Nov 15, 2009

Currency trading Contractors Win Customers For Life

One of the best ways that I know of to build a successful contracting business is to keep your customers coming back to you again and again. So many times we just try to get a job and don't really concentrate on getting and keeping a customer. However, if we want to build a business that doesn't rely on heavily investing in marketing to keep it going at the same or greater volume, then we have to get our current customers to buy from us again. Doing this can be one of the most effective forms of marketing we can do. Getting our customers to hire us again and not go to another contractor is not that difficult. Many of my customers do not even get a second estimate for jobs that they need done
There are several things that you can do to make sure that your customers come back to you again and again. The first thing you need to do is to show up when you say you will. This also means that you need to respond to your customers when you said you would. If you tell them that you will get your estimate to them within a week, then do it. I just heard from a customer this week that he tried to get a heating contractor to give him an estimate and one contractor took about a month and the other one never did get back with him. I will tell you that he is not likely to ever do business with them. Another job we are doing, I was actually the high bid on, but he told me he wanted me to do the job because I communicated with him when I said I would.
The second thing you can do to make sure that your customers do business with you again is to do an excellent job. This should be self explanatory, but it seems to be overlooked much of the time. I've seen so many contractors that try to do an O. K. job. I have guys that work for me that try to get by with an O. K. job. They think that if they just do it good enough, that will be all that is necessary. The truth is that if we just do a job good enough, the customer may not complain, but if they need another job done, we will not have any advantage over any other contractor that they may get to bid on the job. We also will not get a lot of referrals from a job that is just good enough.
The third thing that you need to do to get customers to come back to you over and over again, is to keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis. You see, after you have been on time and done an excellent job for your customer, they will still forget you after a few months. It is important to have a good way to stay foremost in your customers mind every month. I've heard that every month you are not in touch with your customer, you lose 10% of them.
If you excel in these three things, your business will be a very stable business. You will be surprised at how much work your customers will have for you to do. They will also be referring you to their friends. The other big advantage is that when the economy turns bad, you will not have to lower your rates to have work and you will make more money.

Building a Business With Little

Building an Internet Business with Little or No Money has almost become a spot these days. Quite often I'll chat with new Internet marketers on forums and listen to them talk about building a business that will net them the big bucks. The problem is that most of these new marketers have no idea on where to start.
Another issues that most deal with is money, they either have very little to invest or are not willing to spend what savings they have to get started. It is nearly impossible to truly start an Internet business without spending some money on the basics.
Things like web hosting, domain names and Autoresponders are an absolute must if you are serious about building a business. There are some tools that you can get for free to start, but at some point you have to purchase some of these tools.
So how do you build an Internet business starting with $0?
The first and most important place to start is by assessing your skills. What skills are in your current arsenal?
There are skills that you have developed in your daily life, for example you may be bi-lingual or multi-lingual. Maybe skills that you use in your job, or knowledge on a specific niche or from your hobbies, like skiing or hunting.
It is important to make a list of the skills or knowledge that you have and might be in demand elsewhere. For example, you love to bowl and participate on several different leagues. You may build your Internet business upon this: writing about bowling, teaching people how to do it, etc. The great thing is do not need to spend money to acquire this knowledge: you already have it.
This is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get your Internet business started if you have no money.
Depending on your level of knowledge, you may be able to offer training to students on a specific subject. This can be done thru webinars, mini eBooks and other techniques easily offered on the Internet.
Another popular technique is to sell products that other people have produced. This is a very easy way of getting started and the only immediate investment is your time. There are numerous websites that provide you with the ability to market products from other people and manufacturers.
The most important thing is to pick something that you get excited about. The important thing to make sure it is a subject that will keep your interest for the long haul.
It is possible to build an Internet Business with Little or No Money, but it will require a commitment of time and effort to make it a reality.
I have worked with companies in all industries, community development and city governments. I have had the pleasure of working with CEO's, CFO's, Sales Executives and every other level of employee throughout my career.
I found that helping others accomplish their goals is inspirational and that it is the most rewarding part of my career development.
I currently own a successful Internet based network marketing business.

Advantages of Dispatch Trading Labels

Dispatch labels are great for warehouses and anywhere where items will be sent from one place to another. Many companies have made the mistake of relying on verbal information from destination to destination. This obviously has many disadvantages. People don't often hear what was said correctly. If they do, many times vital information is forgotten.
In the past, every item had a piece of paper that was written on as it went from destination to destination. The problem with this is that handwriting can be very hard to read. People can misinterpret information, or information can still be left out because people don't want to write.
Barcode dispatch labels are a great way to keep track of items in a warehouse or anywhere in transit. The barcode can be scanned and then any information entered into a computer. The next person who scans the barcode can bring up any previous information that has been entered on an item or a pallet shipment of goods. This may be more expensive to some, but it can also save money through cutting down on costly errors that have occurred while using the other systems.
They allow people to get information in real time. This includes many of the shipping companies. Customers and employees can track pallets, and shipments in real time based on the last scan. Buying these labels is now easier than ever. Many companies online offer this labels. You can get exactly what you need. If you really want to get technical, you can buy your own printer. This could save time for a business or company.
Many companies still look at the disadvantages of these. These include companies having to invest more, the employee or pallet trucks must hold a hand held scanner, and there is the expense of the printer ink, print time, and paper expense. Although this is true, people need to look at the errors that are being made up for. Poor communication is one of the number one reasons that companies lose money. Dispatch labels can speed up productivity and overall accuracy. The mistakes that are normally made would fill in the cost of what their equipment costs. It can be cheaper to print right at your own company.
Many companies do realise that these labels are great for large volumes as confusion is reduced, labels are discrete and employee productivity does go up. This is all the reason in the world to make sure that a company is using them for any goods that are being shipped around a warehouse or from one outside place to another.
If you own a company or business, you really should consider what they could do for you. Maybe you will find that the method is not what you are used to, but once it has been implemented for a while, you will be glad you made the switch. Dispatch labels make things a lot easier. Accuracy is very important when it comes to making the highest profit and customer satisfaction rates possible.

Contractors Business Mistakes

There are actually many things that I see contractors do that hurt their business. When times were great and there were more jobs to do than most contractors could handle, a contractor could still keep food on their table even if they did some things that hurt their business. That is no longer the case and that will not be the case in the future. This economy will get stronger but it will not be the same as it was. Things won't go back the way they were. The days of running a successful but sloppy business are over. Customers will expect more from now on. If we don't give it to them, then someone else will.
The first business busting mistake that I see contractors make is that they don't show up on time. Sometimes they don't show up at all or they don't get back with the customer after the initial contact. I've heard it from many customers. They called a contractor to give them an estimate and the contractor either didn't show up or he came to look at the job and then didn't get back with the customer after he looked at the job. I also have seen many times when a contractor will show up late for an appointment and are surprised that there is a problem. If you are going to be late, it is only common courtesy to call the customer and let them know. People really do judge a book by it's cover and how punctual we are when we are scheduled to meet with a customer often determines what the customer thinks about our character and dependability. So, if we are to run a successful business, we need to make sure that we do what we say when we say we are going to do it.
The second mistake I see many contractors do is to do less than an excellent job. Many times employees will do a so-so job, because it was difficult to do it right. If we as contractors let them get by with this, it will hurt our business and our incomes. As I tell my employees, "People don't hire us to do a half right job and then make excuses for it, they hire us to do the job right. If we don't do it, they will find someone who will." We are ultimately responsible to have the job done with excellent standards. If we always do an excellent job, people will refer us to their friends and call us back for more work. If we do an all right job, we may not have to do it over, but we will not get the referral and repeat business that we need. It really doesn't take much more effort to do an excellent job.
The third mistake that I see contractors make is that they won't cheerfully go back and take care of their mistakes. No one does perfect work all of the time, but if we correct our mistakes, it will go a long way toward building lasting relationships with our customers. I remember one job that we did and the siding was spaced differently than the customer wanted. We went back and redid it with no questions asked. Later, that customer sent us more work. He told me that the reason he was not afraid to send me more work, was because we corrected his job with no arguing. It may cost us a little time and money to correct our mistakes, but it can pay off big dividends in future work.
As I mentioned, these are not the only mistakes I see contractors make, but if we correct these three mistakes, it will go a long way to making our business stronger and more profitable. In tough times we have to do whatever it takes to win customers and get referral business.

BPO Companies For Competent Professional Business Solutions

BPO Companies or tele-solution providers are named so because they try to resolve the issues of customers on telephones.
Now days, BPO Companies not only provide customer-support, but also many different solutions to the Companies. BPO Companies are one of the most versatile solution providers. They are engaged in various inbound and outbound activities to fund Companies with relevant solutions and activities.
BPO Companies India is famous all across the world. They are not only support-cell but also solution providers to their clients. There are two main advantages attached in availing services from them. First, that they increase the efficiency of the work assigned to them and second that they reduce the cost, effectively.
Web based services, transaction processing, inbound and outbound activities, mortgage loan processing, insurance and medical services, travel queries and bookings, etc are some activities provided by Companies to clients.
Companies need high precision, expertise, intelligence and supporting and relevant infrastructure to make them succeed in the Global scenario. It is quite imperative that latest advanced technology is essential for effective servicing.
BPO Companies are one of the major supports in customer-related services. Product back-up is provided with extreme precision and at lowest possible cost, to all types of customers. Many big and small Companies are realizing the importance of customer-retention. They take special care to allot customer support activities to reputed BPO Company India. This saves them from extra cost, extra time and extra resources.
Good quality BPOs are always thriving for best customer support. This is achieved through focusing on client's business needs, and our strengths to support desired activities. Time to time technology upgrades are important solution providers for a business process outsourcing firm.
Today executives in Companies spend 3/4th of their time in time managing details and only 1/4th of the time goes in defining strategies and implementing them successfully. When the process is outsourced, then this ratio takes an about-turn and executives have leverage to devote maximum time on their core business.
BPO Companies India gives time to explore new revenue streams, accelerate projects, and give quality time to focus on customers. They can reengineer their processes and get hold of new perspectives.

Using Customer Data As a Competitive Advantage

Collecting customer data has become a standard activity in today's world of specialized business integration systems and ultra competitive markets because it allows a business to study the habits of its customers and act in a way that will align the company's products with the consumer's spending actions actions. Finding out as much information as possible about your customer can give a business a drastic competitive advantage over competing businesses by helping it understand what the customer needs and wants. If the business understands the way its customer thinks and acts, it will be in a better position to effectively market the products to the customer in a way that will engage and interest them. Although each business cannot monitor each customer, collecting data about the customers is a profound way that businesses are able to study their customers' actions. Compiling and analyzing customer data can help businesses by giving them a better understanding of the customer's spending habits habits and buying tendencies in order to more accurately position their products and services in ways that will appeal to the consumer.
Data mining is one of the most popular and powerful ways that a business can gain and collect information about its clients or customers. Companies use data mining techniques to compile personal information about consumers and to understand their spending habits. Data mining can be used for various competitive reasons such as estimating the market size for a product, predicting customer response rates, and classifying customers into segments. The practice of data mining has become extremely popular among businesses in the highly competitive world of online advertising and sales. Data mining is just one step in the specialized process of collecting consumer data and using it for a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Once a business has compiled a large collection of data about its consumers, the information is worthless until the company analyzes the information and gains insight about patterns and trends that exist among consumers. The company must recognize facts, make decisions, and draw conclusions according to their customers spending activity. This process of analyzing the personal information and the habits of customers is known as business analytics. Once a business understands the ways that customers like to spend money and the likely tendencies of the consumers, the business should have a better understanding of how to successfully market and sell their products to the customers. Analyzing data will give a business ideas about its customers buying behavior, including which products they like and which brands they usually buy. Also, understanding the customers' gender, age, and occupation can help businesses create better marketing campaigns to successfully reach them. One example of how businesses use data storage as a competitive advantage is by discovering the target audience's income so that the business can price the product accordingly in order to make sure that it is feasible for the customer to buy the product.
The data is used to classify customers into specific groups which can be easily targeted and reached through specialized advertising campaigns. The most important step in the process of using customer data as a competitive advantage in business is the actual implementation of campaigns and actions that are tailored directly to the target audience in ways that they will enjoy and find reason to respond. This extremely difficult task of successfully advertising to specific groups can be made easier with all of the information gained through data storage and analysis. As previously mentioned, the process and practice of using customer data will help a business create more effective marketing campaigns that will translate into better response rates, more sales, and higher customer satisfaction.
Collecting, storing, and analyzing customer data can absolutely give a business a competitive advantage by helping the business better understand the what customers want. Understanding the customer puts the business in a better position to use marketing practices to successfully reach them. Knowing a client's purchase history, service history, and account history can give a business a better idea of how to please the customer and guarantee that they will return to purchase more products or services. Also, accessing how profitable each client has been in the past can give the business a better idea of where time and efforts should be focused to maximize profits. Using customer data through processes such as data mining, democratization of information, and analytics is a powerful tool that businesses can use to create a huge advantage by helping the business relate to the customer better than the competition can relate the customer.

What Sacrifices Will Your Customers Make

A popular but life-threatened professor needed a kidney and found many volunteer donors among his students.
He received no fewer than 25 offers, setting a record at the facility that coordinates such matters, and happily, his surgery was a success.
Students are the customers of colleges and universities.
Their willingness to put their lives at risk for their professor takes the idea of customer satisfaction to a much higher level. The question emerges:
"What are your customers willing to do for YOU?"
Likewise, there is yet another test of customer satisfaction and loyalty that emerges from how your customers behave. Specifically, to what extent do they cooperate with and make sacrifices for each other?
I heard a story at a recent conference told by an MBA graduate from a prestigious Ivy League university. The ultra-competitive program he was in had a policy that ranked all students semester by semester.
Those in the highest quartile didn't have to take the final exam in their last year, as I understand it. They were permitted to flunk it and they'd still achieve their MBA degree.
However, if those in the lowest quartile going into the final failed, they were denied their degrees, making their entire investment go down the drain, along with their pride and reputations.
The gentleman that told me this shared what one of his professors said at the final.
If any student in the first quartile would "volunteer" to fail his or her exam, this would enable the teacher to pass one peer that would otherwise be booted out.
This was based on "curve" grading scheme that allows only a certain number of A's, B's, and so forth.
"Any volunteers?" the professor asked.
Apparently, as many as twenty or more students could have marched forth, but only two trekked to the head of the class, blue books in hand: the gent that regaled me with this tale, and one other.
The storyteller disclosed that he hated his time in that MBA program, having found the place alienating, while his undergraduate studies were much more satisfying. But he felt a tie with his peers that the brutish pressure of the place couldn't quash.
The fact that so few came forth, where it would have cost them nothing yet have spared so many such disgrace, speaks very poorly for the institution.
In our current era of robust social networking, establishing peer-to-peer conversations that are unprecedented, will customers strive to do more for each other, despite institutional disincentives to the contrary?
We'll see.
"User groups" have become powerful networks in technology situations, and open-sourcing is changing the way electronic applications are being developed and distributed.
Companies that are cutting back on customer services in this severe economic environment, oddly under the banner of CRM--Customer Relationship Management--may be supplanted and upended by customers that are willing to sacrifice for each other.
They came together because of you, but they might choose to stay together without you.
It's like threads in online conversations that veer off into topics the original poster could never could have anticipated.
Thank you for bringing us together. But we don't need you anymore.
This apparent split in customer satisfaction already happens in academia, where on instructor evaluations students assign higher ratings to "the class" than to "the professor."
That seems a logical impossibility, but it happens far too often to be a mistake.