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Unit 14: Investigating Customer Service - Assignment 1
Understanding Business (University of Greenwich)

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Unit Number and Title: Unit 14: Investigating Customer Service
Learning Aim: A: Explore how effective customer service contributes to business success
Learning Aim B: Investigate the methods used to improve customer service in the business
Assignment Title: Why is it important to provide excellent customer service?

Introduction
This assignment, I have selected two contrasting businesses and these businesses are Asda,
McDonalds
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Therefore, they are also one of the largest
supermarkets in the UK period
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They also do maintain superb customer service in order to remain
one of the most popular supermarkets in order to gain customer loyalty
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There are
one of the most successful fast food franchises in the world who cater to all ages and offer
great understanding on their customer service
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14/A
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What is Customer Service?
Customer Service is the assistance and advice which is provided by the organisation to its
customers who purchase the products or services
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Staff are trained thoroughly to know fully about the product and service in order to provide

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the best customer service possible
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Customer service does affect Asda’s business and its reputation
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Therefore, Asda have trained their staff very well to handle the situation for their
customer to receive excellent customer service to maintain its reputation
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Employees while they offer services, they have to offer good customer service through and a
great positive one
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Different types of customers
There are two different types of customer which are internal and external
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These internal customers are stakeholders, the employees and
shareholders
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Different approaches to customer service
Face to Face is when there is face to face interaction between the staff member and
customer physically
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Online: Online communication between the customer and employee
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The best thing about it is that it can be accessed anytime and
anywhere
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Post: This is when the customer posts a letter to the company, but it can take some time and
travelling is necessary to post the letter
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Some of these methods are used by both Asda and McDonald’s which is great as customers
have multiple choices of communication within their own ability for it to make it easier for
them
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In order to message Asda, email contact and telephone contact is the way to go
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The different
reams they have is home shopping, George and store service
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Telephone and post are another contact method
that can be done
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If the business provides bad customer
service, it can damage their reputation
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McDonald’s always try improving their customer service
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The way they have done this is by improving their employee’s experience
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Therefore, McDonalds also provides coupons
to public in order to maintain satisfaction
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Therefore, 97% of the customers also state that bad
customer service can change their buying behaviour with 46% of them to continue to
change their buying behaviour prior to 2 years after having a bad customer service
experience
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As 60% of the customer
prefer email, 58% prefer phone communication, 24% prefer SMS, and 18% prefer social
media
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The customers have stated that
28% do find multiple commutation channels a good way of identifying customer service with
the other 28% stating not being able to contact customer service with the communication
channel they’re more comfortable in as bad customer service
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Another benefit is a good review from the customer which will
motivate other customers to visit the store
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This can lead to ultimately an advantage over competitors
and a better work environment for the customer satisfaction the employees will feel
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P2 - Examine ways that the customer service in a selected business can meet the
expectations and satisfaction of customers and adhere to relevant current legislations and
regulations
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Some customers are analytical
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Another type of customer personality would be the driver
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Another customer personality is the amiable
customers
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They do a good customer loyalty if customer service is good
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These customers are always cheerful and

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optimistic
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Customer Complaints
McDonalds most complained by the customer is the customer receiving the wrong item
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Other complaints can be the waiting time because of how busy the
restaurant is and customers receiving cold food
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Ombudsman is the official appointed and responsible for individuals' complaints against a
company
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They do set their
prices low while producing good quality
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”
McDonalds are aware that most of their customer have an income of middle to low
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McDonalds have stated in their adverts on the TV that “you asked, we did it” which
highlights that they do respond very well to the feedback of the customers and are far more
capable to meet the expectations and need
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Therefore, there are also some of the legal and regulation every business has to follow
under the regulations and these can be from Consumer protection, Consumer Credit Act
1974, Consumer Protection Act 1987, The Data Protection Act 2018, Distance selling, The
Sales of Goods Act 1979, The Consumer Rights Act 2015, Health and safety and equal
opportunities
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McDonald's does aim to create a good equal opportunity in its work place while having an
own company policy which clearly states “we have a policy of employing local people where
possible, which means our restaurant employees are a true reflection of the communities
and people they serve every day
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We also have a number of programmes to encourage diversity in our workforce
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These legislations will be further explained in the assignment
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Businesses must comply with the legislations such as health and safety legislations
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They comply
with the law
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They train their employees to
work safely and consultation and communicating the employees about the safety
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P3 – Research methods a business can use to make improvements to the customer
service provision
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Customers I order to contact the customer service team, they can place a phone
call with them
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However, the only problem with this is that the customer only can make the call
within certain hours so it's not available all the time
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These types of employees show empathy, patience and
consistency and these skills are valuable in the customer service team
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These can
make the employees handle every situation from any type of customer
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All the staff should be trained fully and be able to prove they can
handle the customer confidently and calmly no matter the situation
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Getting personal with the customers allows them to be more comfortable and gain more
trust as they will prefer talking to a staff member rather than bots or FAQS
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On
the other hand, creating communities as the customers can feel very valued and honoured
as they will feel that they are an important member of a community
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Another way to do this is to
always be available to them
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If the business is online, then the business can provide video calls
especially to the ones that live far away
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Therefore, catering the customers is also very important as this can fully meet the
customer’s needs
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Offering some sort of VIP treatment to the best most frequent customers must be
appreciated and rewarded so this will allow less frequent customers to be like the best
customers
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This is because if a
customer asks a question about a product, they will have to know every single detail about a
product clearly for the customer to know all about the product before purchasing
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This can lead to happier employees and they will enjoy doing their
job even more
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M1 – Analyse how legislation and regulation impacts on customer service provision
in a selected business
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McDonalds do comply with the rules and
regulations by adhering to the policies which they clearly sate on the website
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However, the business still
maintains health and safety standards on a regular and does certify safety checks time to
time while training employees to their highest standard
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The main point of legislations is to protect and offer a duty of care to the customers
however, an excellent customer service will mainly sustain the focus from organisations
which McDonalds makes sure to follow both
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This has cost them over £3 Billion a year
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For McDonalds this may not be a huge problem as their foods are mostly
have a great reputation in terms of price and quality, so McDonalds doesn’t have to be too
concerned about this
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Legislations and regulations for McDonalds
The Fair Labour Standards Act 1938 was introduced to enforce the minimum wage and
overtime paying for workers who worked more hours than necessary
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This has benefitted the employee by giving them a better job satisfaction
while giving McDonalds a long run benefit as it means less money to keep in the pockets
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Due to equal rights this law was then passed on
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This increased workforce as soon
as the law was introduced as more women were to work
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The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is to make sure businesses allows safety
equipment for the staff members and makes sure to enforce the maximum exposure to the
harmful substances ensuring safety
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However, there is an
option of dump out oil from the fryers
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It's
also protective on the exposure of hands and arms
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The Immigration Reform and Control Act 1986 did affect the fast food business
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This affected McDonalds as
it used to employ many illegal workers which can be easily hired for minimum wage
however, now after this law it had made the business employment harder as they need to
show verification of the workers
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This was to allow the
employers accommodate for any disable workers
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McDonalds do allow aid dogs in their restaurants
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This did influence McDonald as they
had to force themselves according to law to allow workers a certain amount of leaves if any
serious incidents like those occur
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However, this law did not give McDonalds an upper
hand in terms of workforce effectiveness but did satisfy employee
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It can be from the date or birth, social security number, bank account numbers, IP
addresses etc
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They will never use any data for any personal benefit or any inappropriate way
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They will make sure its never disclose to anyone else inside or
outside
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The safety and
quality standards for food and beverages do meet the government requirements
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McDonalds view this part as a big responsibility as a good corporate citizen and it is essential
to the continuing growth and profitability
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This is important as they need to
notify the managers if there is a problem which relates to the safety standards of the
products
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They do not engage in human trafficking or any exploitation in order to do
import goods from slavery
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They prohibit any physical punishment or any
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abuse
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The Bribery Act 2010 - McDonalds does prohibit any bribery or kickbacks as in the Global
Anti-Corruption Policy
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McDonalds do not tolerate any
violations
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Consumer Right Act 2015- McDonalds makes sure to uphold the consumer protection laws
by displaying the nutritional facts in all the food items to the consumers so they are aware
what they are putting their bodies
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However, McDonalds also offer healthier option like salads instead of
fires
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Equality Act 2010- McDonalds also are committed to diversity and all equal opportunities for
everyone
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They do rely
to those diverse perspectives in order to build relationships with the customers and business
partners
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McDonalds provides equal treatment
and opportunity without even regarding the race, colour, sec, age, religion, citizenship etc of
the individual
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The Laws
and regulations do protect the men and women in the business as well as the customers and
which is vital to have a good relation between the both parties and else the business firms
will not be successful
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14/B
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It is important to evaluate and monitor the customer service regularly to make sure its high
standard and a good customer service will undoubtedly provide the business with great
reputation
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to
acquire monitoring of the customer service,
The way McDonalds monitor their customer service is through a website called Devoice
which is where the customer provides feedback as acts almost like a customer survey
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McDonalds also likes to send mystery shoppers to their stores in order to evaluate the
customer service
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They will be getting monitored on how their customer are being treated
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However, feedback from the mystery shopper can allow it to be very
subjective as it all down to their opinion
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This makes sure if there is a one-off incident
the whole reputation of the store will be gone
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The reason why employee feedback is important
is because the staff are to interact with the customer first which is why they have a better
understanding on how customers are feeling about the business
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Asda tries to encourage its customers to take part in the surveys
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However,
the reward for this for the customers is that they will be immediately be entered in a prize
draw after finishing the survey
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The
survey will also which Asda store they have visited and ask questions about that store so
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Asda will know which exactly is the store that needs working on or not
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Asda also monitors their customer service by getting mystery shoppers secretly sent to the
store
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However,
Asda do have a lot of stores around the country, so it is vital to send mystery shoppers all
around the country to visit each one
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Customer complaints is another way Asda of Asda monitoring the customer service
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Eventually this can result in an increase of reputation and lead
to new customers
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Therefore, by setting a minimum pay with
good equality between men and women and stopping discrimination while protecting
employee with harmful substances which can be dangerous and giving employees the
freedom to take leaves with legitimate reasoning
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14/A
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In my opinion, it is vital for the business to provide an outstanding customer service as this
can lead to good reviews from the customers and can encourage them to bring new
customers due to persuasion
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McDonalds being a worldwide known business is majorly impacted on the reputation which
means feedback is important and if any bad incident occurs it can become viral quickly due
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to press and news and social media which will definitely affect the business reputation and
lead to people visiting McDonalds competitors instead
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However, even when
food is the biggest factor, it can also be driven by the customer service to increase the brand
loyalty
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These laws protect the customers so if anything does happen to the customer
due to food or anything it can potentially create a lawsuit against McDonalds
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This is very vital for McDonalds
as it can be filed against and maybe can lead to court action which the business have to pay
out
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This can be followed up by a decrease in
customer loyalty and customers
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It can also influence people to visit McDonalds competitors
such as KFC, Subway and Burger King which is a huge negative as it means the business will
have its brand loyalty with customers lost and can affect significantly the success and profits
of the business
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14/B
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I believe, improving the customer service is vital for any business as it can affect the business
by benefiting new customers and increase in profits
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This is also affecting the customers
who receive better customer service which provide better experience at store
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For McDonalds to improve their customer service is simply to train their training for the
employees to perform better
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This notified me as its significant
because my friend is unaware when it comes to helping customers as it waits take him
longer to fix a situation
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So, training effectively will
benefit the employee as it can less stressful when handling complaints and therefore make
them more comfortable and self-motivated as it lets them know they can help others and
help themselves
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If a customer
enjoys the customer service provided at the store, then most likely they will leave a positive
review on the business and then it will allow others to shop at McDonalds which will result
in an increase in customers and sales
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This will also create an advantage over its competitors which will create more
conversions and more customers
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Finally, in conclusion customer service is very important as it also gives the customer a
benefit of enjoyable experience at the store and a very memorable one too this will allow
them to visit again and again and slowly be a loyal customer
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Bibliography

https://www
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com/resources/customer-service-and-lifetime-customer-value/
https://www
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co
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checkmyfile
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htm
https://www
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uk/data-protection
https://www
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uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses
https://ezinearticles
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instituteofcustomerservice
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marketingdonut
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uk/
https://businesscasestudies
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uk/
https://asda-stores
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com/app/contact
https://www
...
com/us/en-us/contact-us
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google
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vccs

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