There are loads of resources and training courses out there about customer service. But the best way to truly understand what customers want is to put yourself in their shoes. Nothing beats personal experience, and the best thing is that you won’t have to squeeze your training budget to use it. Everyone’s dealt with bad customer service staff. Whether it’s rude receptionists, pushy sales staff or cashiers who are more interested in chatting to their friends than talking to us

With millions of blog posts published every day, is it really worth the hassle trying to get noticed unless you’ve got a big name and an equally hefty budget? Everyone’s doing it, a lot of it is mediocre at best, and customers will only read the ones that really mean something to them. And when each post takes a big chunk out of your day and writing doesn’t come easy, it can seem like something you’re best off without. Trouble is, people expect you to have a blog. It’s an ess

It would be a very arrogant person who decided to embark on a writing career without a deep appreciation of other people's work first. After all, we only really learn to write properly through reading. Not only does a great book fuel the imagination, it helps us understand how to make words flow and evoke powerful feelings; very important in this line of work. Someone recently asked me what my top four favourite books are and it took a while to whittle it down to these. It wo