Thank Customer Service People, they will appreciate it!

If you work in customer service and by that I mean on the first line of support on the telephone or email, you are the first person an upset customer or a person with a problem will speak to. (it can be argued that everyone in your business is in customer service but that is for another time)

So if you are about to speak to someone with a problem, they are likely to already be thinking "I don't like this company and I am going to tell them", they are probably thinking who they can change to and leave you.

This is your chance to make a difference and to bring them back around without the need for a "retention" department or any of that crap.

I will give you an example of great customer service. Orange UK. Now I moved my business phones to Orange about six months ago and ever since then I have had all our phone calls cut off after a few minutes or drop when we are in the middle of an important call so as you can imagine this drove us mad and was not what we needed.

But this was a technical issue, I suggested it was linked to a merger with another provider but I digress. The real issue is that I decided to move back to my original carrier O2 and so I called the customer services to start the process of moving back.

Orange UK customer services were awesome about this, they understood my problem, didn't try to change my mind and listened. Then when I needed to get my PAC codes and iPhone unlock codes they did everything they could to help me out. The Call Centre is based in Newcastle Upon Tyne and so I got a Geordie most times and they do tend to be a friendly lot to speak to.

What mattered to me was that although Orange Service was not up to par their customer service was and I know that technical problems can be solved and they often are, so in the future I would not be put off moving back to Orange because I know that once the technical issues are resolved they will have a great service and a awesome customer service and thats a killer combination.

Make customer service everything, technical problems come and go, people know this, not caring for your customers can be a once only deal and you might not get the chance to do it twice.