https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEP409-Quality-Control-2.mp3 Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the second in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on quality control for customer service. For companies that sell products, quality control is critical. Not just for ensuring consistency, safety, and reliability, but for meeting customers’ expectations. When customers buy from your company, they’re thinking about more than just the product itself. They’re thinking about how well you serve them. Customer service involves a huge range of a ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEP408-Quality-Control-1.mp3 Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the first in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the manufacturing side of things. Successful companies understand the importance of quality. At minimum, quality control is about meeting industry standards or regulations. Beyond that, quality is a huge factor in brand reputation and customer satisfaction. And a commitment to strong QC, or quality control, can also lead to significant cost savings. Given these benefits, no wonder many c ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/360.98-Cognitive-Bias-2.mp3 Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast as we continue learning about cognitive bias. In this lesson, we’ll look at how to deal with the biases that impact our decision-making. Trusting your gut and making quick decisions might work in some cases. But if you think your decision-making ability is based on perfect reasoning and complete information, well you’re wrong. You’re only human after all. And your decision-making machinery is flawed. In our last lesson, we had a closer look at exactly the kinds of biase ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/360.97-Cognitive-Bias-1.mp3 Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on cognitive bias. These are factors that affect our ability to make good decisions and reasonable judgments. Cognitive biases are factors that can negatively impact our decision-making and judgments. We make numerous decisions daily, ranging from significant ones like hiring employees to minor ones deciding where to go to lunch. These decisions often rely on intuition, information, and others’ perspectives. However, biases, which are unconscious tend ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEP035c-Clarifying-2.mp3 Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on clarifying in English meetings. Previously we looked at how to clarify what was said when you didn’t hear properly. Today we’re going to look at how to clarify what someone means in order to avoid misunderstandings. Life would be simple if everyone said what they meant clearly and directly. But that’s not the way things work. People often speak indirectly or use words that are a bit confusing. For this reason, we often need to clarify what people mean. There are several ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEP-407-Financial-English-5-Comparing.mp3 Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the fifth in our series on financial English. In this lesson, we’ll focus on selling a client on a new investment opportunity. Some people would say that selling is all about convincing someone that they want or need what you’ve got. But that’s just half of it. A car salesman might convince you that you want a new car. But then he has to show you why his car is better than the others. And that it’s worth the money he’s asking. Things get a little trickier ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEN56-Deglobalization.mp3 In this Business English News lesson on the trend toward deglobalization, we look at business English vocabulary related to economics and global trade. The past few years have been a very interesting time for the world economy. A pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply chains. Geopolitical tensions around the world have intensified, stoking inflation. In response to these disruptive forces, we are seeing a new international dynamic emerge, as Shroders reports: A decades-long process of globalization is coming ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/BEP034c-Clarifying-1.mp3 Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to clarify what was said during a conversation. Communication is rarely easy. There’s so much that can go wrong in a conversation, especially on the phone. We might not hear someone well, we might hear them incorrectly, and we might not understand words or expressions in the same way. For that reason, we need to be able to clarify what was said. There are a few basic ways to clarify that are extremely useful. We can use “WH” questions, like who, what, where, when, a ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/360.96-ESG-2.mp3 Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on the impact and implications of DEI – or diversity, equity, and inclusion – on the workplace. As part of the “social” aspect of ESG, DEI has exploded in importance in recent years. Over 50% of employees in the US believe this increasing attention is warranted. And, as we discussed in our last lesson, customers are increasingly discerning when it comes to ethical performance. So, it’s not just your HR manager who’s thinking about this anymore. The companies tha ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bizpod/360.95-ESG-1.mp3 Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on “ESG,” or the environmental, social, and governance commitments companies make. Along with DEI, which we’ll talk about next time, ESG is one of those acronyms that seems to be everywhere these days. Some companies have made huge strides in ESG, and many of them are reaping the rewards. Others have just started down the path. And then there are some that are resisting, for better or worse. Whatever the situation in your company is, it’s important for you to kn ..read more