tudy .ro – Tudor Damian
I plan to live forever. So far, so good.
I plan to live forever. So far, so good.
Jul 31st
For any business to survive it’s not enough just to have great leadership, a shiny website and excellent products. It’s also got to have excellent customer service. The basic concept of customer service is all about getting your customers to come back to you – creating repeat business.
When you have excellent customer service, two things happen:
1] You get repeat business
2] Your customers will talk about you (word-of-mouth marketing).
Below are tips for excellent customer service:
1] Always respond to telephone calls and call people back.
2] Always respond to emails. If you are not around, set up your email auto-responder to let people when you will be back, and that you will respond once you have access to email. In your auto-responder, give another person whom they can contact.
3] Be patient with your customers and listen to them.
4] Be accessible to your customers.
5] Deal with complaints. This is not easy, and many times small business owners will say to themselves, “ok… so I’ll lose one customer…” No one likes to deal with complaints, but your ability to make another customer happy will prove worthwhile in the long run.
6] Always throw in some kind of incentive for repeat customers. Let it be a coupon for a future discount or a buy-one and get-another-half-price or something.
7] Excellent customer service depends on everyone at your team. Train your staff as well!
8] In your marketing campaign point out the fact that you have excellent customer service. Why? Because people are looking for service that is hassle free. People are looking for a solution to their problem – your offer of great customer service gives them peace of mind.
9] Follow up calls after selling a product or service. Simply ask if everything worked out and if they have any questions regarding the product or service. This will leave a good impression of you and your company, and will secure repeat business.
10] Remember your customers’ names.
11] Sometimes you need to run the extra mile. This means that many times a customer will ask you about a product that you don’t have, or ask you a question for which you may not have the answer. Try to make the effort to help them out – it will pay off.
12] Always remember: Service with a smile!
Article Source: http://www.articleset.com
About the Author
Hillel Porath is the founder and developer of iyazam.com. Hillel has been working in marketing for several years learning many valuable lessons along the way, the fruits of which appear on his website. Hillel lives with his wife and toddler in Israel.
Jul 8th
We’ve recently gone through a site redesign for Transcent, focusing on usability/accesibility and ease of navigation.

New content and minor tweaks are on the way, but at least we’ve got to the first public-ready version.
Nov 7th
Just to keep it short, since busy I’m packing my bags for the trip to TechEd: a few hours ago, a public announcement that Office 2007 has reached RTM was made.
Anyhow, I’ll try and update my blog while I’m in Barcelona (as far as I’ve checked, we’ll have wireless Internet access throughout the entire event). If not, I will post my pictures and comments once I come back.
Quick update: .NET Framework 3.0 has also been released.
Nov 5th

A few days ago, an article published on Paul Thurrotts site showed us a sneak preview at the new type of packaging that will be used for the Windows Vista and Office 2007 retail versions. The new packaging is similar to that used by Microsoft’s Mac Office line, and features a hard, clamshell plastic container with simple graphics and design. Check out the packaging here.
In other news, the RTM corporate versions of Windows Vista and Office 2007 will be out in a few days, while the consumer versions will be available in January.
Sep 27th
I decided to put this all in one post, just to make it easier for me to give links and details on all this to my friends…
So, the story so far: it’s September, and new releases got out. First, we have Vista RC1 (build 5600) that has come out at the beginning of the month. Here are the relevant links:
Okay, you’ve got Vista running. But there’s one thing: the Beta 2 version of Office 2007 doesn’t work on Vista RC1. Microsoft did release a “Technical Refresh” version, which will work. You still need the Beta 2 release in order to install this, though.
Also, this release brings forward the PDF/XPS export thingie that I mentioned last month, with the option being removed and made available as a separate download. To make things short, here’s everything you need for downloading the Office 2007 Technical Refresh.
As a quick footnote here: Vista RC1 (build 5600) isn’t the latest public release. Build 5728 was released a few days ago, and is available to beta testers. You can find a few screenshots of this build on Paul Thurrott’s site.
Also, here’s something from the latest Vista and Office Beta Experience newsletter:
In this issue 3Sharp have produced some great virtual labs on MSDN.
They are built on Beta 2 and include the following:
Creating Workflows for Windows SharePoint Services
Introducing Content Types for Windows SharePoint Services
Understanding the 2007 Microsoft Office System User Experience and Interface Design
Programmatic Manipulation of the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats
You will need to register to run the labs but that should only take a minute.
Also in this issue we go deeper into Business Intelligence, Ted Pattison takes us step by step through configuring SharePoint for Excel Services and deploying spreadsheets. Patrick Tisseghem of U2U shows us how to use User Defined Functions in Excel Services.
For those of you who are code starved, Ted also shows us how to use WSS Events in Creating and Using Event Handlers in WSS 3.0 Finally keep your eyes open for announcements on the Technology Refresh for Beta 2 of 2007 Microsoft Office release.
Aug 19th
Quite a few interesting downloads in this month’s download notifications coming from the Redmond giant:
The Outlook HTML and CSS Validator is another huge step forward we see Microsoft take towards standard-compliant solutions. Plus, the ability to add maps to your Outlook meeting directions is another move towards the integration of desktop and web solutions. We’ll see much more of that in Windows Vista, once it ships.
Aug 16th
I’ve had someone tell me that PDF support in Office 2007 was removed. I did a bit of research, and here’s what I came up with: after last year’s official announcement of PDF support in Office 2007, a recent legal complaint coming from Adobe did indeed make Microsoft remove the native PDF support from Office 2007, but as a workaround Microsoft will offer it as a (free) separate download. Even more so, XPS support will also be available as a separate download as well.
Hopefully Adobe will realize their mistake, since there are other office suites that already support PDF output. Going after Microsoft and asking them to charge the customers extra for the “Save as PDF” capability was a really poor decision, especially with PDF being a (self-declared) open format. Anyway, PDF support will be there, it’s just that you’ll have to go through a few more extra clicks to have it…