Customer service is no longer face-to-face conversations and phone calls. Rather, businesses are increasingly interacting with their customers online utilizing Facebook posts, tweets, snaps, and texts.
Learn more about digital customer service strategy at “Customer Service in the Digital Age: First Impressions Matter 2.0,” a new workshop from Fort Hays State University’s Management Development Center.
This follow-up to the popular “First Impressions Matter” workshop will be from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, Feb. 27, in the Trails Room of the Memorial Union on the FHSU campus.
This training will give participants tools to begin implementing a service culture within their organizations’ digital channels, including on their websites, social media channels, and instant messaging. Specifically, the facilitators will cover what to do when an angry customer posts a negative review, as well as discuss chatbots and self-serve customer service.
Participants can also expect to examine a variety of helpful online service-oriented tools, as well as learn about updates on where the customer service industry is headed in the future.
Dr. Stacey Smith, chair of the Department of Applied Business Studies Department, and Hannah Hilker, training specialist at the Management Development Center, will facilitate.
Each person who completes the workshop will receive a completion certificate. The cost is $119. Hays Area Chamber of Commerce members are eligible for a 15-percent discount.
It’s going to take a few days, but the first and biggest fight of new Gov. Laura Kelly and, well, apparently the entire Legislature, will break out this week.
The bell that started the first round: Friday’s 117-0 passage by the House of the Senate’s unanimously passed on Valentine’s Day of a short little bill that sends $115 million to the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System to pay back the $97 million (plus interest) that it didn’t pay in 2016.
Repaying debt…not a bad idea, except that everything is different when the Legislature is dealing with the pension fund that, while “not actuarially balanced,” is still making those monthly pension check payments to retirees.
But here’s the big fight over the very first bill passed by this year’s heavily Republican Legislature to the brand-new Democrat governor Kelly: pay KPERS now, or pay KPERS later…
Why is this so mesmerizing? Because the governor clearly lost her argument to the Legislature for her own KPERS plan. Now, she can sign the bill, reluctantly, and say she just didn’t want to waste time with a veto.
Or, she could veto the bill and get overridden. Hard to say who would want to be in that picture with her.
Or she could just put it in her desk drawer, and after 10 days it becomes law anyway with none of her DNA on it.
The governor hasn’t said what she intends to do with the bill.
There really isn’t a good choice for her, and it’s going to be interesting to see how she describes what she’s going to do with the bill. A well-thought-out explanation is necessary, one that will make the ultimate beneficiaries of the pension program believe she’s working for their best interests.
The “pay KPERS now” side of the issue makes sense to pay back money that lawmakers borrowed from the pension fund back when the state was scrambling to keep its annual balance out of red ink. That $97 million non-payment to KPERS was needed as the state started a series of tax increases to dig out of the former Gov. Sam Brownback “lower taxes and the economy will boom, and we’ll take in more money” experiment which just didn’t work.
The “pay KPERS later” side of the issue? Well, Kelly had a different idea. Refinancing the pension fund’s actuarial shortfall (basically the amount it would need to pay off all its members in one day) over another 30 years brings smaller annual payments that the state is more likely to actually pay. Everyone gets paid, it just takes longer…and the state pays interest on that refinancing for 30 years, a long time.
***
The politics are interesting, because that borrowed money is from the schools/state workers’ section of the pension fund. Democrats voted for the bill because those two categories of pensioners are often solid Democrat voters.
Republicans decry that interest the state would pay on refinancing the pension system under the Kelly plan. They’ve made a big deal out of the $24,000 per day interest the state is running up by not paying that $115 million now. They apparently pay cash for their cars and houses.
What happens next? Nobody but the governor knows. But whatever Kelly does, it is going to influence future governor-Legislature fights, and whatever happens, she’ll go into Round 2 of the prize fight a little weakened.
Dramatic, and it might tell the future. Or at least change the relationship between the governor and the Legislature.
Get your bets down…
Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com
During certain parts of the year I secretly cringe when someone walks into my house. It’s not that I don’t like visitors; it’s more about what my houseguests might see when they enter our home. In the winter and spring, odds are my floors will have some mud deposits that someone tracked in. In the summer and fall, dirt clods and seeds sprinkled around my house are a given.
“It’s just part of life,” I tell myself. Even then, at times it still creates a bit of uneasiness for me when someone comes to visit.
My concerns about my house have had to take a backseat though, as we have an extended houseguest this year. My farmhouse — in all its seasonal, messy glory — has been on full display as we have opened our home to a high school foreign exchange student. She’s a Sicilian from a large city who is accustomed to warm weather, ocean views and pasta. Lots of pasta.
In preparing for her exchange experience, she watched all the Hollywood teen movies to help her formulate an understanding of what life would be like for her in America. There were dance routines, musical interludes, mean girls, study groups and school dance scenarios that she studied.
She made a conscious choice to come to the United States to study and participate in the lifestyle and culture. Little did she know, the images, events and people portrayed in the movies she studied in preparation for this once-in-a-lifetime experience would be very different from her reality: life on a farm in rural, central Kansas.
Our family’s goal is to carry on our business as usual while also working to give her the best possible experience this year. It’s safe to say Hollywood didn’t prepare her for the majority of it.
Common conveniences including accessibility to a mall, a movie theater, a great pizza place and a coffee shop are all still possible, although getting there requires a bit more planning and miles on our part.
She’s experienced early drives into town to get to school, dirt road treks required to get to a classmate’s house, small class sizes at our rural school where the math teacher is also the cross country and scholars bowl coach, making selections at our small town grocery store and the beauty of a community coming together for a weeknight high school basketball game.
She’s had friendly conversations with folks during a community meal served family-style at a local church, checked out books from our local library, discovered butterscotch, experienced slow Wi-Fi, which affects her Netflix viewing. She’s also learning the beauty of Amazon’s two-day shipping.
She’s watched our farm dog give birth, and she’s held a piglet in her arms. Our local FFA chapter members welcomed her and then put her to work , and she has experienced the joy (and chill) of traversing the farmyard on an inner tube pulled by a four-wheeler following a recent snowstorm.
While the clothes shopping options are limited, especially for a teenager who usually spends portions of her weekends visiting shops trying on clothes with her friends for fun. She’s beginning to realize that we have to plan our shopping adventures a little more than she would in Sicily. And, thank God almighty, it only took two trips to Wichita to secure the prom dress!
After multiple video calls with her family and Snapchat posts seeking advice, she has even purchased her own pair of cowboy boots. The girl is committed and living a life she didn’t even know existed. To say she’s adjusted nicely is a huge understatement. She has become part of our small, rural community, and she has fully embraced the lifestyle and all the community has to offer.
While she has learned and experienced a lot during her time with us, I know my family has gained some valuable lessons as well. And for me, allowing her to view our farmhouse in all its seasonal, messy glory is something I’ve been able to relax about. After all, it is just a part of life for our farm family here in rural, central Kansas.
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.
Women’s health can be directly tied to the burden of household responsibilities. In a 2016 study, researchers found that women are more often the primary parent of children, the one who determines family healthcare decisions, the caregiver for the elderly parents on both sides and the one that does more of the cooking and dishes, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping. Other studies have found that doing dishes alone was particularly burdensome.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor says our society is getting somewhat better in sharing the household work, but a difference still remains. For example, in 2003, men participated in food preparation and clean-up on average of 35 percent of his days, and in 2015 it was 43 percent. Nice to see an eight percent improvement but the women’s share in 2015 was still 70 percent. In 2015, women participated in cleaning housework 50 percent of her days while it was 22 percent for men. Lawn and garden work was the only chore accomplished more by men than women.
How much does this happen because the man is often the primary earner? In another study done at Indiana University in 2016, they studied household work in families where the woman’s income was larger than the man’s. They found that household burdens seemed not to align with income but rather with the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity. They also found that in same-sex couples, gender identity still directs roles. We haven’t reached equality of the sexes at work and we haven’t reached equality at home, either.
This is important because of the possible negative effect it may have on family relationships. There are studies to show that each person in a household has expectations and responsibilities, whether it be the alpha mom, the alpha dad, the children or even the grandparents. If the woman (or the man) expects the other to pitch in but ends up stuck with all the chores, she or he may be disappointed, embittered, angry and feeling abused. If those hard feelings are not resolved and are covered up, then depression may be the result.
When one member of the family is hurting, everyone feels the pain. Research data from Myrna Weissman PhD, a professor of psychiatry, shows that mental illness and depression spreads within a household. Strong emotional sharing occurs there, and when emotional pain of one person in the family is treated and improves, everyone gets better.
Simply helping with the dishes might be an enormous step toward making a happier home.
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HUTCHINSON — A man who was extradited to Kansas from Florida and charged with three felonies entered a guilty plea Monday to one of the counts against him.
Richmond -photo Reno Co.
Charles E. Richmond, 57, was charged with rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. He entered a plea for the aggravated indecent liberties charge and the other two charges were dropped.
The alleged crimes occurred over a period from Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 31, 2017. The child told investigators she had been molested by Richmond more than 100 times.
The conviction falls under Jessica’s Law statutes, meaning he could face a life sentence. However, both sides will be able to argue disposition in the case.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The United Methodist Church teetered on the brink of breakup Monday after more than half the delegates at an international conference voted to maintain bans on same-sex weddings and ordination of gay clergy.
Jeffrey Warren addressed the conference on Monday -image courtesy United Methodist Church
Their favored plan, if formally approved, could drive supporters of LGBT inclusion to leave America’s second-largest Protestant denomination.
A final vote on rival plans for the church’s future won’t come until Tuesday’s closing session, and the outcome remains uncertain. But the preliminary vote Monday showed that the Traditional Plan, which calls for keeping the LGBT bans and enforcing them more strictly, had the support of 56 percent of the more than 800 delegates attending the three-day conference in St. Louis.
The primary alternative proposal, called the One Church Plan, was rebuffed in a separate preliminary vote, getting only 47 percent support. Backed by a majority of the church’s Council of Bishops in hopes of avoiding a schism, it would leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies and would remove language from the church’s law book asserting that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Monday’s voting did not kill the One Church Plan but makes its prospects on Tuesday far more difficult.
As evidence of the deep divisions within the faith, delegates Monday approved plans that would allow disaffected churches to leave the denomination while keeping their property.
“This is really painful,” said David Watson, a dean and professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, who was at the gathering. “Our disagreement has pitted friend against friend, which no one wanted.”
Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the U.S. While other mainline Protestant denominations, such as the Episcopal and Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches, have embraced the two gay-friendly practices, the Methodist church still officially bans them, even though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied and talk of a possible breakup has intensified.
The strong showing for the Traditional Plan reflects the fact that the UMC, unlike other mainstream Protestant churches in the U.S., is a global denomination. About 43 percent of the delegates in St. Louis are from abroad, mostly from Africa, and overwhelmingly support the LGBT bans.
“We Africans are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to the church’s sexual ethics,” the Rev. Jerry Kulah, dean at a Methodist theology school in Liberia, said in a speech over the weekend. “We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal church elite in the U.S.”
The Africans have some strong allies among U.S. conservatives, including the Rev. John Miles II, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, who opposes same-sex marriage and gays in the pulpit.
“I have a very difficult time even though I have gays in my family and in my church,” he said. “I know it grieves them and it grieves me to grieve them. But it’s just what we believe is the truth.”
In recent years, the church’s enforcement of its LGBT bans has been inconsistent. Some clergy members have conducted same-sex marriages or come out as gay from the pulpit. In some cases, the church has filed charges against clergy who violated the bans, yet the denomination’s Judicial Council has ruled against the imposition of mandatory penalties, which typically called for an unpaid suspension of at least one year.
The Traditional Plan would require stricter and more consistent enforcement.
Among the outspoken supporters of the more permissive One Church Plan was the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a pastor in Leawood, Kansas, who said it offered a way for Methodists “to live together — conservatives, centrists and progressives — despite our differences.”
For LGBT Methodists, it is a time of anxiety.
“For me it’s about who’s in God’s love, and nobody’s left out of that,” said Lois McCullen Parr, 60, a church elder from Albion, Michigan, who identifies as bisexual and queer. “The Gospel I understand said Jesus is always widening the circle, expanding the circle, so that everyone’s included.”
Tuesday Scattered snow showers before 11am. Cloudy, with a high near 20. Wind chill values as low as -5. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Tuesday NightMostly cloudy, with a steady temperature around 20. Light and variable wind becoming north northeast 5 to 9 mph after midnight.
WednesdayMostly cloudy, with a high near 19. Wind chill values as low as -1. North northeast wind 8 to 13 mph.
Wednesday NightMostly cloudy, with a low around 13. Northeast wind 5 to 8 mph becoming south after midnight.
ThursdayPartly sunny, with a high near 29.
Thursday NightMostly cloudy, with a low around 18.
KANSAS CITY– A Kansas City man with prior felony convictions for child pornography was sentenced in federal court Monday for receiving child pornography over the Internet, according to the United State’s Attorney.
Fleming -photo MSHP Sex Offender Registry
Travis E. Fleming, 44, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 15 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Fleming to 20 years of supervised release following incarceration. The court ordered Fleming to pay $5,000 in restitution to each of three identified victims of sexual abuse portrayed in the images of child pornography that he possessed.
Fleming was convicted in federal court in 2010 of two counts of receiving child pornography and two counts of possessing child pornography, for which he was sentenced to six years and six months in federal prison without parole. He was on supervised release at the time of this offense.
On Sept. 20, 2018, Fleming pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography. Fleming admitted that he had 256 images of child sexual abuse (including bondage) on his cell phone. Some of the victim children ranged in age from four to 10 years old. A forensic examination determined that Fleming did the bulk of his viewing of child pornography in the dark web.
Fleming’s probation officer discovered the cell phone during a home visit on Nov. 16, 2017. Fleming admitted that he had been accessing the internet since at least February 2017. Among the conditions of Fleming’s supervised release was that he not possess any type of computer or electronic device with access to any on-line computer service.
WASHINGTON – The Federal grazing fee for 2019 will drop to $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) for public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and $1.35 per head month (HM) for lands managed by the USDA Forest Service. This represents a decrease from the 2018 Federal grazing fee of $1.41 per AUM.
An AUM or HM—treated as equivalent measures for fee purposes—is the use of public lands by one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. The newly calculated grazing fee was determined by a congressional formula and takes effect March 1, 2019. The fee will apply to nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases administered by the BLM and nearly 6,500 permits administered by the Forest Service.
The formula used for calculating the grazing fee was established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act and has remained in use under a 1986 presidential Executive Order. Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM/HM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year’s level.
The annually determined grazing fee is established using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM/HM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western states. The figure is then calculated according to three factors—current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices, and the cost of livestock production. In effect, the fee rises, falls, or stays the same based on market conditions.
“The BLM and Forest Service are committed to strong relationships with the ranching community and work closely with permittees to ensure public rangelands remain healthy, productive working landscapes,” said Brian Steed, BLM Deputy Director for Programs and Policy. “Fifty percent of the collected grazing fees deposited into the U.S. Treasury are returned to the Range Betterment Fund for on-the-ground range improvement projects. Portions of collected fees are also returned to the states for use in the counties where the fees were generated.”
The grazing fee applies in 16 Western states on public lands administered by the BLM and the Forest Service. The states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Permit holders and lessees may contact their local BLM or Forest Service office for additional information.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The agency’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. Diverse activities authorized on these lands generated $96 billion in sales of goods and services throughout the American economy in fiscal year 2017. These activities supported more than 468,000 jobs.
HAYS – The TMP-Marian Lady Monarchs rallied from a six-point first quarter deficit and held Hoisington to a single field goal in the third quarter on their way to a 59-37 win Monday night at Al Billinger Field house.
Rose McFarland postgame interview
The Monarchs offense starter slow, hitting just one of their first six shots and committed five turnovers, allowing Hoisington to build a six-point lead after the first quarter at 14-8.
In the second quarter TMP opened the quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 16-14 lead only to see Hoisington retake the lead at 18-16. Late in the quarter the game was tied at 25 when Emilee Lane knocked in a pair of free throws to give TMP the 27-25 lead with just 1:30 to play in that first half.
Leading by two to start the second half Emily Schippers scored the first seven points of the third quarter and sparked a 16-2 TMP run to put them up 43-26.
The Monarchs held Hoisington to just four points and one field goal while forcing 11 turnovers.
After building the 17-point lead at the end of three quarters the Monarchs went on to claim the 59-37 victory.
Emily Schippers led a pair of Monarchs in double-figures with 18 points and Sasha Wasinger chipped in 10.
Game highlights
TMP improves to 16-5 with the win and will play Russell on Thursday in the 3A Hoisington sub-state semifinals after the Broncos downed Lyons 60-20 Monday.
In the other game from the Hoisington sub-state Monday top seed Norton defeated Smoky Valley 39-24.
Phillipsburg will host Southeast of Saline on Tuesday.
SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a series of alleged car thefts and have a suspect in custody
Buster photo Saline Co.
On Friday, police responded to Bennett Buick, 651 South Ohio, in Salina to investigate a report of a 2016 Dodge Charger SXT worth $20,000 missing from the dealership, according to police Sergeant David Villanueva. Surveillance video showed the car being driven off the dealer’s lot at 1:30a.m. February 21, and twice on February 18. The video also showed the car returning at 1:34p.m. and also 6:59p.m. February 18.
Police located a suspect identified as 34-year-old Jason Buster standing behind the Charger in the 1300 block of Cheyenne Street in Salina. They also found person property that belonged to Buster in the car. He also had the keys to the Charger in his pocket.
Buster was arrested on requested charges of vehicle deprivation and felony theft.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A California man has asked for 20 years in prison as his punishment for making a hoax call that led police to fatally shoot a Kansas man following a dispute between two online gamers over $1.50 bet in a Call of Duty WWII video game.
Barriss is now being held in Harvey County
Tyler R. Barriss, 26, faces sentencing Friday in federal court in Wichita for making the false report resulting in a death. His attorney argued in a sentencing memorandum that Barriss never intended for anyone to get hurt and his conduct was an outgrowth of the culture within the gaming community.
As part of the plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Barriss pleaded guilty in November to a total of 51 federal charges that included some initially filed in California and the District of Columbia related to other fake calls and threats. He seeks the shortest term allowed in that plea deal which calls for 20 to 25 years in federal prison.
Defense attorney Rich Federico portrayed his client as sincerely remorseful for calling Wichita police from Los Angeles on Dec. 28, 2017, to falsely report a shooting and kidnapping at a Wichita address. A police officer responding to the call fatally shot Andrew Finch, 28, after he opened the door. Finch, who was not playing video games, lived at the gamer’s old address.
In a letter to the Finch family, Barriss wrote that he thinks every day about how his actions led to his death. He asked for forgiveness and expressed his “hope that my sentence may in some way help you feel better that justice is done,” according to the filing.
Swatting is a form of retaliation sometimes used by gamers, who call police and make a false report to send first responders to an online opponent’s address.
Barriss’ defense attorney argued that the notoriety of being a known swatter within the gaming community “became an intoxicant” to him and incrementally desensitized him to real world consequences. As a young man, he spent almost all of his time indoors playing video games. His only family was his grandmother. He was homeschooled until he quit school altogether. Barriss has never had a job. At the time of his arrest he was living in a homeless shelter in Los Angeles.
“With no guidance, no structure, school, or employment, Mr. Barriss had video games,” Federico wrote. “The game Halo became his salve to social acceptance in a virtual world.”
Also charged as co-conspirators in the federal case in Kansas in connection to the deadly swatting call are online gamers Casey Viner, 18, of North College Hill, Ohio, and Shane Gaskill, 20, of Wichita. They have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice, wire fraud and other counts. Their trial is scheduled for March 19 in U.S. District Court in Wichita.
FHSU University Relations
