My Time at Bond Solutions

My name is Emma Curtis and I attend Bedale High School, North Yorkshire. Last week I had great time at Bond Solutions where I was studying for my work experience. The team were really friendly and made me feel extremely welcome. I was paired with Jerri Murtagh the Marketing Executive, who helped me to overcome my shyness as she was so interesting and patient, teaching me lots about the Public Relations industry.

Jerri was busy finishing the e-newsletter, and during the morning I enjoyed watching her make the final few tweaks to the interactive newsletter, which had links to all their social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook. In the afternoon we were working on computer software called SalesLogix. At first the software seemed complex and difficult to use, but after some guidance from Jerri I began to understand it, and I even filled in a page of opportunities.

On the second day of my visit I watched Jerri send out the e-newsletter. We checked that all the contacts had proper names, before sending it out to over 1100 contacts. Once sent we could look at really cool software and see who had opened our emails and clicked on the links. This enabled the Bond team to see how successful they had been, and ultimately how effective the e-newsletter is.

My two days were extremely enjoyable and I would like to say thank you to Derek and all his staff for making me feel welcome. I feel I gained a lot of experience about working in an office environment and how important it is for you to have a nice atmosphere in the workplace.

The Importance of Customer Service

As a Business Partner to Sage we are required to work to a high standard of customer service, however we strive to ensure that we exceed our customers’ expectations.

Good customer service is vital to any successful business and I believe that both the before and aftercare service are as important as each other.

One of my biggest pet hates is companies who, once they have my money, switch off and suddenly become extremely unhelpful– I’m sure that everyone has similar experiences and this is definitely not the way I like to do business.

When I established Bond eight years ago, providing an efficient customer service was at the forefront of my mind and I have passed this ethos down to all of my staff.

From a customer’s perspective, working with a Business Partner can bring with it many benefits, as well as allowing local businesses to support each other through the tough time the economy is currently experiencing.

We can offer our customers the personal touch. We take time to understand their business and make sure that there is always a consistent team working on each account.

When we are asked to do a business solution consultation, our main priority is finding out what product best suits each individual business. We want to streamline our customers’ business processes and selling them a product which is not viable for their company means that we are not doing our job properly.

In addition to this, we are occasionally able to pass significant discounts onto our customers which are not always available through Sage themselves. This allows us to ensure that our prices always remain competitive and of course keep our customers happy.

Our team is fully committed to providing customers with a service that we believe is second to none. This has been recognised by Sage as we are currently ranked second in the UK out of over 2,500 other companies in the Sage Circle of Excellence Awards. The award is based on independent research into how many of our customers would be prepared to recommend our services to others and we are very grateful for their support.

The award only allows 15 businesses in each year and we are always very conscious of building on this success.

Our service doesn’t stop after we have installed or trained users on our products. We offer support on everything that we supply to ensure that our customers always have somewhere to turn to if they should experience any problems with their products.

We are very passionate about our customers and we are always looking to utilise our resources to ensure that they are kept informed. We will be launching a new website, regularly updating our blog and sending out monthly e-newsletters to ensure they are informed of the latest industry and product news.

With this in mind we are always keen to hear any comments on how you think we are doing and what we could improve so please do get in touch! Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin for the latest news and special offers.