In its most recent monetary policy report, the Bank of Canada presented possible means to strengthen the currently feeble Canadian economy. The central bank did not offer any solid dedications, but said it could choose to pursue more “unconventional” avenues, including quantitative easing and credit easing.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday that “If there were a need to do something else, which is a big if … we would look to communicate that at our regularly scheduled fixed action date or fixed announcement dates because that’s when we make monetary policy decisions or monetary policy announcements.”

Quantitative easing would involve the Bank of Canada buying up assets, such as government bond and private assets. This would increase the price of on those assets, and reduce the subsequent yields from them.

A credit easing strategy could potentially see the bank buying up private-sector debt in credit markets that are temporarily impaired.

The Bank of Canada has been quoted as saying “The objective of credit easing is to reduce risk premiums, and improve liquidity and trading activity in these markets. This would, in turn, stimulate credit flows and aggregate demand.”

On Tuesday April 21st, the Bank of Canada reduced the target for the overnight rate to 0.25%, in what the central bank calls its lowest effective rate.

The bank also offered its amended, more dismal projection for the economic recovery of Canada.

The recession that is currently suffocating the country is anticipated to last longer than primarily projected, and the economy is expected to contract 3% for 2009. The central bank now forecasts the recovery to be delayed until the fourth quarter of this year.  When signs of recovery start to show, it is expected that full revival will be quite gradual.

At that time, the economy is expected to grow by 2.5% in 2010 and a further 4.7% in the year 2011, however is not expected to reach full production capability until the third quarter of 2011.

The aerospace and defense industry is one of the few sectors in manufacturing that is currently not only surviving but thriving amid the recession, despite the grim predictions  for job losses and bankruptcies among other Canadian manufacturers, plummeting oil prices, and the ever fluctuating CDN dollar. Employment rates and revenue are even continually on the rise.

In the past year, Bombardier Aerospace introduced their much anticipated line of CSeries jets.  Magellan Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney Canada invested big time in their Montreal and Winnipeg operations.

According to the AIAC (Aerospace Industries Association of Canada), based in Ottawa, the aerospace sector directly employed 82,000 Canadians in 2007.  This is a significant increase from the 79,000 employees working in the industry just a year prior.  Aerospace revenue increased by half a billion to $22.7B.

Aircraft parts, components, and planes, jets, etc. account for 55% of  the overall revenues for the aerospace sector, the majority of which is generated by exports, especially to the US and European countries. Military sales increased by $5 billion last year, a rise of 18% from 2006.

Helping to fuel the exponential growth of the aerospace sector (no pun intended) is the increase in commercial air travel. The Current Market Outlook for 2007-2008, released by Boeing, predicted that air passenger travel will increase 5% per year, and cargo travel by 5.8%. The forecast extends these numbers for the next two decades.

Quote for April 22nd, 2009:

“The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small, and the world is one.”
- Wendell Willkie

What do you think of when you hear the term “Customer Service”? The first things that come to my mind are retail jobs and call centres. But, if you think about it, pretty much everything that you do at work on a daily basis will involve some sort of customer service. (This, of course would not include people who work for the same company as you, companies that provide you with a service like telephones, or places you purchase from.) Any time you interact with someone who might purchase a service or product from you is a potential customer, and customer service is all about giving customers the feeling that what they’ve received has met or exceeded their expectations.

But why is customer service so important?

Have you ever had an unsatisfactory experience with a company? It can be quite damaging to that company. Say you purchase some raw material from a company that you need to use in your manufacturing plant. The material that you received isn’t quite what you expected, so you call the company up and see if things can be fixed. If the company you purchased from isn’t willing to work with you to fix what has happened, would you be as willing to purchase from them again knowing that if you have another problem they probably would act in the same way that they did this time? Probably not. On the other hand, if they help you fix the problem, you would be more likely to want to deal with that company again – it shows a willingness on their part to make sure that your expectations as a customer are met.

What are some things that can be done to make sure your customer service will guarantee your customers return to you if they aren’t happy with your product or service?

Firstly, make sure you actually listen to your customers. What did they expect from your product or service? How is this different from what they ended up getting? How would they like you to fix this?

Secondly, commit yourself to remedying what may be wrong with your product or service. Let your customers know that you are committed to doing this, and if there is any action on your part that needs to be done actually follow through and do it.

Thirdly, look at the customer complaints over a period of time. Are there things that customers are continuously unhappy about? Maybe you should focus some time on fixing that problem before the product or service goes out to the customers.

What do you do to make sure customers are happy with your products and services?