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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))

Well House Consultants
You are on the site of Well House Consultants who provide Open Source Training Courses and business hotel accommodation. You are welcome to browse and use our resources subject to our copyright statement and to add in links from your pages to ours.
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Well House Consultants module G501
Customer Service
Resources from the web site of Well House Consultants on the subject of Customer Service. We provide open source training course and business hotel accommodation in Melksham, Wiltshire, England

Background
Providing customer support from initial contact right through beyond trainiing courses. Our customers are our lifeblood - that's something we try to remember at all times.
Articles and tips on this subjectupdated
4232Not wanted here - hotel guests who will not be happy
Yes, I want you to stay at Well House Manor - but only if you'll enjoy it; I really don't want to sell rooms to people who won't overall be happy with what they have bought - not only would we end up with a disappointed customer, but we also risk bad reviews. We risk damage being done ("room was trashed") ...
2014-01-03
 
4078Train works for me!
As a schoolchild, I commuted to school by train, and I found the train in amongst the crowds an ideal place to do my homework. My teachers didn't share the view of how well this worked, as my writing was rather too poor for them to be able to read - I'm sure they knew what I was doing, but I got marks ...
2013-05-04
 
4077Palty or Parliamentary?
A "parliamentary" train service is one that's run on a railway to meet minimum legal requirements. The term originates from a requirement on all companies to provide at least one train a day at rate of an old penny a mile calling at all stations, so that rail transport would be available to all. Some ...
2013-05-04
 
195Customer service - examples to warn us
"Open" says the sign in big bright words on the end of the snack kiosk set amongst the sandhills in Vazon bay, Guernsey. What a relief - I had completed a course on Friday and was spending Saturday waiting for the boat home by doing a little sightseeing; fascinating to see all the French remains from ...
2012-11-04
 
150Confession
Wednesday, 1st December - 9 a.m. ... waiting for the (single) student for our "Perl for Larger Projects" course. The booking had been made a good few months earlier, and shortly thereafter we had been notified of a delegate change, and also a company change as the booking organisation had been taken ...
2012-11-04
 
3835The Information age - not yet truly with us?
We're told that we're living in the information age - where anything you need to know is available at the click of a button, and where data is King. I'm not so sure that I agree - I think we're still coming into the information age. Much of the information we need is out there, but - in spite of the ...
2012-08-18
 
3808Can you put names to faces?
I can recognise faces. But I'm not good at putting names to faces. Introduce me to someone - "this is Bill Brown" - and the name "Bill" will stick as I talk with him; I'll listen and learn about him, form an impression which I'll remember in summary. But, alas, I have trouble remembering that it's ...
2012-08-11
 
961Products that our customers want more of
Perhaps the ultimate "rave review" for some of our new facilities and offerings is the customer who asks for details of our supplier so that he too can get in touch with them about their product for his personal use, or the customer who comes to us on business and returns just for the pleasure. I'm ...
2012-07-09
 
3378New product - ensuring that supply matches demand
When a new product is brought to market, there will be a few people who buy it straight away - the latent market that has just been waiting for that product. Then there may be a bit of a surge as they tell their friends, before sales drop off to a more steady state level. It can be difficult to judge ...
2011-08-03
(longer)
3294It's not just about the jam in the sandwich
Customer Service is crucial. If you check into a hotel, you want to be received straight away rather than having to wait while the proprietoress finishes chatting with her friends, and on checkout you want to pay and get going rather than have to wait for her for five minutes while she scrambles eggs ...
2011-05-20
 
3271The importance of feedback
Much of my job is answering questions that people ask. And another big part is answering questions that people haven't actually asked, but would ask if they knew they wanted / needed to ask - it's called training, or you could call it "proactive informing" rather than "reactive informing". Feedback ...
2011-04-30
 
3103Thank you - and Happy Christmas
A personal, big, THANK YOU to all of our customers, and all our staff, for everything they've done for Well House this year, and a very happy Christmas to one and all. A business wouldn't function without customers ... and it wouldn't be such a pleasure to run without such great customers. Almost ...
2010-12-24
 
3073Customer Service - the boundary
In our businesses, the customer is king; without the customer we wouldn't be where we are today, and a happy and smiling face should always be presented, and we should always do our very best to provide what the customer wants. Ian walked in to Well House Manor for the first time yesterday, and was ...
2010-12-04
 
2049Why Choose Well House Consultants for your course?
The course must cover the right subject. From the right starting point. And at the right pace. It must be taught be someone who knows the subject, can present it in such a way that you can take in what you're being taught, and who can (and will) advise you on what is the best way for you to apply what ...
2010-11-15
(longest)
2961Initial handling of phone calls and walk in visitors
"Thank you for calling Well House. If you are calling to book a course, press 1. If you are calling to book a hotel room, press 2. If you're calling to check whether a course is suitable for you, it's 3, and you should press 4 if you're trying to sell us something. To reach Graham to talk about the ...
2010-09-21
 
2880Getting in touch - Please allow me to see you when you are online
We're coming up to ten years of training in Melksham - and over those ten years, I have trained (literally) thousands of delegate here (Wow - what a lot of business for Melksham!). Add to that at least the same number of delegates trained on customer sites, and all the people I taught in the previous ...
2010-07-30
 
2650Getting a phone line changed ...
Let me see if I can remember this. 1. I called a number, and went through a series of four menus, looking to speak to someone. In between the various elements of the call, I was told that I could read all about in on the web, and that my call might be recorded for quality purposes. I was then asked ...
2010-03-03
(longer)
2530Taking a knock over Santa
You will note a rare gap yesterday. Sunday's Santa trip was a great success ... or so I thought. But a message to return a phone call yesterday, and I find myself speaking to a lady who I can only describe as "irate" saying that the trip had been "total and utter chaos", and a ripoff. My personal ...
2009-12-10
 
1319Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business
I'm going to share here a forum posting I just made in an obscure corner of the net concerning customer feedback, where a cynical poster (he may have been right to be cynical) was worried that his inputs were not being taken seriously. "But that doesn't mean it will do anything about them" he wrote. My ...
2009-08-31
 
2258Questions I have been asked on answering the phone
What does a fishing license at Shearwater cost and who sells it? Dunno ... What light bulb do I need for my fitting? Err ... What's the best way to sell a mango press? (I can't work out why Google send people to this page of ours) What is the postcode for Westonbirt? Yer wot ... What is ...
2009-06-28
 
2236Alumni - revisiting and supporting the old University
I have just completed a survey for my old university - I won't name them here, but researchers will be able to find out who they are easily enough, as I made a comment and recommended one of their courses - which actually competes to some extent with what we do - in a comparison chart here recently, ...
2009-06-21
(longer)
2124Building down expectations
Ask about Wiltshire, hotel accommodation, business meetings, travel, and open source topics - ask Graham the tutor! I visited a web site where I had posted a short article and clicked on the link to "contact the author" - i.e. myself. And I found myself cautioned as follows: • A response ...
2009-04-10
 
2102What do people think of our Apache httpd / Tomcat course?
We train a lot of well known (no - make that VERY well known) names, as well as smaller organisations, and contractors and individuals too. And we thrive on customer feedback and recommendation - yet at the same time, we respect the privacy of our clients. So the following is reproduced with permission, ...
2009-03-25
 
2015Service Excellence Awards
First and foremost - my congratulations to Trowbridge Chamber of Commerce in arranging their 2008 service excellence awards, which attracted 60 entrants ... and a guest list of around 300 to Trowbridge Civil Hall last night. And to all fifteen finalists who reached the final stage of the competition, ...
2009-02-01
 
1991Rules for a King
At Well House Manor, we're here to supply a service to customers. And the customer is King ... But even the King has to follow some rules There are certain requests that we really cannot meet - the most extreme example I have personally had was a request for us to accept just twenty five pounds for ...
2009-01-13
 
1985Learning to program as a part of your job
Scenario - you have never programmed before, but you are required to do so as a part of your job. You see lots of course (like ours !) on C, or PHP, or Python ... but they all assume some prior knowledge. And when you pick up a book it seems very theoretic and irrelevant, or looses you in the first ...
2009-01-11
 
183523:30 bookings and midnight checkins
It's 12:30 - that's half an hour after midnight - and I'm at Well House Manor to check in guests who phoned in to book less than an hour ago. I'm always wary about taking bookings this late of an evening as we can anticipate that people are just looking for a bed on which to lay there head, and don't ...
2008-10-11
 
552Keeping Customers Informed
I would rather fly with Virgin Atlantic than with British Airways, and I would rather ski at Mammoth than at Heavenly. That's not necessarily because Virgin have better timekeeping (we were mighty delayed last week, for example), nor that skiing is better at Mammoth than at Heavenly. It all comes down ...
2008-06-10
 
350Want to be one better
I'm told that I'm competitive - that I want to be one better. That's not always a compliment as it can mean that I tend to come in and "cap" your story with what I think is a better one - but at least I'm aware of this tendency and tell my good friends to alert me when I do it. But this competitiveness ...
2008-06-05
(short)
1637Providing exceptional service - and carrying on doing so.
Nothing gives me greater please than to hear from a customer who writes "My line manager is quite keen for me to work on those web programming skills for various proposed, so we've already discussed it, and I don't think he'd be looking at me going elsewhere for training - what you do is so much better ...
2008-05-12
 
91On line every 24 hours
Isn't the internet wonderful - here I am connected in from Venice's Marco Polo airport using my own laptop, looking out over planes arriving and departing ... we have a couple of hours window (slack) between the arrival of our boat and the departure of our plane. Phone to email Fax to email People writing ...
2008-05-11
 
72On Customer Service
Let's not forget - the customer is king! I present training courses. It's a service business; it exists for the customer and so the customer is "King". What do I mean? I mean that we listen to our customers and we provide them, if at all practical, with the service they've requested. We welcome ...
2008-05-10
(longer)
1606Sheep Shearers, Marathon Runners and Ocean Sailors
We have a wide wide range of customers. And I never know what I'm going to learn about from week to week. Now of course privacy is paramount so I won't talk about a customer without his prior permission, nor will I apply and pressure at all to obtain such permission. But there are times when it suits ...
2008-04-11
 
1516Pictures you can use - for free - from our library
Here are some random images from our site ... ... randomly provided for a good cause. I've been bugged (I admit it!) by people who help themselves to our images and bandwidth without even asking and without even providing a link back and I put together a page at http://www.wellho.info to help persuade ...
2008-01-23
 
1446An answer to a student asking 'Help'
I've got time - a lot of time - to help people who are learning; it's really rewarding to teach the subjects that we do, and the most rewarding students are those who take the time to go above and beyond the norm in asking questions. So why, when I get an email out of the blue asking for help with a ...
2007-11-27
 
1434Market survey - to learn, to prove a point, or to sell your product?
You can do a market survey to learn about your market ... or a market survey to prove your point ... or a market survey to generate interest in the issue on which you're doing your survey. And unless you're totally disinterested in the subject on which you're surveying, it's all too easy to bias your ...
2007-11-19
 
1262Keep in touch with PHP, Perl, Python and old friends too
This year - 2007 - we'll be celebrating Geekmas on 24th and 25th November - so that's a date for your diary. It's a weekend technical get together for old friends and new, to explore the latest in Perl, Python and PHP, to listen to others talk of their uses and (ab)uses of these technologies and others ...
2007-07-10
 
966CSL, KISS and RTFM
Mary was engrossed in her conversation with her workmates last night. Lisa and I nipped into a near-empty (apart from 8 staff) McDonalds and walked up to the counter and stood there for what felt like an age. I'm guessing that they've got some form of inspection today as the frenetic activity going ...
2007-04-21
 
1046Bounce, bounce, bounce
Is it frustrating to make a phone call and to transferred elsewhere, or to email someone and get an "out of office" with a note your email has been forwarded? No - a single transfer is acceptable on the lines of "I'm putting you through to Lisa who can take your room details" or "I've forwarded your ...
2007-01-30
 
1007Friends and family
Last night, we visited family near Bristol, and stopped in Bath for a quick bite on the way home. The City was rapidly emptying as everyone headed out for Christmas, but we found Nando's in the cinema complex open and a great meal was had by all. "I hope you don't mind me bothering you, but I came ...
2006-12-25
 
944Just ******* Google it
"Can you tell me the email address of the butterfly expert Mr Jxxxx Bxxxxxxx?" "What is the history of the bridge over the river Avon In Malmesbury" "Please supply me with details of the Xxxxxx retirement home in Bromham" Some of the recent requests that I've received in my email, along with the more ...
2006-12-16
 
852Eventful evening - a lesson in looking after contacts
Yesterday evening, we went out for a drive ... a glorious evening at the end of a long day. Late afternoon over the Marlbrough Downs; glorious Wiltshire. Then down to Calne for a quick pub meal to round off the brief break. In the car park there, this guy we didn't know ran his car into ours. D'you ...
2006-09-04
 
841Forum help - a push in the right direction
If I was a farmer, driving my tractor down the busy A350 one day, and I came across a chap in a car who had pulled off onto a soft verge and got stuck, what would I do? Stop and help, I hope, if I had a rope with me and I could pull him our of the mire quickly and if I wasn't in a desparate rush. It's ...
2006-08-21
 
566May all your screw-ups be big ones
Isn't the ability to communicate with lots of people all at once great? No longer the need to envelope 50 letters and put them in the post - just a quick mailing list program. But that does mean that as well as getting through very quickly, you can really make a mess of things very quickly too. At ...
2006-06-09
 
569Instructions for bright people
"Graham, I doubt that the guy will understand that." writes another contributor on a forum where I post, following up on my instructions to change a password and login name embedded within a sample script. On one hand it's easy - all too easy - to overcomplicate instructions and to go into too much ...
2006-06-09
 
621And the staff put the icing on the cake
I do enjoy taking a ferry in the middle of a long drive. It's a chance to pause, to think, to relax, to eat; I find the "relax" part sadly lacking when I fly. I'm seated in the Cafe on the "European Highlander", outbound from Larne to Cairnryan, and due there just before 10 p.m. There's quite a bit ...
2006-06-09
 
126Feedback shows the tip of an iceberg
If there's something wrong with your website, you can drive so much traffic away and not even realise it. Let's say that 100 people try to make use of a resource that you have mis-labelled. Only 10 will actually find it, and of those only 1 will take the time to email and let you know. How can I ...
2006-06-05
 
717A customer service company
"We're a customer service company who happens to be in the computer training industry". So said the sign stuck on the wall at a training centre where I was a guest presenter a few weeks ago. The words were the right ones for them, and they're right for us too, but their actions based on those words were ...
2006-06-05
 
725Better communication
When we first set up this website, we had a phone number and fax number that most people called us on, and an email address that was occasionally used. We provided a link to a map and directions for people driving, and a link to a railway timetable that we had to put online ourselves for people coming ...
2006-05-18
 
Pictures
Customer feedback is SO important
Topics covered in this module
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Well House Consultants specialise in training courses in Ruby, Lua, Python, Perl, PHP, and MySQL. We run Private Courses throughout the UK (and beyond for longer courses), and Public Courses at our training centre in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. It's surprisingly cost effective to come on our public courses - even if you live in a different country or continent to us.

We have a technical library of over 700 books on the subjects on which we teach. These books are available for reference at our training centre.


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