And once these sales are made, the customer becomes low maintenance and recurring.

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Outsourcing customer service and IT maintenance work to Indian subcontractors is a growing trend in the UK, with many companies attracted by India's low labour costs and highly skilled workforce.

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The savings in fuel, maintenance and payroll costs -- and improvement in customer goodwill -- are enormous.

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Like Salesforce.com , RightNow aimed to sell its customer relationship management (CRM) software as a low-maintenance, Web-based service, not a shrink-wrapped product.

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Results: huge savings in fuel, maintenance and payroll -- and an enormous increase in customer goodwill.

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After all, maintenance and service contracts help build and keep cash flow from customer channels, and it is not enough to simply have them sign off on such contracts to hand over to the support department.

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