Customer service : a competitive tool of the local department stores in the 1930s

Customer service is used by retailers as a competitive tool. With the recent intensity of competition in the local department stores, it is timely to examine the role played by customer service. The objective of this report is to assess the impact of customer service on consumers' purchase decision and to look into the future trends of customer service in Singapore. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted to gather information on whether customers value services provided by the local department stores. In addition, two department stores were selected for case studies with the aim of giving readers an insight into how customer service is applied in specific situations. Customer service was found to be crucial in retaining customer loyalty and in ensuring that repeat purchases are made by the customers. However, Singapore shoppers still think that customer service is secondary to price when making purchase decisions.ACCOUNTANC

Germline Mutations in Cancer Predisposition Genes are Frequent in Sporadic Sarcomas

Abstract Associations of sarcoma with inherited cancer syndromes implicate genetic predisposition in sarcoma development. However, due to the apparently sporadic nature of sarcomas, little attention has been paid to the role genetic susceptibility in sporadic sarcoma. To address this, we performed targeted-genomic sequencing to investigate the prevalence of germline mutations in known cancer-associated genes within an Asian cohort of sporadic sarcoma patients younger than 50 years old. We observed 13.6% (n = 9) amongst 66 patients harbour at least one predicted pathogenic germline mutation in 10 cancer-associated genes including ATM, BRCA2, ERCC4, FANCC, FANCE, FANCI, MSH6, POLE, SDHA and TP53. The most frequently affected genes are involved in the DNA damage repair pathway, with a germline mutation prevalence of 10.6%. Our findings suggests that genetic predisposition plays a larger role than expected in our Asian cohort of sporadic sarcoma, therefore clinicians should be aware of the possibility that young sarcoma patients may be carriers of inherited mutations in cancer genes and should be considered for genetic testing, regardless of family history. The prevalence of germline mutations in DNA damage repair genes imply that therapeutic strategies exploiting the vulnerabilities resulting from impaired DNA repair may be promising areas for translational research