How personal should business be? Do some customers prefer to keep their suppliers at a professional distance or can great things grow from that personal touch?

I have always been a great believer in the personal touch when it comes to customer relations. 15 years ago when I first started out in the world of IT and customer care it was common practice and quite acceptable to send celebration cards and sometimes even gifts to the customers. Then I noticed a change in attitudes towards such activities. It became unprofessional to get so close and customers seemed to become more skeptical towards the motives behind such gestures. What a terrible shame that the working relationships had been spoiled by changing company policies.

From experience though I do feel that acknowledging a customers celebration is still appreciated and can still be done in a way not to cause the staff to shout “share that round that’s the new rule”.

At CE Services this month we have had 3 customers celebrating new babies, Lee at Martin Dawes, Dave at Crewe Engineering, Greg at Thomas Hardies Trucks and we wanted to pass on our congratulations to them. So we did by sending them cards which we all signed with personal messages. Our only motive being that of genuine joy for them. The cards were greatly appreciated.

In a world where the only news seems to be bad news, why not take time to highlight the good that surrounds us all every day?

After clearing the snow off my car this morning and driving carefully into work I started to think about the days when an overnight snow fall would have really affected my working day.

I would arrive at work with my “we will try our best to get out to you, roads permitting” speech all prepared and rehearsed in my head. Every server/network or PC problem a few years back would have involved an on site engineer. Although our customers understood the unavoidable situation it was still frustrating for them and us to have to pile the visits up for the next day.

How times have changed! Technology has moved on, Snow what Snow?

Over 80% of Network/PC problems are now resolved by our helpdesk via a remote connection to the user’s server or PC. No more travelling to the scene of the problem, with engineers fighting their way through the snow blizzards. Gone are the days of customers having to wait patiently, they now receive almost instant attention as if the engineer was sat with them at the PC. With reports of the travel networks grinding to a halt and more and more people logging on from home and connecting remotely, should we all be looking at ways to keep warm and working? How does the weather affect your business? Would you benefit from having VPN connections enabling people to work from home remotely?

So with happier customers and warmer engineers yes I do think Technology is fighting against the elements.