CRM and ERP News

--By Sagar Satapathy

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the New Year edition of the Carnival of Customer Service. Despite the holiday season, we received a large number entries out of which 15 posts managed to make the cut. Here are the posts that are featured on this carnival:

Mark Levison presents Nightmare with Sears Canada or when to purchase an extended warranty? posted at Notes from a Tool User. Mark quotes Adrian on Hardware 2.0, who shares his nightmarish experience with Sears Canada.

Tamar Weinberg presents Going Above And Beyond Your Call of Duty posted at techipedia.. There are thousands of competing businesses. Each can say they offer so-and-so, but there going to have to be something that differentiates Company A from Company B.

Ben Yoskovitz presents The Value of a Customer Complaint posted at startupspark.com. Looking at the importance and value of a customer complaint and what it can mean to the success of your business.

Phil presents Etiquette to Reading and Replying to Emails posted at Phil for Humanity. This one is very helpful for people who work for the email process in the call centers. Great tips on etiquette to reading and replying to emails.

Charles H. Green presents Trust Tip 26: Check Your Ego at the Door posted at Trust Matters. This post provides tips to wrestle that last 5% to the ground is more likely to annoy than impress the client.

Murad Ali presents Diversity Brings Profits: No longer a feel good program. posted at The New Business World. Diversity is an issue that has struck many managers and executives as a feel good program without much merit.

Julia Dorofeeva presents Online Presents for Christmas and the New Year! posted at Online Dating Blog. This article is devoted to Online Dating industry and the ways the site owners can offer a good customer service for their members!

Anna Farmery presents Customer Experience - Making Magic Moments posted at MabelandHarry. Creating a magic moment for a customer increases loyalty, and provides the WOW factor that differentiates you from the rest of the pack...a little story.

Richard Dowling presents Stupid Shop Assistants posted at Smart People in a Stupid World. This is a humorous article about a bad customer service experience Richard had. Actually, it wasn't bad, it was shockingly awful...

Adeolu Akinyemi presents Customer Intimacy? posted at Deoluakinyemi. Customer intimacy? First it sounds like a concept fraught with more downsides than upsides, but no. Customer Intimacy is a currently growing terminology used to describe the act of becoming responsible for your customer results.

Matthew Paulson presents The Problem with Quixtar & Amway. posted at Getting Green. Matthew shares some interesting facts about Quixtar and Amway.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Of Black Holes And Insurance Claims posted at The Digerati Life. Silicon Valley Blogger's rant on insurance customer service reps and the insurance industry! Will they listen?

Charles H. Green presents Trust Tip 3: The ABC 20 Question Rule posted at Trust Matters. Self-orientation is the biggest factor affecting personal trust if your objectives, goals and focus is on yourself, then to that extent, customers and clients won't trust you.

Corey presents The Truth About Dell posted at myopiniononeverything.com. Learn some interesting facts about Dell. Corey tries to dig deeper into Dell's truth.

Barbra Sundquist presents How to Set Up an Aweber Autoresponder posted at HomeBusinessWiz. Barbara provides tips on how to set up an Aweber Autoresponder that is mostly in customer service centers.

That concludes the New Year edition of the Carnival of Customer Service. It is great to see that there has been a sharp increase in the submissions to this edition as compared to the last one. I hope to receive more such great posts on customer service and related issues in future.

We recently published "The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Call Center Service" at CRM Lowdown. If you haven't already read it, then go ahead and look over it. It may be controversial, but gives some interesting facts that you don't know. If you like our site, then you can consider adding it to your blogroll. We will appreciate any such gesture. Thanks!!!

--By Sagar Satapathy

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first edition of the "Carnival of Customer Service". Although this is the inaugural edition of the carnival, we are overwhelmed to receive some great entries that are fit to be here. I am sure that the "Carnival of Customer Service" will turn out to be a huge success in the coming days with more and more bloggers submitting their entries to the carnival. Here are the 8 great blog posts that speaks a lot about customer service:

Nick Rice presents "A Lesson From The Garage" at Small Business Branding & Marketing. Nick shares his recent small business experience with the readers. This is related to customer service in the automobile industry.

Barbra Sundquist presents "Compassion and Business: Not Mutually Exclusive" at HomeBusinessWiz.com. Barbara has her own opinion on business rules. She believes that compassion and business are not mutually exclusive. She has explained her point with a good example. Great argumentative post!

Anna Farmery presents "MabelandHarry: Customer Service" at MabelandHarry. Anna was delighted to get a unique, good customer service from a representative. It clearly proves how good customer service means a lot to the customers.

Anna Farmery presents another interesting post "Communicating with Customers" at The Engaging Brand. The post contains some great tips on customer service that are definitely helpful for the companies and customer service representatives. A quote from her post: "Develop customer service skills within the organization. Constantly train people - not to read a script but to create a relationship with the customer".

David Maister presents "You Gotta Serve Someone" at David Maister's Passion, People and Principles. This is undoubtedly one of the best posts of this carnival. David deeply goes into the client-customer concept and explains why customer service is a challenge rather than a a mere responsibility. While handling the customer's problems, you must act as a "server" who has only one thing in mind - to serve the person who seeks his/her help. Great post!

Charles H. Green presents "Trust Tip 7: Returning Calls Unbelievably Fast" at Trust Matters. Charles has revealed how it costs to the company when people do not return the calls/emails. The post also talks about the reasons behind the non-action and the solutions to overcome the problem.

Emmanuel presents "Customer is King" at Emmanuel Oluwatosin: Inspiring Excellence, Realising Ambition. We have heard the slogan "Customer is God" several times. Now the customer has become a king and dictating terms in this competitive world. Emmanuel is right in saying that customer's opinion matters in most cases, as they are the ones who make or break a company.

Steve Bainbridge presents United's "Customer Service" at Professor Bainbridge's Journal. Steve has written about the state of customer service at United Airlines. Steve clearly warns the bosses at United Airlines to wake up to the need of the hour and put their house in order. Otherwise, it may prove costly for their company in the end.

Final Word: I thank all who submitted their posts to make this carnival a successful one. I expect to see such great posts in the future editions of this carnival too. Until then, have a great time and keep up the great blogging!

Here's a good news for our readers. We are going to host the first edition of the "Carnival of Customer Service" on December 11, 2006. We require interesting blog posts on CRM, customer service, call center, business, marketing and other customer-related issues. Feel free to submit your entries through the Blog Carnival Page.