 | [Aki Kalliatakis] Customers have the power to change service levels, performance and product, yet still they feel they are often mistreated. Successful complaining however needs to be focused in order to achieve lasting results. |
 |  [Tiffany Markman] Oy vey. What a can of worms. In part I, I raised the question of whether FNB's lofty promises, delivered via the chirpy 'Steve', were empty. I did so, as you know, publicly. And I learned two very important things. Here they are:
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|  [Tiffany Markman] I seldom pick sides in fights such as #bankwars. Barring an ambivalent flip through the twitterverse to find out who hates who and get a glimmer of insight into why, I wait for the cacophonous twysteria to die down; for my stream to return to 'normal'. But this time, I have a definite bias.
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 |  [Walter Pike] I was speaking at an event on Thursday afternoon, 23 February 2012, about the changing media landscape and the inability of companies to control the conversation, the need to listen and understand the discussion and what is happening in the community, and rather the need to facilitate the discussion. Afterwards, I checked my Twitter stream - and saw the start of the Standard Bank/FNB firestorm. It was almost as if they had done it to help me make my point.
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 |  [Craig Kolb] Fred Reichheld, an American loyalty guru, has argued that the days of customer service satisfaction surveys are over (Reichheld, 2003). Instead we should only be measuring customer loyalty. According to Reichheld, all that is necessary is a single question, which he labels 'The Ultimate Question'.
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 | [Patrick Carmody] What do McDonalds, my favourite restaurant, Woothemes and Audible.com have in common? They all offer excellent service in their respective categories and 'customer expectation sets' and they all contain the offering, thereby limiting the chances of pain points in the customer experience. |
 | [Jacqui Greeff] Our business has just suffered 25 consecutive days with no ADSL, thanks to Telkom. This chronically challenging 'net-less period was characterised by daily contact and pleading on our part, and apparent apathy on its. The odd SMS telling us that we still didn't have a service hardly qualified as a serious response. |
 | [Matthew Bougas] Being in the customer-retention game myself, I thought I would offer up my thoughts on the topic of customer loyalty. Ever since the 80/20 rule was coined, marketers have been chasing the Holy Grail that is sustainable customer loyalty. How do you retain the customers you have and keep them coming back for more? |
 | [Kevin Bassett] As business owners, we are all customers but we turn into ostriches when it comes to call centres - our heads buried in the sand to avoid the truth that it's time for call centres to change. |
 | [Karen Parkin] Earlier this year I made a presentation entitled "Is Poor Usability Killing Your Business?" at the Marketing Indaba. This is not a facetious question. The fundamental thing is that it is impossible to think about usability without focusing on the customer. |
 | Great post Lindsay, thank you. Now let's pray that the culprits read this! |
 | [Lindsay Grubb] Are you making it hard for your customers to contact you, or to buy your product or service? There is nothing more frustrating than becoming interested in a product or service to find that you actually can't get access to it. |
 | I love your article. Just last week someone complained to me that there are 'clicks' in their organisation and they don't feel there is adequate communication channels. I asked a simple question. Have you ever done team building exercises? Or do you meet up as a team to 'bond on a regular basis? He said no never and what is the point, they only communication with each other sometimes and don't work together on a daily basis. I find it sad because they choose to sidetrack each other instead of meeting up to smooth out the cracks and work together as a team. I also saw how it caused a lot of frustration and unnecessary stress that could be prevented if only they had proper communication channels in place... I can imagine that the work therefore is not up to the standards it should be. |
 | [Daniel Munslow] Customer relationship management... customer service... customer loyalty... There are a dozen ways to describe companies' attempts to retain customers. The reality today is that no matter what type of industry in which you're operating, customer-centric strategies and initiatives are at the front of the quest for higher profits. Behind the scenes, however, there are a number of internal processes that need to be brought into line before customer service can be fully realised. |
 |  [Chris Moerdyk: @chrismoerdyk] Every year, someone somewhere makes a real gaffe when talking about or defending their brands. Quite often, these are people at the coal face - that all-important marketing touch-point where the consumer comes into contact with the product.
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 | [Issa Sikiti da Silva: @sikitimedia] Self-service in South Africa has spectacularly grown in the past three years, showing significant changes in many areas as local companies begin to embrace customer's choices of web, mobile, kiosks and speech. This is according to a survey conducted this year by World Wide Worx in partnership with Consology. |
 |  [Rachelle Bricout] Service in this country continues to be a bone of contention with many, and this applies to service in all industries, including law, accounting and financial service firms. Making sure clients receive exceptional service is imperative and this means from their first contact with your firm to their final destination.
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 |  [Herman Manson: @marklives] For online interaction with consumers to be successful, brands are required to undertake a transparent, truthful and open approach to communication. "You need to keep it real," says Alex Hunter, independent brand consultant and a speaker at the Tech4Africa conference being held this week in Johannesburg, 12-13 August 2010.
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 | Thanks for this! this is excellent, this is what every business owner must adhere to.
Coupled with this info and some of my insights into building customer loyality via a website / blog etc (because im in the internet / online industry) - im sure i can retain more customers..
Great! :)
Regards
Yoray Narainpersad |
 |  [John Boe] The most successful companies place great value on developing lifetime relationships with their customers. In today's competitive marketplace, they are aware that their customers are aggressively prospected and their loyalty cannot be taken for granted.
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