A regular Sainsbury’s customer complained to us that he had been ignored at the deli counter.  Three members of staff chatted amongst themselves, none of them willing to serve the sole customer at their counter.  He asked “Anybody bothering to serve?” and got the response from one employee “Not if you talk to me like that?”

Many of us will have seen the signs across a broad range of businesses demanding that the customer respect their employees.  Without question utellus supports this position.  However as with all demands for respect, there also comes responsibility.  Members of staff have a responsibility to do their job to the best of their ability, and must be prepared to accept criticism when they fall below the standards that the typical consumer requires.  Likewise customers have the right to be treated with respect, not contempt.

We asked Sainsbury’s if they would like to comment and they told us: “We expect our colleagues to serve customers politely and efficiently at all times.  We welcome feedback from our customers and would encourage them in the future to report bad service (and indeed very good service) to a member of the store's management team.”

Hiding behind rights, and ignoring responsibilities will have only one outcome, particularly in a recession.  All customer facing businesses need to face up to the challenges ahead, and ensure that their staff are best prepared to deal with them.

We live in very interesting times.  A significant proportion of younger customer facing personnel, such as retail assistants, bank cashiers and leisure staff have probably never known a recession.  Those that have come into employment in the last ten years have only been exposed to a period of unprecedented growth, and consumers only too happy to part with their money. 

Over the next few weeks, utellus will be running a series of articles based on our customers issues in a number of industries and asks – how will companies respond to competing for the consumers’ decreasing disposable income; indeed do they even recognise that they need to do so?

It's just over a year since utellus started to revolutionise customer service.  We've spoken with senior management in some of the UK's biggest companies and attracted the attention of partners around the world.  In that time we've processed a lot of feedback, seen some very satisfied consumers, some focussed companies and learned a lot.  We've taken care to listen to what our users and the companies to whom they have sent feedback, have told us, and today utellus launches its enhanced service. So, what improvements did you tell us you wanted to see?

• Consumers and companies alike remain suspicious of email, and worry that sensitive information might go astray
• Different companies require different information in order to investigate and report back on feedback
• Consumers want to see a response tailored to them - "email response #5" simply isn't good enough

And what have we done?

• We now provide a secure internet portal through which all companies can respond to feedback.  Email is now only used to let you know that there is an update to your feedback - no information is sent in this way.  Added to this, there's no longer scope for the "we didn't get your email" excuse which consumers hear from companies far too often
• Whilst we will still provide a standard feedback form for every company on our database, each company can contact us to request specific information.  This might be required to satisfy their own Data Protection requirements, or simply to facilitate a quick response
• Customer-specific information will help companies to better address your concerns - some will still do a poor job, but experience shows that they'll be the ones to lose customers.  We will, however, provide the tools to help them do a better job

And the best news of all? It's always free for the consumer. And our basic service is free for the company.  There's no excuse for not signing up, no excuse for ignoring customers' needs.  What are you waiting for? 

Companies looking to learn more should click here.

Today, we’ve announced the first in a series of tools which will help companies of all sizes offer customer service excellence. For starters, we’re focusing on the SME market with the launch of utellus:commit, a simple customer service tool for small and medium sized businesses looking to reinforce their commitment to the highest levels of customer service.

To celebrate our appearance as a finalist in the 2007 Western Mail Business Awards, we’re offering SMEs a free 12-month subscription to this service, for a limited time.

Phillipe de Wilde, CEO of utellus Limited, says: “This is a really simple way for SMEs to get ahead of the competition. Subscriber companies put our logo on the ‘contact us’ page of their website – clicking our logo takes the customer into an easy-to-use feedback form which they complete and submit.”

“There are two key advantages to the SME: firstly by using an independent and neutral service to process their feedback, the customer is reassured that their opinions really do matter; second, utellus will chase companies where feedback is not answered, helping them to ensure that they always address their customers’ comments in a timely and effective way. The company’s responses are stored in the customer’s personalised message centre in utellus.co.uk, which makes it easy for them to see progress.”

Since we launched in December 2006, utellus has in the last two months entered into arrangements to provide tailored feedback services for household names like Vodafone, Avis and Cunard.

De Wilde adds: “Our goal is to help businesses of all sizes improve their customer service. We all know that many of our largest companies struggle to keep a personal relationship with their customers. However, as they grow, many smaller businesses find it increasingly difficult to maintain previous high standards of customer service. We can help them keep their eyes on the ball – simply email us at commit@utellus.co.uk.”

Vodafone has been in touch with us to ensure that your feedback to them gets addressed as quickly as possible by the most appropriate team. At their request we made a few changes to the Vodafone feedback form, and we’ve now completed a series of tests to ensure that your utellus feedback gets to the right people.

Phillipe de Wilde, utellus CEO, says: “Large companies spend huge amounts of money trawling the web looking for unhappy customers on blogs and chatrooms. utellus now gives those customers the opportunity to express their concerns in the knowledge that their feedback will be taken seriously. Additionally Vodafone has asked that we let them know if your feedback is going unanswered, which we will do.”

If you have feedback for Vodafone, either good or bad, we can direct it for you. All we ask is utellus.

Christopher Colgan, an employee in the motor claims department of More Th>n Insurance, has been recognised by utellus as providing outstanding customer service in January.

Our user told More Th>n “I had previously been very unhappy with the conflicting messages that I had received from various members of staff and was considering a formal complaint to the FSA. Mr Colgan’s manner and professionalism were instrumental in me deciding not to pursue a complaint. Above this, he also proposed procative solutions to the existing problems which have restored my faith in your company.

He went on to say: “I was extremely annoyed prior to the call; by the time it finished, I felt confident that something positive was going to be done. This was reinforced by a confirmatory letter received a few days later outlining exactly what had been agreed.”

We send our congratulations to Mr Colgan.