Happy New Year David and thank you for sharing your experience with Yorkshire business leaders. The recession has changed the customer focus, and it’s now a buyer’s market. As we enter a new communication era where "Happy customers tell three friends... and angry customers tell 3,000", when will businesses wake up and realise that their apparent apathy to customer care is equally responsible (if not more so) for the reduction in their profitability, as the economic downturn? I spent £120 taking my family to Elland Road on Boxing Day and 40 minutes at half time queing for toilets and a hot drink - which came in a cup without a safety lid... in a crowd of 30,000!!! But despite the global financial challenges of the last 18 months, we have seen "Customer Champion" businesses in all sectors continue to thrive, and relative new-comers take market share from these sleeping giants. Only today "Tebay Services" in Cumbria get national recognition for their immaculate toilet facilities and last year they picked up an Egon Ronay award... It's a service station! And the common philosophy they all share is an unwavering commitment to satisfying their customers - they "dare" enough to ask what's really important... and "care" enough to respond to the feedback. Now your 23,000 readers may be questioning whether "to buy a phone from Orange" or "use the catering and beverage facilities" at Leeds United - that's if they don't want to miss a minute of their awesome team!!! That's a shame really, because there can be over 65% margin on arena catering and on Boxing Day there were 30,000 elated fans but a lot of dissatisfied customers. It just goes to show that it's not "what you think your customers know about you"... it's "what your customers think you care about them". Please continue your coverage of this subject and put customer satisfaction a New Years resolution for Yorkshire business Warmest regards Stuart

Stuart Brown

Having long left the emppoy of Orange, and its bad customer service, I've been with Virgin Mobile for years. I've never had a single problem, and when I've spoken to them about an upgrade etc they've always been spot on.

Richard Hamer

For small SME customers Customer Service on all the Big 4 networks can be a minefield and a game of chance as to whether you get a well trained call centre monkey, a free thinking intelligent hard working helpful individual or a badly/barely trained monkey with a hangover. Best advice is to use a reseller recommended by someone you trust, they then deal with the network problems, changes to your account etc etc. You then get to build a personal relationship with the same individual.

David Powell - Auditel

This reminds me of May 2007, when Phones 4 U sold me a new contract phone. The contract was with Vodafone. A Vodafone call representative then phoned me up to "slag off" Phones 4 U and their service. I pointed out to him that in fact I'd had first class customer service from the shop. They had shown me a range of options and phones, helped me choose the one that fitted my requirments, and copied my phone book on to my new phone. Perhaps we need to keep the high street alive by using phone shops instead of going directly to the phone companies. They want us to go directly to them so that they don't pay commissions to phone shops. Liz

Elizabeth Ward

If you struggle to get answers through customer service then ask to be put through to the cancellations department. That's where people with the brains and ability to get things done work. It's amazing how many issues (and subsequent refunds) I've got resolved through the cancellations department.

Andy Cullwick

David - First Direct comes out top for me every time on outstanding customer service. When it was first launched in the 90's it made my life so much easier, and continues to do so. Happy New Year! Di Burton

Di Burton

And don't for one minute think that Orange customer services would be any better if you worked for them!

Richard Hamer

Happy new year David to you and your team. Was going to text you but .........

malcolm cowing