How Important Is Customer Service To You?
Day in and day out we find ourselves needing some sort of customer support. Whether it be at a retail store where you are buying something or, calling customer support because your internet is down. The wide range of services provided that need support is not getting smaller. More companies are starting to run their businesses online or even through ebay stores. Whatever it may be there are standards that people expect to be met when dealing with something that is customer service related.
In my opinion I believe poor service is the downfall of a company. That very service is the face of the company. Do you think a company that is not able to keep up with the needs of their customers/clients will be able to last long? I’m of the opinion that is nearly impossible to do. If a company is either unwilling or not capable with keeping up with the very people who support their business how long will people continue to use that service?
The past few months I have been paying attention to a few companies and how they handle things, and I’m not all together impressed. Why is this you wonder. Well without giving specifics about the companies or the situations themselves, I will tell you that it seems not all who work in a support type function are able to remain professional or provide what the client is looking for, in most cases that’s just answers.
Have you filled out a how are we doing card recently? I know I haven’t but maybe that’s something everyone should get into the practice of doing again. But even if we do fill out those cards are the customers actually heard?
If a company is going to provide something as part of their services should they not make everything a priority, if it’s dealing with their customer base? Or is it ok for a company to not focus on some areas of the service they offer?
I want your thoughts on this. The more companies I see that provide terrible service the more I question 1) work habits/ethics 2) are companies hiring people that are able to provide proper service 3) do customers feel they are heard when they have a complaint and/or suggestion? 4) are those running the company capable of doing so?
One thing that definitely doesn’t sit well with me is poor service. That goes for anywhere. A restaurant, the movie ticket counter, retail store, online ordering, anything where customers are involved.
As a consumer when I’m calling, emailing, etc. for support, I expect someone to be able to provide me an answer, a solution if one is required, a way to solve the issue at hand if there is a problem. What I don’t want is someone who says I’m not sure, I’m not able to help you and I’m not sure who you need to talk to, etc. We’ve all heard these excuses after being transferred around.
How do you feel when you are not satisfied with your customer service? Do you stay with the service if it’s not something you are happy with? If your cable provider was constantly overcharging you or if it was never working properly would you switch providers you were using?
Bottom line is. Happy customers = return customers = more business/word of mouth promo.
Unhappy customers = losing business = less business/no promo = company fail.
I’m by no means saying that all companies have poor or even terrible service, but it doesn’t seem all businesses are putting focus into making their clients happy.
In The Flesh 7.8.09 Reading @ Hustler Hollywood Recap
Wow it’s been a minute since I’ve done a blog. I thought I’d get back into the swing of things by doing a blog recapping last nights In The Flesh reading at Hustler Hollywood.
Readers Included:
Dayle Dermatis
Alyson Mead
Sam Saturday
Donna George Storey – Phone Sex
Dayle’s reading had me wanting to read more of the story, Alyson’s story kept everyone on edge with what was going to happen (espeically to/with the bear), Sam Saturday’s readings were hilarious and Donna George’s phone sex started off with a corset and wet hello kitty panties. Not a bad way to spend a night I’d say.
My favorite part of the evening was when a male volunteer read from Sam Saturday’s book of Tongue In Cheek poetry (to purchase click here). Attack is one of my favorite poems from Tongue In Cheek: Book 1: Ladies. To read the whole poem you’ll need to purchase the book (well worth it) but here’s a sample from Attack by Sam Saturday.
You gotta smack it
Attack it
Hit it from the back
You gotta be on track
To get inside the crack
To see more of Sam Saturday’s work visit his Load World Comics website: http://www.loadworldcomics.com/
The next In The Flesh reading at Hustler Hollywood is Wednesday, August 12th. Dayle will be reading again. I can’t wait to hear what she reads in August.
For more information on the In The Flesh LA readings click here.
20 Week Goal!
Wow ok so I have set a goal – 20 weeks to finish writing SP my wip.
My first full length romance novel – oh boy this is going to be hard but so far it’s going pretty good. I have 1/2 the first chapter and part of chapter 2. What is now chapter 2 was chapter 1 until I realized it was lacking in information – so adding a chapter before it and will be good to go once it’s finished. Only about 2500 words left for first chapter and then moving on to finish the second chapter. Last week was 1st week for this 20 week goal. Which means 18 1/2 weeks to go since we are already mid week.
Earth Day Blog Tour – being done by some authors
I just got a chance to check out the earth day blog tour being done by:
Nina Pierce
Alanna Coca
Gem Sivad
Serena Shay
Trina Lee
Stephanie Adkins
Paige Tyler
Savanna Kougar
Shaunta Grimes
Darragha Foster
Rosemary Gunn
Shara Lanel
Tina Holland
You should check out their blogs on earth day. Great eye candy for one and another excellent reason as always is tips and such on how to be more conscience about helping our planet.
Here’s some tips I found:
* Save some water – take shorter showers.
* Conserve energy: TVs and VCRs that are turned “off” cost us nearly a billion dollars a year in electricity. Unplugging them is the only way to ensure that they are not using any energy.
* Recycle: cans, newspapers, glass, plastic bags, etc. Recycle what you can.
* Donate: doante old cell phones, computers, cars – thing is most of these things can be recycled to be reused in some fashion or another.
Thank you to the above authors who have decided to put an interesting twist on earth day tips.
What A Pain Moving Old Blogs Can Be…
Why is it just not a simple copy and paste you wonder. Well it would just make things too easy in that case. Not to mention in going through the old blog posts I noticed there was a ton of spam comments with a bunch of gibberish like xkiiai left a comment with some iwerjewir@akdjfi email and a kjioadkfj.com web address.. Anyways you get the point. There had to have been about 20. What I can’t figure out is why the heck are all these spammers all over the place – even on blogs now?? Luckily they were marked as spam. It’s just annoying. It’s already time consuming to move the blogs but now on top of that have to deal with spam. Wow who would have thought these spammers would go the blog route. Guess they are finding new ways to harrass people.
I’m still in the process of moving blogs over and such and will eventually have them moved and put where I want. Yay! For now can be viewed under pages header – old blog and will have a list of ones that have been moved. Eventually I’ll have them moved to the blog posts section with the original post date – but for now I’m just trying to get it moved – it will be easier to play around with later.
So I’ve had enough reading gibberish tonight and going to put something on the tv. Or I could watch Twilight again. 
Or I can catch up on shows on DVR too. Oh the choices.
Hope everyone had a great Monday!
Moving Old Blog Account to WordPress
I originally wasn’t sure if I wanted to move blog accounts. After using WordPress a couple of times I have decided it offers more then the other blog I have and have decided to switch. I will be moving all my old blog postings soon – hopefully this weekend.
Break Through In SP Story
I had a couple of break throughs today on my current work in progress SP. This story has a mind of its own you can say. I’ve been unable to plot much for this story and didn’t have a good grip on my characters.
Today I managed to figure out some major plot points, now understand my characters and have figured out (with help from someone who talked out story with me tonight) some conflict.
I’m super excited with how this story started and I’m even more excited to see where it goes.
Of course stories and characters and even plot points change. I can’t wait to see where this story takes me.
New WIP…SP
New work in progress started. I love the working title – but don’t like to post the full names so it’s SP for blogs and such.
I’m super excited by this idea. It’s my first paranormal romance. I don’t usually read paranormals but there is just something about this idea that I more then love. Problem now is I need to plot some. This idea has come out of nowhere and I just started writing. I’m enjoying it so far but need to get to know my characters and the plot a little better before too long.
Word count goal on this story – I’m shooting for 65k but we’ll see how it goes. It could end up longer or a little shorter – either way I’m wanting to see where the story and characters go.
Now my writing goals have been set for the year so it’s time to work toward them.
New to WordPress
Well I’m new to wordpress. Trying to figure out if I want to switch my blog to wordpress for good. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it and have found a lot of people use it.
For now I’m going to keep my other blog active until I figure out if I do want to switch or if I just want to use it in addition to. To see old blog posts I have you can view them on my website’s blog at blog.tammiflora.com
