idea for your business

Archive for September, 2009

If your company does not offer its services/products online, then you’re definitely living in the Stone Age. Businesses today realize that in order to stay competitive, they have to communicate with today’s audience who do business primarily online

Running an online business means that you have a global audience. And having a global audience means that your store is up and running twenty four hours every day and seven days of the week. While your customers from New York might be sleeping, those from Tokyo would surely be awake. Therefore an online business is one that never sleeps. It is one that is always on call by customers. As such, an online business must be manned at all times, keeping a close watch on potential business.

In managing an online business, communication is important. Using email and instant messaging as a form of communication between you and your staff will surely be beneficial. There are also different technologies such as the VoIP that enables you to talk with your business partners and your staff from all over the world quite easily. But since you and your associates live in different time zones it is important to set up a specific time of the day when you can communicate with them about the updates and different issues that your business face today and what they need to do about it. You should make sure that they follow your instruction and schedule strictly.

Meetings are also a must for online businesses. Meetings are where you’ll know the issues hounding your employees and problems that the business is facing. To be able to save on time and effort, online businesses today can meet in an online conference room. This will eradicate the need for physical space and manual preparations.

Another way to survive online is to build up your brand! Yes, brand is important even though you’re on the Internet. Building your brand means providing good products, fast services, and pleasant experiences to your customers. Yes, you’ll definitely want your customers to have pleasant experiences. Remember, word spreads fast on the Internet. If you have one customer who had a not-so-good time in dealing with your online business and spreads the rumor, then chances are your name will be ruined.

Don’t forget that your website is the face of your online business. Surviving in the online world means that your online business must be able to keep up with the latest technology. And in designing your storefront always keep navigation in mind. A potential customer would not want to visit twenty different web pages just to buy a certain product.

Surviving your online business is tough. Everyday, there are thousands of companies going online and millions of individuals setting up an online business. Ultimately, the key is to success in this endeavor is to love what you do. After all, not everyone gets to touch lives in a global scale.

Customer Service Agents are the frontline staff of the company they are who customers speak with first. Essentially, they are the voice of the company.

If a Customer Service agent is professional, friendly, and can solve a customers needs, that customer will have a positive impression of the company. This pleasant experience can lead to repeat business and even referrals increasing profitability.

On the other hand, if a Customer Service Agent is unprofessional, uniformed, and unable to solve a customers needs, the customer will hang up the phone in frustration resulting in a negative impression. Consequently, the customer will indeed talk about your company, but with a very pessimistic tone which can discourage customers away from you and to your competitor decreasing productivity!

As a leader, it is your responsibility to train the staff with proper telephone skills and company and product knowledge as well as the requisite customer service skills necessary to excel customer expectations. With this education, you are arming the Customer Service Agent with the power to better assist customers and increase productivity creating many positive first impressions along the way!

The Customer Service Representative

As the leader of customer service agents, you will engage with a wide variety of personnel, different backgrounds, different ages, and different skill sets including:

* The young employee who is starting his first job.
* The single mother who needs a second job for additional income.
* The recent college graduate who has not yet found his dream job, but needs a job to pay the bills.
* The middle-age mother who has gone back to work now that her children are grown just to give herself something to do.
* The business professional that has just been laid off from his real job due to downsizing.

These are just a few examples. Every Customer service agent has a different story and a different reason for working.

Your staff may or may not be excited to work at the company. For example, a recent high school graduate may be quite excited about his first job. Whereas, a single mother would much rather be at home with her children. It is your job as the leader to motivate everyone even the most disgruntled Customer Service Agent!

Every Customer Service Agent within your staff will have different skill sets. For example, the business professional may be quite computer-savvy, whereas the middle-age mother who has gone back to work may have very little knowledge of computers. It is your job as the leader to train everyone even the Customer Service Agent who thinks he knows it all!

A major component of your responsibility as a leader is motivating and training the Customer Service Agents so they are comfortable with the technological and people skills that are needed for the job. You also need to know what motivates each employee to keep them excited about being at work.

Call Center Challenges

As a call center leader, you face many challenges a day. Here is just a sample:

* A competitive workforce for qualified Customer Service Agents
* Lack of time to properly train Customer Service Agents
* High turnover rate among Customer Service Agents
* Technological challenges for Customer Service Agents
* Unmotivated Customer Service Agents
* Different skill levels of Customer Service Agents

To determine how a company is performing in terms of customer service, some customer service measurements are used regularly. These measurements are designed to assess how satisfied customers are with the services provided by a company.

Customer service is commonly defined as a series of activities that are organized to increase customer satisfaction levels so that a product or service will exceed customer expectation. Customer service may be extended in an automated manner through self-service means like support Internet sites, or by persons like sales and customer service representatives. Usually, the main basis of customer service is customer data collection or demographics. Today, a wide variety of customer service tools are now available. Aside from support websites, databases that determine individual customer preferences and buying patterns and specialist software are now used. Moreover, companies also have come up with new ways to capture feedback from customers. A few of these new feedback channels include mobile email and text messages. By knowing the perceptions and opinions of customers, companies are able to find ways to enhance the quality of the services they provide as well as improve the experience of their customers.

Several companies have integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies to their operations. CRM is a multifaceted process that allows companies to have better knowledge of the needs, wants, and buying patterns of their customers. By making these data available for customers, companies are better able to anticipate the needs of existing and prospective customers. However, CRM initiatives should be aligned with customer-based strategies, as this technology will be useless if its implementation ends up with its installation. CRM usually supports several business processes including sales, marketing, and customer service. This technology enables a company system to compile a customer’s contact history and allows customer service representatives to retrieve these data when needed. By keeping tabs of a customer’s contact history, customers would no longer need to disclose the subject of his previous interactions with a company customer service representative.

Setting customer service standards is a crucial step in assessing the quality of service provided to customers. When setting these standards, managers and other mid-level managers should make sure that they are realistic. These standards should not be too low for these would just encourage complacency and idleness. At the same time, they should not be too high that they are impossible to achieve. Moreover, the company must determine the standards that they need to measure and the most efficient way to measure them. When establishing measurements, it is recommended that managers determine why key customers patronize their product or service instead of the competition. Also, obstacles that hinder the company’s internal customers, or employees, from providing quality customer service should be identified. Processes that are critical for product and service delivery should also be regularly evaluated so that bottlenecks are eliminated early. Lastly, there should be balance between production cost, product or service quality, and cycle time. When fully and effectively utilized, customer service measurements will be instrumental for companies to achieve higher profit margins.

RSS feeds are effective communication elements that have found their place among numerous websites for all kinds of communication purposes. Blogs generally have started using them to provide effective and immediate communication to the subscriber. This means any time the blog is added to, amended, or altered, anyone who is connected through the RSS feed receives updated information as it is important to them. When you are using blogs to enhance your online business, this can be a very effective and efficient method of encouraging those who are interested in your blog to also participate in your online business, either through the purchase of merchandise or through participation in online business building.

From the user’s end, the RSS feed will deliver a brief description, with a title and basic information, that will encourage the user to click on the necessary link in order to continue reading and participating. Again, this type of participation can be very effective when you are trying to build an online business.

Because RSS feeds can now be transmitted via internet connection, cell phone service, or PDA/Blackberry subscription, it is possible to maintain communication with both your participating online business builders and those who haven’t yet jumped on board. This means that you can actually communicate with all of your potential and actual online business associates. This is really exciting information for those who are able to use the power of the written word to really motivate people to not only rejoice in the positive aspects of online business building, but also to make their lives easier by purchasing products that you offer through your online business. The possibilities are actually endless when you think of all the blogging material that one successful (or potentially successful) online business can inspire.

All of your potential and actual online business associates have the capability to read the in depth information available to them on an as interested basis. This means that your online business associates are more likely to stay connected because they can pick and choose the information that they are interested in rather than feeling bombarded with irrelevant information.

Using an RSS feed to enhance your blogging is likely to create a stronger online presence for you. Naturally, a stronger online presence means that you are more likely to attract more potential online business associates. This is one of the best perks to using RSS feeds combined with blogging in order to help promote your online business as well as pass on vital information and inspiration to those who are also working on their online business. Your increased visibility can only benefit you.

There are numerous methods of using RSS feeds and blogs to communicate to a variety of people and interested parties. Of course, some are more financially rewarding than others. If you find that you are able to develop multiple blogs and start carrying a rather impressive load of online business associates, you might want to consider adding the convenience and power of an autoresponder in order to help facilitate further communication and further online business deals that are mutually beneficial. The combination of RSS feeds, blogs, and autoresponders can create phenomenal online business potential.

9 Headache-Free Tips on How to Start Online Business

For many people, knowing what they wish to sell online is the easy part. It’s setting up the business, and knowing how and where to start that’s difficult. Here are some surefire tips on how to finally make your online business dreams come true without suffering a mountain of headaches.

Tip #1 Choosing a provocative name for your business. Something catchy is best, but it’s ideal if your business name could also explain what it’s all about. It should be something easy to spell as well so that people won’t have a hard time searching for it in the Internet. Take the time to pick your name, there is no rush and it’s better to get it right then to change after you’ve spend a fortune on printing and advertising.

Tip #2 Register your business. Even if it’s an online company, it still earns money the way other businesses do and because of that, you’re obliged to pay taxes as well. As requirements vary depending on the type of business, the best thing to do is make your inquiries with your local government body or IRS. If you live in any resident community, you should also speak with them and see if they have stipulations regarding residents setting up online businesses.

Tip #3 Spend several days to a week diligently researching about search engine optimization or SEO. This is the lifeblood of the e-commerce, and it would cost less if you do the SEO for your online business yourself. You should look at keywords for your industry, then research the competition and then create your products and business model.

Tip #4 Build your website while keeping SEO in mind. If your budget allows it, you should pay for your own web space so that you get to choose exactly what kind of ads would appear in your website and where. A good online business website is one that’s not only visually attractive but also offers excellent content that relates to the target market or customer. Provide complete information regarding products, ordering and payment processes, promotions, and customer service. Always offer a brief company background. People only buy from people they know like and trust.

Tip #5 Register accounts with the necessary online payment handlers. Although you can still accept payment by cash, check, or money order, it’s still better if you also accept payments by credit cards and from online banks as these are more convenient for your customers. Depending on your product you should expect around 90% of your transactions to be done online and younger people are generally more comfortable about it and increasing numbers of them jumping online it makes sense to do it.

Tip #6 Be a member of creditable websites or communities. If you sell anything online it pays to use services such as Honest E Online to provide better assurance of a safe and secure shopping experience for your customers. If you’re new to internet business, this can be one of the quickest ways to instill trust into your customers.

Tip #7 It’s time to start advertising. Your first sales and marketing promotion should consist of offering free advice. Hire a copywriter if you truly believe you don’t have the writing skills to create marketing content. Make sure you issue an invitation to join your free newsletter with each article.

Tip #8 Collect the email addresses of people who have signed up for your newsletter. Your first issue should again include original, unique, and valuable tips related to your online business. Start with that then follow it up with product or service updates.

Tip #9 Find more ways to advertise. Create a blog and start blogging about your online business. Get RSS feeds for your online business. Create podcasts and make sure to insert brief advertisements about your online business in the middle.

Only when free methods of advertising don’t work should you finally use paid advertising methods for your online business. Give it two months and if it doesn’t work then that’s time you should go for the big guns. As a general guideline paid advertising and free methods can work well, but to master the free methods you will need to pay money to the experts to find out how to best use them. So in reality, if you leave it to your own devices and don’t pay for expert advice or resources then it would be best to assume that free advertising will only account for 10% of your overall traffic figure, it is therefore safe to assume that if you where to pay money for advertising there is a potential 90% more effective traffic generation techniques.

Online Money Tree provides tips and resources on how to make money online.  New and aspiring internet entrepreneurs can find some great ideas and advice on how to start a small internet business from home.

For more information visit www.online-money-tree.com