My friend, sales trainer Mike Leeds, asks,”When (they) say, ‘May I help you,’ shouldn’t they mean it?” Mike makes a good point, to wit: if your marketing efforts are successful in building “traffic,” is that “traffic” being treated like mere “traffic” — or like people who have actually called upon you for help?

As a customer of Cox Communications and Verizon (for example), I feel like their reps really want to help me when I call with a problem. How do your customer service representatives measure up in this respect?