDUCATION IN HAITI

This is a public policy matter, and I do expect many to disagree with me. Public education in Haiti needs a total reshuffling; it must be incorporated in a comprehensive plan to reform our economy. We cannot be talking about reforming the economy if we do not address the problems with our education.

We need a new system of education to prepare our kids to compete for the jobs of tomorrow at home and abroad.

Public education is a total failure in Haiti, and things will not get better if we do not change course. We need to take government out of the business of educating our kids and let the private sector take over.

Is Haiti a socialist or a capitalist state? Maybe we need to be clear on the type of economic system we have and the type we really need for Haiti. I am a big proponent of capitalism, for it does make sense to me. Maybe that’s what we need for Haiti. Right now, whether you want to agree with me or not, we have a socialist state; government controls almost everything.  

Before we get further in this, let’s take a moment to explain what the job of government should be in a capitalistic economy.

The role of government in a capitalistic economy is NOT to create jobs and compete against the private sector. It is, rather, to enact policies that would encourage private sector jobs. It should work to strengthen the private sector, and the two must work hand in hand to get things to work for the betterment of our society. So needless to say, we need a strong private sector.

In Haiti, government is the biggest competitor we have in the market, preventing the economy from expanding because it stalls competition. It should not be this way. Government is not to compete against the private sector. It is to set the path for the private sector to walk on.
 
I propose the elimination of all the public schools or state-funded institutions of learning and let the private sector take over them. As we have them right now, they are ineffective and represent a symbol of failure because of a lack of competition within the sector of government. We need to get rid of that.

Government should not be in the business of opening schools. It needs to allow the economically disfavored students to attend private schools or the school of their choosing by making grants and scholarships available to them. Doing so will create a market of schools for them to choose from. Giving them the ability to choose the school of their liking will empower them, and that will fuel the competition needed to get the system to work.

If competition is the engine that gets the economy to move, choice is the ignition that gets it to crank up. When government gets in the game, competition is stalled; the economy automatically stops expanding. On the other hand, when you have the players in the private sector competing against one another, it is good for competition in that it results in quality production or quality education for the students. In such a competitive climate, only the best schools will stand. The subpar or mediocre ones will have to close their doors because they won’t be able to sustain the competitive wave. That’s the phenomenon of the “invisible hand” Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, talked about in his masterpiece entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.    

In conclusion, we need to revamp the system of education in Haiti by allowing the private sector to assume its total control. The government should not be in the business of opening and managing schools. It should be there to subvention the economically disadvantaged students by providing them with grants and scholarships to attend the school of their choosing. Such a strategy will automatically fuel competition within the system, which, in turn, will produce the best educated kids to contribute in the economic and social development of their society.

Nov 2 2010

PLAY POLITICS WITH THE WOMAN’S HEART

Politics and courtship are basically the same –winning the approval of an electorate or the heart of a woman. You have got to have a message. Do not embarrass yourself standing before an audience and not having a message to deliver. It is all about articulating that message in such a way to make your constituents or her fall for you. It may sound easy, but it is not. It requires skills –charisma, articulation or delivery style, humor, etiquette or protocol, etc… Those are the types of skills you acquire as you go, and you develop them.

In politics as in courtship, the goal is to win the heart, nothing less and nothing more. GO FOR THE HEART!!

First, you need to know or have a good grasp of the issues she is interested in so that you can make your case that you are the best candidate to make her dreams come true. It is all about telling her what she wants to hear in a futuristic perspective. If you do not know the life issues (her goals, her aspirations, her likes and dislikes, etc…) she is interested in, how can you articulate a winning message? Otherwise, you are setting yourself for failure. You have got to do your homework if you really want to win her vote or her heart.

Just like the American electorate, when it comes to courtship, women don’t think with their brains; they think with their hearts. That’s why you often hear the sayings “love is blind” and “the insanity of love.”

Gore lost the presidency in America to Bush not because the latter was the best and brightest, not because he had the best plan to move the country forward, but rather because he was “likable.” If the people were using their minds as opposed to their hearts, Gore would have been president; the country would have been in a much better shape than it is today.

In politics as in courtship, it is all about the message. But you can have the best message in the book, if you lack the charisma and the delivery style, you will not be as effective of a winner as you should.

Charisma is the skill that enables you to galvanize your audience, to make their jaws drop, to make them go gaga. It is the “too good to be true” phenomenon. You have to figure out how to do that, how to get her attention. That’s where the skill of charisma comes into play. You cannot win this type of emotional battle if you cannot win the heart.

Also, always fight the good battles –the ones that are winnable and worth fighting for. In other words, if you are willing to die for it, fight for it. By the same token, not all battles are worth fighting for. The same goes for women. Not all women are worth going after. Don’t waste your time. Go after the women with the baggage.

Now, I just used a very subjective terminology, and I am not going to define baggage for you. It is a very subjective terminology in that what I consider to be baggage may not be so to you. The best way to put it is to tell you to go after the women that represent your interests and value the things that you value. If education and a great career are the things that you value and she is the embodiment of those elements, go for it.

Well, I am going to end this by saying one thing: put your everything where your passion is. If you are passionate about that woman, that’s your motivation right there. And motivation is the drive that will get you to excel beyond your expectations. Remember, everything starts with having a winning message, which must reflect the woman’s interests and be articulated in a charismatic way. Do not waste your ammunitions and energy chasing worthless birds. Save them for the toughest and most challenging ones. I am out…

Nov 2 2010

CONDITIONS FOR A NEW AND BETTER HAITI

Being a nation with no previous democratic experience in our two centuries of existence, in terms of technicality, we Haitians are not doing too bad in our handling of our democracy. We have a lot of work to do, but we are on the right path.

Democracy is an ongoing process. Therefore, we must never stop growing, and we certainly must never stop strengthening our institutions if we want to enjoy the beauty of a strong democracy in Haiti.

The institution of democracy is not really a component of Haiti’s problems, since most Haitians favor a democratic Haiti embedded in these two basic principles: freedom of expression and freedom of choice. What we really need to do going forward is to civically educate the people on how to play the game of democracy with a winning state of mind. And the way you achieve that is by teaching them the rules of the game and how to apply them in their daily lives.

I am convinced that our problems are both political and economical. So fixing them requires of us all to be bold in our approaches.

By now, regardless our ideological differences, we all can agree on the fact that we have a vacuum of leadership in our country. In fact, you do not need to take my word for it. Just take a look at the way the aftermath of the earthquake has been managed. The so-called recovery plan they crafted along with the international community is an embarrassment.

Leadership and mediocrity/incompetence are mutually exclusive. It is impossible to get commonsense and proactive leadership out of dumbfoundedness, a trait which only incompetence and mediocrity nurture.

The solution to that aspect of the country’s problems is in the hands of the Haitian people, not those of the international community. We, the people of Haiti, need to break ties with mediocrity; it has proven time and time again to be the opposite force preventing us from progressing forward.

Solving the leadership problem will not happen overnight; it will take time. But we must keep in mind that we cannot be having the same failed politicians on the wheel leading the nation and expecting different results. Their failure has contributed to what Haiti has become today. So we need a new generation of leaders to emerge from the rubble of the disaster to send these “rat do kale” politicians occupying the country’s political landscape for over a quarter of a century to retirement. We need to retire their old, archaic and obsolete ways and replace them with the freshness of ideas emanating from a new class of leaders. We have no control over time, but we do have control over who we are going to choose to represent us and speak on our behalf.

On the economic front, in terms of economic wellbeing, Haiti was, prior to January the 12th, already a “failed” state. The earthquake did nothing but worsening the situation.

The country was the way it was mainly because of the financial or monetary conditions imposed upon it by the major international financial institutions -World Bank, IMF, etc. -dominated for the most part by the United States. If the US really cares and wants to help us to rebuild our nation, they need to start with addressing the evil manners the country has been dealt with by these international financial organizations. Otherwise, any effort to rebuild the country will be vainly undertaken.

In conclusion, we must not believe in the fallacy that the international community has our best interests. It would be foolish to have that in mind. They have their own agenda, which always conflicts with ours. The destiny of our nation lies in our hands. If the international community is really serious about building a strong partnership to help us rebuild our country, they need to be honest about it and stop playing games. In whatever capacity they want to help us, the approach must be systematic and comprehensive, meaning it must not be limited to the infrastructural aspect of the problem. It needs to go beyond that -it needs to touch on the way the country has been treated by the international financial organizations. Until they do that, any reconstruction effort will be a waste of time, money and resources.