Writing letters of appreciation to customers who complain can be a smart business strategy.

A、True

B、False

Virginia Richmond - The National Holiday is approaching, and T-Mart store finally decided to launch the new version of its website in order to better serve its customers according to Robert Coleman, Public Relations Manager. "Our website is now so straightforward and easy to use that it will revolutionize our customers shopping experience," said Mr. Coleman. He also added that the new version of website will include more functions and a more responsive interface. The new website is aimed to make it more user-friendly. For example, customers can track the status of their orders on the website, and can have easy access to other customers reviews of items. T-Mart now has more than a million shoppers registered on its website and receives nearly 5,000 online orders a day. The company offers products in hundreds of categories, ranging from fresh produce to electronic devices, with more categories to be added later this year. Since the Internet scams are rising dramatically, the company will take some measures to protect their customers confidential information, including IP addresses, credit card information. For more information, visit www.tmart.com..

What is the purpose of the article?

A．To announce the opening of a new branch

B．To advertise the largest sale in a company"s history

C．To review the quality of products sold through a popular website

D．To publicize improvements being made to a website

Part A

Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)

If the various advocates of the conflicting options are all smart, experienced, and well informed, why do they disagree so completely? Wouldn't they all have thought the issue through carefully and come to approximately the same "best"—conclusion?

The answer to that crucial question lies in the structure of the human brain and the way it processes information.

Most human beings actually decide before they think. When any human being—executive, specialized expert, or person in the street—encounters a complex issue and forms an opinion, often within a matter of seconds, how thoroughly has he or she explored the implications of the various courses of action? Answer: not very thoroughly. Very few people, no matter how intelligent or experienced, can take inventory of the many branching possibilities, possible outcomes, side effects, and undesired consequences of a policy or a course of action in a matter of seconds. Yet, those who pride themselves on being decisive often try to do just that. And once their brains lock onto an opinion, most of their thinking thereafter consists of finding support for it.

A very serious side effect of argumentative decision making can be a lack of support for the chosen course of action on the part of the "losing" faction. When one faction wins the meeting and the others see themselves as losing, the battle often doesn't end when the meeting ends. Anger, resentment, and jealousy may lead them to sabotage the decision later, or to reopen the debate at later meetings.

There is a better way. As philosopher Aldous Huxley said, "It isn't who is right, but what is right, that counts." The structured-inquiry method offers a better alternative to argumentative decision making by debate. With the help of the Internet and wireless computer technology, the gap between experts and executives is now being dramatically closed. By actually putting the brakes on the thinking process, slowing it down, and organizing the flow of logic, it's possible to create a level of clarity that sheer argumentation can never match.

The structured-inquiry process introduces a level of conceptual clarity by organizing the contributions of the experts, then brings the experts and the decision makers closer together. Although it isn't possible or necessary for a president or prime minister to listen in on every intelligence analysis meeting, it's possible to organize the experts' information to give the decision maker much greater insight as to its meaning. This process may somewhat resemble a marketing focus group; it's a simple, remarkably clever way to bring decision makers closer to the source of the expert information and opinions on which they must base their decisions.

From the first three paragraphs we can learn that

A．executive and specialized expert are no more clever than person in the street.

B．very few people decide before they think.

C．those who pride themselves on being decisive often fail to do so.

D．people tend to consider carefully before making decisions.

•Read the article below about business and customers and the questions on the opposite page.

•For each question 13-18, mark one letter (A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet for the answer you choose.

Focus on Your Customer

If you think of the most successful companies around the world -- GM, Wal-Mart, IBM, etc. -- they all have one thing in common: loyal customers. It can cost ten to twenty times as much to acquire a customer as to retain one, so it's easy to understand why customer relationship management is such a hot concept. But, while everyone understands CRM is a good thing, putting a CRM strategy together isn't easy. The place to start? A customer-driven business model.

A customer-driven business model is the most prudent method of ensuring customer loyalty because it fosters a better relationship with new and existing customers. Others such as market, price, cost or e-commerce-driven business models may generate profits, but fall short of sustaining a loyal customer base. At the heart of customer-driven business model is a clear understanding of the customer -- not just customer trends (although this is useful information, too), but the buying habits and history of every one of your customers. This 360-degree view provides analytics from multiple channels (direct, web, fax, E-mail, call center, sales/marketing) and consolidates into a common repository. Monitoring buying habits and tracking market dynamics lets you more effectively market new and existing products and services.

If you think this is a daunting task, you aren't alone. Because most enterprises don't have a consolidated view of their customers, obtaining customer profit and cost information is often a Herculean effort.

Implementing a CRM solution is usually a huge project with a high probability of failure. Some analysts suggest most businesses underestimate the cost of a CRM Implementation by 40～75 percent. In fact, a successful CRM will interface with ERP systems to provide integration with all customer interactions such as order processing, billing. Also, CRM strategies must include commitment and sponsorship from senior management, as it should be deemed a strategic investment that is implemented incrementally and evolutionary.

Understanding critical success factors, such as those listed in the "Key to CRM Success" sidebar, mitigates the risks. First, start with a cultural change that focuses on a customer-centric business strategy. Make sure your organization is well aware of the high cost of customer attrition and is focused on improving retention, increasing loyalty. Understanding and broadcasting the cost of acquiring new customers versus fostering existing relationships.

Second, focus on an enterprise view of the customer that encompasses all customer data, such as communication history, purchasing behaviors, channel preferences, demographics, etc. Understand your customers' preferred channels and determine if there's some way to optimize them.

Adopt a flexible architecture that will expand with your business -- this is true with any IT project. Never deploy a strategic, costly solution using the big-bang approach. Always take an incremental, evolutionary, or iterative approach. The impact to your organization can be significant, thus, proceed slowly and ensure the returns on investment measures are in place.

The first paragraph indicates that loyal customers

A．help reduce costs of the company.

B．are quite common around the world.

C．produce huge profits.

D．are costly to develop.

What is NOT suggested about T-Mart?

A．It will make a special spot in T-Mart for environmental products.

B．It wants to call customers" attention to environmental issues.

C．It will make another Wildlife Center.

D．It will support the Wildlife Center continuously.

Timothy Berners-Lee, might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money, but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth—intentionally—in 1990. That's when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century: the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place, not amass personal wealth. So he gave his brainchild to us all.

Berners-Lee regards today's Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations. By 2005, he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web—a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans.

As envisioned by Berners-Lee, the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also theological relationships among them. That has awesome potential. Most knowledge is built on two pillars: semantic and mathematics. In number-crunching, computers already outclass people. Machines that are equally admit at dealing with language and reason won't just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own.

Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web, mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data. Instead, computers would dispatch intelligent agents, or software messengers, to explore Websites by the thousands and logically sift out just what's relevant. That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home. But there's far more.

Software agents could also take on many routine business chores, such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions. The Semantic Web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights. Most inventions and scientific breakthroughs, including today's Web, spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge. The Semantic Web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime. Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the Web today for others to read. But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms, related ideas from millions of Web pages could be distilled and summarized. That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights. The Semantic Web, Berners-Lee predicts, "will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical. It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives, so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues—like the environment and climate warming".

Had he liked, Berners-Lee could have

A．created the most important innovation in the 1990s.

B．accumulated as much personal wealth as Bill Gates.

C．patented the technology of Microsoft software

D．given his brainchild to us all.

Text 4Timothy Berners-Lee might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money, but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth—intentionally—in 1990. That’s when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century: the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place, not a mass personal wealth. So he gave his brainchild to us all.

Berners-Lee regards today’s Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations. By 2005, he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web—a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans.

As envisioned by Berners-Lee, the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also the logical relationships among them. That has awesome potential. Most knowledge is built on two pillars: semantics and mathematics. In number-crunching, computers already outclass people. Machines that are equally adroit at dealing with language and reason won’t just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own.

Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web, mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data. Instead, computers would dispatch intelligent agents, or software messengers, to explore Web sites by the thousands and logically sift out just what’s relevant. That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home. But there’s far more.

Software agents could also take on many routine business chores, such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions. The Semantic Web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights. Most inventions and scientific breakthroughs, including today’s Web, spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge. The Semantic Web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime. Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the Web today for others to read. But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms, related ideas from millions of Web pages could be distilled and summarized. That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights. The Semantic Web, Berners-Lee predicts, will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical. It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives, so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues—like the environment and climate warming.

第36题：Had he liked, Berners-Lee could have _____.

［A］created the most important innovation in the 1990s

［B］accumulated as much personal wealth as Bill Gates

［C］patented the technology of Microsoft software

［D］given his brainchild to us all