So, the level of satisfaction registered by a customer is sometimes subjective. For instance, I've had an unpleasant experience with ADIDAS, a company about which I have heard only the best. I went in to buy a pair of snickers, but I could not find the right size on the shelves, and so asked for some assistance. But the salesman was not as eager to help as I would have liked, so I left the shop a bit disappointed.

From my personal and subjective opinion I believe the following companies to have high customer service: American Apparel, Daimler-Chrysler, FedEx, Nike, Procter & Gamble and United Airlines. At the other pole of the customer service quality I tend to place ADIDAS, McDonald's, Colgate-Palmolive.

Finally, I believe that there is a significant difference between customer service and customer relationship management. The first implies the actual behavior towards customers, whereas the latter implies the means and techniques to be used. To explain myself, I think that customer relationship management...

It teaches employees who to relate to clients and it contains several customer service training programs. On the other hand, the customer service as such refers to actually applying in practice what employees have learned from customer relationships managers. In other words, my opinion is that customer relationship management is the theory of behavior towards clients, whereas the customer service is the practice of behavior towards clients.
Bibliography

Official Website of Service Quality Institute, http://www.customer-service.com/,last accessed on September 7, 2007

Official Website of Customer Service Manager, http://www.customerservicemanager.com, last accessed on September 7, 2007

Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia, Customer Relationship Management, September 6, 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management,last accessed on September 7, 2007