and after-sales service. Second, it should lay enough emphasis on the feedback from its current customers and take prompt action to take care of their needs and demands. Third, if possible it may provide some incentives to its old customers. For example, it can grant a certain discount to them if their purchases reach a certain amount. Apart from all these, a company should design strategies to attract new customers and create transactions with them, to expand their customer base, so to speak. These strategies include product diversification and upgrading.

All in all, a company should try its utmost to keep its current customers satisfied with its products and services, and at the same time it should stay ahead of the market through product and pricing strategies.

How to fill a key vacancy

In order to fill a key vacancy, a company will usually follow the same standard procedure.

It will begin by producing an accurate job description of what it would like the successful candidate to do. From this, it can then produce a profile of this ideal candidate, which is a list of skills, experience, attributes and so on.

Having produced this profile, the company must then decide on the best recruitment method to capture a candidate with this profile. This might be an internal

advertisement or an external advertisement in a newspaper, on the Internet say, even an agency or perhaps a headhunter.

Having decided on the best recruitment method, the advertisements are then placed or the headhunter contacted and a list of candidates will be then drawn up to be put through the company's recruitment processes. This might be interviews,

psychometric tests or even hand-writing analysis. This will then produce the ideal candidate for the company.

The company will then have to negotiate terms with this candidate and, hopefully, this will result in terms which are both affordable for the company and attractive enough to get the candidate they want.

Background Information

Career Planning: how to assess the career opportunities provided by different types of companies

Career Planning:

Even after a job is offered and accepted, career decisions must be made. On-the-job experience may affect the desired path. Aspiring to achieve a position above the