Customer Service vs. Sales

Good sales and customer service are really the same thing. When you attempt to make a sale you are offering a customer something they want or need. In customer service you are addressing a customer’s want or need. If you can serve your customer your customer will buy that service.

Unfortunately many companies look at this in a different way. They want their sales people to sell you on something instead of offering you a solution. Then many times it is taken a step further by asking customer service specialists to sell you something.

From my experience if you give service first the customer will give you the sale. If your customer likes you and trusts you they will tell you what you can offer them. If you know what to offer the sale is made for you.

Here are some things that you can do to let the customer
bring the sales to you.

1. Think service first. Let your customers tell you what
   they need.


2. Personalize. If a customer gives you pieces of personal information commit them to memory and bring them up later. This will help build trust.


3. Know your products. If you don’t know your products
   you can’t tell a customer how a product will fit their needs.

One thing I recommend is to keep a record. Use Excel or Access to keep track of every contact with a customer. You can make notes of personal information, and track purchases to anticipate future needs.

Buy Microsoft Office software here.

Are you ready for time to change?

As some of you know daylight savings time is coming a little early this year. In fact daylight savings time is coming three weeks earlier then it did last year. Sunday March 11^th will start daylight savings time and many software programs could be effected by the change.

The time change should have no effect on Windows Vista, Exchange Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. There are however many programs that do need updates. Windows Server and Windows XP will need updates. I know that many businesses have been delaying the change to Windows Vista, but now might be the time to do it to avoid any time change problems.

There are some other programs that will require updates and you can find that list here. Also if you do need updates you can find the updates here. I hope that the upcoming time change goes smoothly for everyone. If nothing else just don't forget to set your watch.

Office 2007 vs. Google Apps

I have seen a lot of information lately about Google Apps. From what I have been able to determine Google is offering a web based Word Processor and Spreadsheet application.  It is being said that this will compete with Microsoft Office 2007. Specifically with the Word and Excel portions of Microsoft Office. The more I look over the information on Google Apps the less appeal I see.

Google Apps is a web based system. There is an advantage in this from a licensing standpoint. There is not a need to keep track of license information, only a username and password. Also there is no installation or activation needed. The issue is you have to be connected to the internet at all times in order to use your application. If your internet service goes down or slows down, your applications go down or slow down.

The price of Google Apps has also been talked about. At $50 per user per year it sounds like a very cost effective method. A counter to that is Office Standard runs about $360 for the full retail license, even less under Open Lcense. The difference being once you buy Office, it is yours. You can use it for 10 at $36 a year, or longer and the price per year continues to go down. It doesn’t take long for $50 per year to seem like a lot more to pay then you would for Office. There are benefits to both, please post your opinions!