Hi, what do you make of the use of the verb maintain in the following sentence? Doesn’t it sound rather strange?
As an Internet Service Provider with an excellent reputation, dogado Internet GmbH maintains, currently, more than 10,000 clients worldwide.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Traffic report[YSaerTTEW443543]
In my opinion verb maintain is a very technical word. We may maintain machinery. So, yes it does sound strange. But, is it wrong to say this? In american english the phrase “maintaining clients” is used very often.
To my ear, ‘maintains’ is a mis-match with ‘clients’.
I would say that clients were ‘supported’ rather than ‘maintained’.
"supports, currently, more than 10,000 clients worldwide.
“…maintains, currently, the infrastructure for more than 10,000 clients worldwide,” would be more natural with the word ‘maintains’.
Hi Beth, thanks a lot that![YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: A chef is giving a cooking presentation[YSaerTTEW443543]
Yes, not ‘maintain’. ‘Support’ sounds good, or why not good old ‘serves’?
I would have replaced ‘maintain’ with ‘serve’ in that sentence too.
But we can use ‘maintain’ when referring to customers/clients, can’t we?
e.g. We need to maintain our (existing) customers as well as attract new ones.
Thanks
It still sounds a little odd directly with humans. ‘Maintain the infrastructure for more than 10,000 clients’, as BN suggested, or something like ‘maintain the customer base’, perhaps.
I would say that ‘retain’ is the correct term in your example Cristina.
I like ‘serves’ there, now you mention it.