In a message dated 10/4/00 5:21:43 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
mruskin@PANGEA.CA writes:

<< Then the irate customer is your most loyal and happy customer, because he
 was the customer in greatest need of assistance - which you can always give
 him. >>

I agree w/ Marshall. I have been in the Customer Service business for 22
years. Most of those years were in the Regulatory Department of a government
regulated company. By the time the customer was talking to me, they usually
had been irate enough to have filed a WRITTEN complaint. Nine times out of
ten the problem was resolved by simply listening to the customer and
clarifying their needs. The other 10% were resolved with not much effort.

Almost every customer who went thru this program remain just that -- a
customer. An independent survey conducted monthly showed that we had a 99.7%
customer retention rate with an end of year average of 97% (at the time, it
was the highest in the States of California and Nevada). I've seen billboards
from car companies bragging about how they managed to hit 77%.

What's the secret? Listen to the customer and treat like well ... customers.

BenT
San Francisco

don't be a 3%