CUSTOMER CENTER

Jennifer Wiss asked:


What is a custom essay? A custom essay is a paper written by a ‘ghostwriter’ – i.e. a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other content but who does not receive any credit for it. The essay is ‘custom’ because it is written to the student’s exact essay question. A custom essay may be distinguished from a pre-written essay obtained from an ‘essay bank’ or ‘paper mill’. These types of essays are past essays donated by students, either in exchange for part of the sale proceeds or in exchange for access to other pre-written essays. They will be essays written in answer to a particular topic and therefore not ‘custom’ to the student’s essay question.

Where did custom essays come from? Getting another student to write your paper for you is one of the oldest ‘cheats’ in the book – this might have been in exchange for cash, or if the student was weak, as a result of threats. This underground business was formalised in 2003 when Barclay Littlewood founded ‘Academic Answers Limited’, a registered UK company that trades under various names including UK Essays, Law Essays, Law Teacher and Degree Essays. The Company sought to clean up the industry by giving the custom essay customer, who would be used to dealing with dodgy companies often based in poorer, non-English speaking countries, a legitimate and worthy customer service experience. The Company attracted much criticism as ‘encouraging cheating’ and spawned many ‘copycat’ services.

How do custom essay services work? The customer orders their essay usually through an essay company’s website. The Company sends out the order to their team of writers and those writers who can complete the project will put themselves forward to do the work. The Company usually seeks payment from the customer at this point. When the customer pays, the Company picks the writer they think is best suited to the project and tells them to start. The customised essay is delivered on the day the customer has agreed with the Company.

Is it cheating to use a custom essay service? Arguably, to use the service alone is not cheating. Take, for example, a lecturer who sets a nice easy essay question: ‘Who was John F Kennedy?’. Most students will use Google to search for initial information on this topic and they will find some 7.6 million answers to their question. The process of reading through these answers is not cheating. However – if the student takes one of the answers and hands it in, passing it off as their own work, then without doubt, they are cheating. In fact, there are many more subtle ways they could use their material to cheat – rewording a website they found, rearranging words, citing the source but relying too heavily on the material – and so on. But they could also use the material as a guide and write their own, original answer to the question set. In the same way, a student who orders a custom essay can use the essay as a guide and can write their own original answer to the question that has been set for them. They can even do their own research.

How can a student benefit from a custom essay? Universities are often cited in the press as saying that when a student orders a custom essay, they are being lazy – all the work is done for them. However, our earlier example of using Google or using a Question and Answer book – or even a model answer provided by the tutor themselves – shows that there are times during the research process when the student will come across what they think is the right answer. However, this does not mean they have to copy the answer word for word, neither does it mean that what they have found is the only answer and they should stop researching. If a student takes a custom essay and uses the sources to ‘read up’ on a subject, and to help them generate more sources and a greater understanding, then the custom essay is just a stepping-stone on the road to something greater. It is an example – a template, if you like – for students to see how the question could be dealt with – but after doing their own research, the student could well think that there are far better ways of dealing with the question!

When is using a custom essay service cheating? The problem that is often publicised by the Press is that not all students who use custom essay services will use the service honestly. Some will hand in the essay that has been written for them, without doing any work themselves. When custom essays are viewed in this context, they help students to cheat and they reduce the value of a university education. Honest students, who do their own research and writing, are angry to know that their counterparts have completed the same degree, gained a better mark than them – and not lifted a finger for themselves.

But hang on .. degrees aren’t all about essays! True. Even the most dishonest student HAS to do some work. Why? Because degrees usually involve at least: (a) Some practical assessments; and (b) An exam – or more often, several exams. So for the great majority of degrees, it’s not possible to cheat your way through university, even with the help of the best custom essay company. However – let’s say that in weighting your degree, your coursework element is worth 50% and indeed, the custom essays you receive and submit get you full marks. Your exam is worth 50% and you need a 40% grade to pass. This means you can get away with writing 2.2 standard answers in your exam and still gain a 2.1 degree, or writing 2.1 answers in your exam and still gain a 1st degree. This doesn’t work in every case though – the Open University for example, grade your course based on your exam and your coursework. If you only gain a 2.1 in your coursework then you can only get a 2.1 for that module, even if you get 100% in the exam. Even in that case, you could use custom essays to significantly reduce your workload. You could, for example, submit them all as coursework and have a lot more time to revise for the exam as a result. So understandably, there is a great deal of concern from Universities and from the Press about how these tools can be misused.

If they are open to misuse, why are custom essays still legal? Custom essays are 100% legal, just as model answers that teachers hand out are 100% legal. Question and Answer books such as those produced by Blackstones are also 100% legal and sometimes, the questions in those are very, very close to the questions set for essays and for exams. The idea of these resources is that they are used as guides – they are not to be copied verbatim with no other research done. There are many things that are open to misuse that are still legal. Alcohol can be abused to the point of death but it also can be enjoyed sensibly, and so it is not a banned substance. Many over-the-counter drugs are potentially lethal if taken in large doses, but they also can cure the symptom of headaches, stomachaches and so forth – so they are not banned. Knives can kill, but they are also useful for chopping food. All these things have a use – as do custom essays. However, because the custom essay industry arose from a shady background, unlike alcohol, over-the-counter drugs and knives, people are not educated properly in their use and they do use them to cheat. This problem is further accelerated by the fact that a huge number of essay companies are happy to let their customers hand in the work and don’t offer any guidance on how it should be used. In addition, because the work is custom, it is difficult for teachers to detect that the student is cheating.

How could universities stamp out this kind of cheating? Universities have already developed several strategies to combat this type of academic fraud. Some professors require students to submit electronic versions of their term papers, so that the text of the essay can be compared against databases of essays that are known to be plagiarised, ‘essay mill’ term papers. Although the student is ordering a ‘custom essay’ and expects it to be 100% original, in fact, many companies just rehash internet content and previously submitted work so what the customer receives is nothing like original – and so they get caught cheating when they hand it in. Other universities allow lecturers to give students oral examinations on papers which a lecturer believes the student did not write; if the student is unfamiliar with the content of an essay that they have submitted, then the student can be charged with academic fraud. Most lecturers know their students’ work well and will quickly spot if a student has changed style.

Should custom essay companies be banned? Universities would certainly like to solve the problem by banning custom essay companies. However, the likely effect of this is that the service would just go ‘underground’ as it was prior to 2003. There are other ways that the problem could be dealt with. For example, if custom essay companies agreed to submit all of their papers to the universities to scan, then students could not hand in the work as they would be quickly detected. Barclay Littlewood of Academic Answers Limited has offered in the press to discuss this possibility with the relevant authorities, on the understanding that those authorities stop banning the use of his company, but to date, the prospect of working with the Company has not been entertained.

To use .. or not to use? That is the question! The answer is a matter for your own judgement – if you plan on using a custom essay service to cheat, then it is likely you’ll be caught. The fact that the essay is 100% original is no safeguard for your lecturer’s sharp eye and if you’ve not done your research, you could be caught out when asked difficult questions about the content or the sources you’ve read. If you’re planning on using the custom essay properly, it’s a fantastic piece of research to use as a starting point for your own work. Don’t forget, however, that there are many dishonest websites out there – make sure you know where they’re based and ensure they are 100% legitimate, or you’ll end up paying a lot for something you could have found on Google for free.

John Marshall asked:


Buying a car is a dream come true for any person if he has been striving hard for it and trying to spare out money for it. With new car finance, the borrower will not have any problems relating to the finances required for his new car.

New car finance is available to borrowers who want to purchase a new car and are looking for a loan option that suits their needs. Any brand, make or model that the borrower wishes to buy can be financed with help of new car finance.

New car finance can be obtained as secured or unsecured. With the secured new car finance, an asset has to be placed as collateral for the finance. This collateral can be anything from a house to the same car that is being bought by the borrower. Pledging collateral helps in providing a low rate of interest. With unsecured new car finance however, no collateral is required to be pledged for the loan. The repayment term of the new car finance is 5-7 years.

Before taking up new car finance, the borrower is suggested to take up a few measures to ensure that he is making the best choices. They are:

• The borrower should decide about the car model and brand before applying for new car finance. This is suggested so that the borrower himself has a clear idea what amount he wants to borrow.

• The borrower should get the new car finance approved before he approaches the car dealer so that he does not change his decision under the influence of the car salesman.

• The borrower should avail the new car finance from a reputed finance company or lender.

• Before availing new car finance, the borrower is suggested to conduct a research online so that he can compare quotes from numerous lenders and choose the most suitable deal.

New car finance helps the borrowers in availing finance for a long-dreamed of car which they cannot buy on their own. It helps them in fulfilling their desires without any burden.

Benjamin Bressington asked:


The success of any business is directly affected by the loyalty of its customers. If you run a business, you must make it one of your primary goals to build a relationship with your customers. Creating customer loyalty takes time and effort, but it’s essential to the long-term success of your business and it doesn’t require a substantial budget.

Keep in touch with your customers

Stay in the forefront of your customers’ minds by keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. For example, you might want to create a customer newsletter that you send to customers every month that provides them with information they can use. Or, you might want to send coupons for discounts on your products or services on a regular basis. Staying in front of your customers is a key to creating loyal customers.

In addition to keeping in touch via snail mail, take advantage of email marketing. You might want to send an e-newsletter to your customers every week, informing them of your latest products and services, the latest news, and offering them coupons or other specials for being a loyal customer.

Offer customer loyalty rewards

Offer your loyal customers rewards for doing business with you. For example, many grocery stores offer a customer loyalty card that provides customers, who have a card, with discounts on products. The cashier swipes the customer loyalty card each time a customer checks out and the amount saved by using the card is tallied. Oftentimes, cardholders will receive extra discounts around the holidays as a reward for shopping at the particular grocery store and using their card.

Consider how customer loyalty rewards could play a role in your business, and implement such a program to help build customer loyalty.

Provide superior customer service

A common complaint among many customers today is a lack of good customer service. While customer service may be a downfall for many businesses, make it an advantage with yours by providing superior customer service. When your customers contact you, respond promptly and with a willingness to help. When your customers have a problem, do your best to solve that problem so that they are happy with the end results.

Highlight your USP

You must find a way to highlight your USP, Unique Selling Proposition, when you are marketing. For example, if your product or service comes with an ironclad money-back guarantee, mention that in your marketing materials, on customer invoices and receipts, and when talking with customers.

Listen to your customers’ feedback

Ask for your customers’ feedback then listen to what they actually have to say. If a customer informs you of a problem, do your best to solve that problem. You can create loyal customers by showing that you care about what they have to say.

Remember, happy customers become loyal customers, and loyal customers will refer others to your business, so it’s essential that you genuinely care about your customers and listen to what they have to say.

Xylene Belita asked:


You can find anti aging creams in the ledge of every department stores, drug store and even convenient stores. Although a number of these anti aging wrinkle cream like Oil of Olay has been confirmed to diminish helpfully the manifestation of aging, no anti aging cream is capable of entirely get rid of these appearance. On the quest to find the best anti aging cream, then continue reading. This will help you decipher if the product that you will buy worth your hard-earned money. 

With the numerous anti aging products to choose from, it is kind of overwhelming to get hold of the right product. However, there are three major ways to narrow down our choices. First, know your skin type. Second, set the budget that you are amenable to pay. Last, dig the customers’ product review.

There are credible  anti aging creams  in the market that substantiates their claims in reducing the common signs of aging. The ceramides and rice peptides are the effective components of these creams. Ceramides are known to moisturize cells making it appears portly while rice peptides protect the skin from the negative effects of the surroundings.

The Olay Regenerist Deep Hydration Regenerating Cream rises in line of those good anti aging wrinkle cream. This product distinctively invigorates the skin to its young-looking appearance. People who use Oil of Olay will no longer resolve to lasers, cosmetic surgery or other abrasive procedures. The amino-peptide ingredients of Oil of Olay do the work in regenerating your skin damaged by the sun rays. It will rejuvenate your skin making you look young once again.

 

Brian Solis asked:


The topic of empowering your customers so that they become an extension of your marketing isn’t new. Transforming people into a surrogate sales force is the dream of any service organization. The difference today is that the landscape has shifted to the point where good customer service is no longer the minimum ante to play the game.

Over the next year, customer service will fuse with marketing to become a holistic inbound, outbound campaign of listening to and engaging with customers that will rewrite the rules of the game. And, most importantly, the lessons learned in the field will be fed into the marketing department to create and run more intelligent, experienced, and real world initiatives across all forms of marketing, PR, sales, and advertising.

Over the last year, Social Media has intrigued and even inspired companies to engage in the communities where their brands and products, as well those of competitors, are actively discussed by the very people they want to reach, aka the new influencers.

Participation is no longer an option as Social Media isn’t a spectator sport. Whether you believe it or not, these conversations are taking place with or without you, so ignoring them only eliminates you from the conversation and also removes your company from the radar screens of your customers.

Marketing-savvy corporate executives are working with PR, Advertising, and Marcom teams to explore options and strategies on how to participate in relevant online conversations. This represents a shift in outbound marketing as it creates a direct channel between companies and customers, and ultimately people. It starts to look a lot less like marketing and a lot more like customer service.

Last year, I introduced customer service into the Social Media equation. As for every company, PR is truly is the responsibility of the entire organization. But it’s much bigger than boxing it in a PR paradigm. I truly believe customer service is the new marketing and communities are at the very least, opportunities to engage customer service.

Social Media is rooted in conversations between people and peers, regardless of the technology that facilitates them, and everyday they take place across blogs, networks, forums, micromedia, and online groups. And, each day, with every new community and social tool that is introduced, brands, products and services are actively discussed, supported, and disassembled. Some companies are listening, while many aren’t even paying attention.

Services such as Satisfaction, ThisNext, and even DIY communities such as Ning, Yahoo and Google Groups, and Facebook are playing host to conversations between customers regarding products and services, and while they don’t invite marketing, they do seek helpful information, advice, and direction.

Participation is Marketing

Social Media represents an entirely new way to reach customers and connect with them directly. It adds an outbound channel that complements inbound customer service and traditional PR, direct marketing and advertising, placing companies and their customers on a level playing field to discuss things as peers. Most importantly, it transcends the process of simply answering questions to creating a community of enthusiasts and evangelists.

For the most part, the only way companies know that customers have questions, comments, or concerns, is if they contact customer service, make the news, form a public group, or if buying patterns, stock value, and sales trends suddenly shift.

You can bet that for every inbound customer inquiry, that there is a significant percentage of existing and potential customers actively discussing the same topic out in the open, simply looking for guidance, feedback, acknowledgment, and/or information. And usually, these discussions transpire without company participation, leaving people to resolve issues and questions on their own.

Why leave the door open for your competition to jump into the conversation and steer customers in their direction?

Companies must engage or they place themselves on the long road to inevitable obsolescence.

It’s like the old adage, out of sight, out of mind. Or, quite simply, engage or die.

Nowadays participation is marketing.

Conversations are a form of marketing.

However, marketing needs to be clarified as I am not referring to the traditional marketing that typically “speaks” at people through “messages.” In Social Media, this is about dialog, two way discussions that bring people together in order to discover and share information. Joining the conversation isn’t as simple as jumping in however.

Companies first need to listen in order to accurately analyze how, where, and when to participate.

Social Media forces companies to look outward to proactively find the conversations that are important to business and relationships. And it’s not just the responsibility of PR, it requires the participation by multiple disciplines across the organization in order to genuinely provide meaningful support and information. Again, we’re not talking about messaging or sales propositions. If you stop to think about it, we’re talking about fusing marketing, PR, community relations, and customer service in an entirely new socially-aware role.

Defining the Strategy and the Role

This is about formalizing outbound communications and community participation, creating a dedicated team to ensure that customers and influencers are not overlooked, but engaged.

We’re already seeing companies that are either dividing outbound responsibilities among existing teams or dedicating roles to full time listening, participating, responding, and commenting across all forms of Social Media. But, this isn’t limited to a select few businesses. This is a role that will become standard in companies around the globe, from SMBs to enterprise organizations, and will likely scale from one person to teams.

This is more than prioritizing enhanced customer service over bloggers. We shouldn’t aim our fire hoses at only the fires that have public attention. We need to focus on customers that take the time to contribute to and participate in social networks that are simply seeking information – even if it is delivered in the form of a rant. Furthermore, we can not simply rely on inbound service. We have to analyze inbound activity in order to seek out related conversations among those that decide to take the conversation outside of the traditional service process.

In addition to PR and marcom, these new roles are combining a variety of marketing disciplines including, communications, customer support, and product management and go by several titles:

 



Community Advocate

 

Community Manager (although, I also hear push back on this title, as communities can’t really be managed.)

 

Community Ambassador

 

Social Media or Community Specialist

 

Community Relations

 

Community Builders

 



 

Many of us have been involved in online community relations since Web 1.0 through topic-driven discussion groups, user forums and other online communities such as DejaNews, Yahoo, and Google.

We did so as experts and didn’t try to BS the people who were seeking advice and answers. This is an important note because, in order for any of this to work, you actually have to know not only about your products, services, reputation, strengths, weaknesses, and benefits, but also how you compete in the market and where you stand against the competition.

The social media landscape is vast and growing, and may require several internal people to listen and participate every day across blog posts, blog comments, forums, groups, social networks, micromedia, etc.

Please note, that contrary to the Social Media love fest that’s taking place across the blogosphere, not anyone can jump in and solve problems. Companies need to create an internal game plan that officially assigns specific people who will go in and help customers.

Shhhhh. I’m Listening

Listening to active communities will dictate your participation. But let me point out something very important here. It’s not just about reactive community relations. Companies can and should learn from listening to and talking with customers to create specific content that addresses the wants and needs of customers and distribute it within their communities. This allows you to translate the lessons learned from one on one conversations for the greater good of the masses.

Outbound customer and community relations is among the most important campaigns any company can integrate in its immediate and future initiatives. It not only helps PR and customer service, it builds relationships, creates enthusiasts, and ultimately instills customer loyalty.

Additional resources:

The Four Tenets of Community Management by Jeremiah Owyang

Join the International Online Community Management Association

Public Relations is Customer Service by Kami Huyse

Customer Service is the New Marketing by Valeria Maltoni

magstudios asked:


For the success of any business, it is very important for organizations to maintain regular, relevant and updated communication with customers, clients and subscribers. Delivering the right message to the right people at the right time is important for effective marketing for the business to survive in the long run.

By implanting one of the many software solutions to ensure the success of customer relationship management would not do any good to your organization. Actual contacts of your customers are of utmost importance that would reap true benefits. MAG Studios offers a web based comprehensive software solution that assists organizations to manage the increasing customer information that is available to anyone in the organization. The further success of customer relationship with your organization would depend on the verbal communication that you have with them.

There are certain aspects that need to be considered while opting for customer relationship management that are vital in the outcome of the entire process-

B2B relationships: Business to business relationships involves relationship with clients and customers and all other related channels.

Data Analysis: It is the spine of CRM system. The customer data that needs be assessed is added constantly and is combined with predictive analytics to plan out strategies for marketing. It also entails measuring the success of the model.

Interaction channels: These are direct indicators of the success or the failure of a CRM model and are monitored round the clock. Fewer calls, lesser e-mails and reduced number of escalations are signs of high customer satisfaction ratio.

CRM has gained popularity in organizations where maintaining records of customers is an overwhelming task. MAG Studios has experts who make this simpler by arranging data with the help of sophisticated web based software, so that management can concentrate on other important operations of the business.

Consulting the right company for a CRM can benefit an organization in maintaining cordial relationship with customers to ensure the smooth running of the business.

William Jimenez asked:


Customer Service is basically the way you interact with your client before, during and after a sale is executed or a service is rendered.

In this age of computers and internet a lot of innovations are happening that make life easier. However, with these innovations client services have become impersonal and most of the time scripted.

In business, the customer is king still holds true; no matter how far-fetched or unrealistic some of their demands may be. Everybody knows that for a business to thrive a loyal customer base must be nurtured and managed – customers who are willing to do repeat transactions with the company. Each satisfied customer expands the business exponentially. For behind every single happy client lies 10 more potential customers.

Any strong marketing support that a company provides for its products and services will still fall short of its objective if customer service is non-existent or lousy at best.

So how is customer service defined?

A customer service is considered good when the service comes with a smile. It is going beyond the perceived value of the product or service. It is far from the overly mechanical customer service scripts that we all have become accustomed to.

It is the need for human interaction in every encounter with a customer and their issues and problems done in a satisfactory manner.

In this modern world of technology where everything is viewed as borderless and seamless, assigning a generic department to handle customer service issues is an outdated practice.

Company managers are already aware that clients deal with employees in different levels of the organization. Each individual represents the company. Should any untoward incident happen involving the interaction between a company employee and a client, there is high probability that unwanted detrimental information about the company will be disseminated by the aggrieved customer. The solution to this problem to prevent negative publicity is to have a well-trained team on good customer service and rules of engagement with the clients.

The internet also introduced a new approach to customer satisfaction. A web marketing company relies on a sort of self-service style or approach in managing customer’s needs. A visitor to their website, upon purchase of products or services online, will more likely transact again with the company if he sees that everything he needs can be had with a click of the mouse. The user friendliness of the site from having easy access to its support staff to filing a complaint or returning a product makes for a great customer experience.  

Marketing support is an integral part in bringing in the initial money to the company. The only thing that will keep in the profits, in the end, is rendering good customer service.

Dylan Sun asked:


The world today has become a global village with the ever-increasing networking technology. The networking technology has bridged distances all across the globe thus by bringing revolution in the fields of global sourcing and multinational purchasing. The suppliers online play the vital role in this scenario. The online marketing has taken over the traditional marketing strategies by expanding it functions beyond the political boundaries of the nations. The suppliers online deal with any kind of business requirements. Wholesale global sourcing and multinational purchasing in China is known all over the world. It has such a tremendous demand in the world that most of the business people who deal with the wholesale products has the idea of carrying out some sort of business with China—be it in a large scale in the multinational purchasing form or in a small scale dealing with wholesale items with the country.

Online market plays the lead role in the business market today. The activities that pertain to global sourcing and multinational purchasing are carried out by online market. There are many advantages in regard with the online market. An individual proprietor or a small company may not have sufficient funds to carry out his business overseas in a traditional manner. By making use of online market, the same process can be carried out with a very low investment. There are many methods of promoting one’s own business through online market such as banners, links to other websites, pop-ups etc. these doesn’t cost much to an individual or to a small company. This gives demand t activities like multinational purchasing and global sourcing.

There are many advantages that one can gain through suppliers online. The two major advantages that one can benefit from suppliers online are their expanse across the internet and the reach. With the advent of internet technology, the suppliers online have found the medium a fruit-bearing place for them in carrying out their business tasks. The rise of internet technology has made the world a global village and the suppliers online have crept into almost every part of the internet making their ways easy to carry out their business tasks. Any individual who tends to carry out his business can find these suppliers online in just few clicks. The other advantage that can be considered is the saving of time. Multinational purchasing and global sourcing firms benefit a lot from this.

With rise in the technology of the internet, multinational purchasing companies were able to reduce procurement costs and cycle times. If at all wholesale merchants want to enter the overseas business, then multinational purchasing agents and global sourcing firms stand as the corner stones. There are few tips to be followed for those who want to begin a wholesale global sourcing business in order to avoid pitfalls that may arise in the process. For those who are not able to withstand in the wholesale business, they can opt for dropshipping. Dropshipping doesn’t require an individual to be in the actual global shipping nor does it require depending on a multinational purchasing firm. The retailers who opt for dropshipping are exempted from some laws and procedures that keep them from excelling in the wholesale business.

Steven Taylor asked:


Tempers flare and voices rise, but does your good customer service vanish? These are just a part of your day-to-day life in the market place in any business establishment. Customers and consumers are becoming more and more demanding. They get angry and argumentative when they are not served well by whoever is assigned to entertain them. Big and impersonal companies are sometimes finding it difficult to entertain such difficult-to-please customers and offer them good customer service. But for those small companies who have the skill to be more subjective to customers, I say they have found one of the keys to make their businesses a success.

How many times have we heard about a customer service attendant with a sour disposition entertaining the customers? And how many times have this happened to you personally? This does happen. But it shouldn’t! I was at a Western Union office recently and was waiting to get my money when I happen to hear the customer service attendant yelling at a customer to fill up a card before waiting in line to get his money. Good customer service? Not a hope! Now is that a good way to deal with the customers? Now, there are a lot of Western Union outlets scattered across the country, and with that kind of attitude, which customer would have the heart to go back!? Another example is a McDonald’s drive-thru attendant with a negative temperament. Which customer is really going to return to that outlet if they are greeted with an unpleasant, unhappy face? OK… maybe that’s a bad example – but you get my point!

Businesses have to understand that good customer service is what brings the consumers and customers back. Customer service isn’t just a job! It is a sport in the business world that entrepreneurs and employees have to master in order to attract more customers. It is a key element to win over customers and attain success over the competition. A good customer service system obtains more customers through word-of-mouth advertising. Let’s look at it this way. Take the example of the Western Union outlet. The customer the customer service attendant shouted at walked away angry and cantankerous, telling his peers or family members not to do business with that establishment again! And all because of one lousy employee with a sour disposition who didn’t know how to smile once in a while! Can you think of the money that this particular business lost because of one employee? However, if the customer service attendant was pleasant and easy to get along with, the customer would then have walked away thinking how nice it would be to do business with that outlet again. Word of mouth advertising tells people more than anything else that the service was good and the staff there were pleasant. The outlet would then have attracted more customers and more money by simply giving good customer service!

Here is the trick that the companies should apply to their businesses… They should not think that their products alone carry their business to fame. Not at-all. It is the front-line employees who the customers deal with first before they are introduced to the product. They are the ones who deal with the customers personally, and no customer or consumer would want to deal with a negative customer service. If they train well their customer service department, it might mean surpassing customer expectations and might mean more customers. Mastering this skill also means a bigger market share. But who wants just a part of it? Why not win them all? Why not get the majority or most of the market share through not only good but great customer service? A satisfied customer keeps coming back. And sooner or later, your excellent customer service will pay off and you will see it through your income.