Good customer support is getting harder and harder to find these days. Businesses seem to have become complacent and have lost their sense of ‘one on one’ contact with customers, instead taking on the attitude that the ‘business is always right’. Businesses have become impersonal in their drive for profits and forgotten that good customer service is what all good businesses build their name on.

Mind you, there are some businesses out there that still value their customers and try to treat everyone very special. To these businesses, the customer is the most important person in the world and they will go out of their way to ensure the customer gets what they need. But exactly how do you find them?

* You can search online on Google or other search engines like Yahoo for “lighting stores”. Once you do that, you will find a good quantity of websites. You can then peruse them and check their credentials to find provider to your liking. Email them a question or use live help to test out their willingness to talk to potential customers. You can easily make a decision about what sort of customer service they have by their willingness to try and attract new business. If live help is not available use the company’s 800 number.

* In your local yellow pages: this is the old fashioned way to find the right business. But it still works a treat. Phone a few different stores and quiz them, you’ll soon work out who wants your business.

* Ask friends and family for recommendations. A company that has good customer service and technical support generally have a really good name amongst the public. Friends and family can be trusted and they can help you when you are looking for a reliable business to deal with. Around the water cooler at work is another good place for information.

How to spot good customer service:

* Professionalism: it is important that you speak to representatives who are properly trained and professional. This will give you a good impression of the company and encourage you to not only buy from them but recommend the business to others. This means the company has taken the trouble to train their agents properly.

* Personal customer service affords you the luxury of talking to someone on a ‘one on one’ basis. Look for companies that have 800 phone numbers that allow you to call their customer service. Especially for technical assistance after hours, there’s a thing called Murphy’s Law that says when you do need help it’s going to be after hours.

* 24 hour technical service: One thing you can be sure of, when something goes wrong it will be in the middle of the night or on a weekend. 24 hour technical service is a god send and an invaluable part of any service.

* Properly trained staff are there when you need to talk to someone and they know what they are talking about. This means people who have been in the industry for some time, with years of coaching and mentoring behind them. Too many businesses rely on inexperienced, young staff because they are cheaper to hire.

So keep these points in mind when you are looking for a good company to buy lighting fixtures from. Remember good customer service and tech support reflects on a company’s attitude to their customers.