Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

Meikah Delid of Customer Relations: The New Competitive Edge, is my guest blogger today.  Meikah also provides a wealth of information about customer service. I truly enjoy collaborating with others who are passionate about educating others and have learned quite a bit about customer service from reading her blog...

Always a Customer

I love eating out. I love shopping. I love traveling, and one day hope to see the world.

Call me a free spirit. But every chance I (and family, too) get I try out every new store, resto, or moviehouse. Does that make me an ultimate customer? I think so. One thing's for sure, I know what constitutes good or bad customer service. Naturally, I go back again and again to those establishments where I feel most welcome.

I believe quality customer service is the glue that sticks a customer to a business. More importantly, I believe that customer service differentiates one business from the other. Yet, despite this reality, only a few companies truly give quality customer service.

I don't know with other families, but in mine, we are big on consumer rights. We demand good customer service. My father who is a retired architect and now an active spokesperson of the senior citizens' association, is seriously advocating consumer rights. He feels frustrated in the government's lack of concern for its citizens' rights as consumers. My husband whose job partly requires him to oversee his company's customer service department can't help being aware of customers needs.

It's not always easy to be a customer or a consumer. Most often we feel the brunt of every product-cost adjustment, tax increase, or any changes in the economy. Businesses would always pass it on the consumer whatever price adjustments they have to make in order to stay liquid. And how often have we been the poor individual who lost his luggage due to airline mix-up, had damaged furniture due to bad handling, or received spoiled goods due to defective packaging. I could go on and on.

Yet it also feels good to be a customer. To be pampered in the spa, to be always welcomed with dry sparkling wine by your favorite hotel, or to have a smooth connecting flight or layover. Who wouldn't want a delivery system that is speedy, responsive and flawless, or a customer feedback and communication channel that addresses complaints and concerns promptly and well? Everyone does.

That is why I am happy there is a proliferation of customer service weblogs. It shows that there's now great awareness of customers' rights. And with the nature of weblogs, where you can tell the world of your praise or complaint in seconds as opposed to a company's hotline, I believe we can improve the customer service in every industry. After all, each one of us is always a customer.

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