An interesting day in many ways with some interesting lessons - all about Customer Service! First of all I charged into town this morning as I knew I didn't have a lot of time, and flew into the bank where there are all these fancy machines for carrying out your banking. Only the cheque that I was trying to put into the bank was being rejected by the machine and so I headed upstairs to the business banking section ............... which did not open for another 5 minutes.

So, if you hit one brick wall you turn round don't you? I went back downstairs to ask a member of staff for a solution - but there wasn't one and I was told to come back in 5 minutes. OK, not good, but OK.

So, my next port of call was the Orange Mobile phone shop. I had received a new phone the day before via courier direct from Orange (thank you orange), and whilst I did write down all sorts of notes from my conversation with a very nice young man on the phone as to what I was meant to do to get the thing working - could I remember - no! So, I thought to myself, it's ok, I will go into the store, they will of course be able to help! "Have you got your receipt" I was asked, I explained that no I didn't have a receipt it was delivered by courier the evening before, I just needed help to set it up. I had everything in the box - except one piece of paper. I asked if they could possible call Orange who would of course be able to confirm that yes indeed I had come by the phone by entirely honest means - but the response I got was "It's a different department".

Needless to say, I left the shop entirely dissatisfied. But what a contrast this was to my dealings with the skincare company Liz Earle Naturally Active. I have purchased from this company before, and everything about their products and their customer service makes the whole progress a wonderful warm experience! This really showed me just how much difference Good Customer Service and poor customer service can make. Both the bank and the phone company are huge corporations and yet they do not place enough importance on the experience the customer has when dealing with them and then all the work they do on building up their brand is ruined in the eyes of the customer by the person behind the desk or behind the till.

Funnily enough, I am taking part in a Telephone Seminar at the moment by Sales Guru Chris Cardell, and guess what part of his seminar was about? It was about the fact that the most successful entrepreneurs and business people are not driven by the desire to make money, but the desire to make a difference and add value to their customer's lives! Someone needs to tell Orange and HSBC that!