How often has your schedule been thrown out of whack because of a client's needs? I try to live by the 80/20 rule: working from my home office 80% of the time and working onsite with clients 20% of the time. But, the past week has been the exact opposite. I had a demanding onsite project. I had to drive halfway across town and give up my weekend to help my client meet their deadline. Yeah, I know. It's time to get me some cheese to go with my whine.

1. Don't get Hooked !!! When people behave towards you in a manner that makes youfeel angry, frustrated or annoyed - this is known as a Hook. We can even become "Hooked" by the way people look, how theytalk, how they smell and even by their general demeanour. If we take the bait then we are allowing the other person tocontrol our behaviour. This can then result in anunproductive response. We have a choice whether we decided to get hooked or stayunhooked.

Customer Service is a critical factor for keeping your clients coming back and ensuring they'll refer you to others. Growing your business will be a difficult task at best if you don't perform, meet and exceed your client's expectations, and provide service that creates customers for life.

We all want great service, whether we are buying our weekly groceries from a store, or want a billing hitch resolved at our local utilities provider. Whether it's getting our car fixed, or a great meal in a restaurant. So we can holler and complain about how poor customer service and satisfaction has become - or we can do something about it ourselves, when we have those one-to-one opportunities with a real person.

One of the most important questions people ask when they are focused on improving their quantity and quality of business is: "What is my competitive advantage?��� What makes me unique, memorable, special? what truly sets me apart from the rest?"

Customer service is increasingly seen as one of the most valuable uses for a commercial World Wide Web site.� Your Web site is available on a 24 hour, seven days a week basis.� So it is well worth exploring ways in which your customers can virtually "serve themselves," without the need for overtime staff, or lengthy voice mail procedures.

The purpose of business is to create and retain a customer. Much has been written about customer orientation, customer relationship management (CRM), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics, Customer Centric organization models, customer retention, customer care-add any high sounding word with -customer- preceding or succeeding that word and you have a new model, a new theory. Headline hitting books, celebrity author seminars and training till another theory comes along.

Why bother? Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although new customers are important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.

Having been in business a number of years, I'm amazed at the number of people who don't have the slightest idea of what customer service is. Customer service is not a way of doing things - it's an attitude.

Listening to complaints, whether they're reasonable or not, is a part of every manager's job. Sometimes complaints can be overwhelming. However, by taking them in stride with an open mind, we can learn much from our employees' and customers' feelings about the workplace.