Performance to Move Forward

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Businesses are adopting various cost cutting measures to stop the bleeding as we emerge from this deep recession, while staying focused on customers who have some buying power in this tough economic climate. Is this even possible?

It sure looks like a tough balancing act. But, that’s where business leaders and entrepreneurs show their mettle. Innovative and savvy enterpreneurs make sure their business ventures continue to serve customers profitably. Take a look at how e-commerce solutions and outsourced call centers have helped businesses flourish despite the recession.

Many businesses have closed down their physical locations while still keeping an online presence. A professional website design firm can help you get started. SEO companies can make sure that the website content is optimized for tier 1 search engines so that your business website appears higher in organic search engines and attracts the relevant traffic. Internet marketing firms can get you additional qualified visitors by placing pay-per-click ads in paid search and rich content websites.

With an e-commerce solution, businesses can expect to achieve higher profit margins while selling the same products and services as they don’t have any fixed costs. As maintenance costs of an e-commerce website are negligible compared to a brick-and-mortar store, businesses can focus on streamlining the order fulfillment process. Here, logistics companies can save your business time and money by taking care of your warehousing, packaging, and distribution needs.

Collaboration and sharing of ideas is integral part of every business. However, it no long requires for people to travel from remote offices to a common location. Unified communications such as VOIP and web conferencing technologies are making it easier for employees to teleport instead of all of them having to be present in the same location. These technologies are providing small business with huge cost savings by cutting and in some cases eliminating travel expenses.

Customers will always expect higher performance and better quality from their suppliers, vendors and service providers. Anything less would be expecting charitable donations from your customers. Advances in technologies are allowing small businesses to still serve these customers profitably while continuing to reduce expenses.

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Tags: Call Centers, E-commerce Solutions, Logistics, VOIP, warehousing, Web Conferencing
Posted in VOIP Services | 4 Comments »

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Entrepreneurs Threat From China

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Many executives and small business entrepreneurs are of the opinion that China is growing into a major threat. IT services, Energy and Manufacturing industries are particularly concerned about the unfair competition due to China’s undervalued currency that has been artificially pegged to the US dollar to help prop Chinese exports to US and Europe. A G-7 meeting in Canada will most likely be a forum for discussing remedies for global currency imbalances, with a focus on the yuan. But can outsiders really do anything to influence China’s exchange rate?

China has also made signifcant changes in its education system. English language has become part of their core syllabus and students are much more fluent in English than a few years back. Add to it the advantages of subsidized government infrastructure, low cost labor, friendly taxation rules, and qualified young talent – China is most definitely a competition to take seriously for outsourcing services such as payroll, call centers, medical billing, answering services, etc.

Products and equipment are being manufactured in China and sold at lower costs than the cost of raw materials to manufacture in the US or Europe. Mining equipment, toy supplies, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment, and a slew of other products are manufactured on Chinese soil and exported all over the world to US, Europe and Asia. Recently, China just became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world overtaking Japan and Korea.

At the same time, China’s purchasing power has increased over the years, and in the global marketplace that is good news for all businesses as China becomes a consumer market for US companies and businesses to sell their products an services. However, can the rest of the world simply afford to wait for Beijing to make the decision to revalue the yuan and open its markets?

America’s economy has been driven by its entrepreneurial spirit. Let there be no mistake, it is the spirit of its entrepreneurs and the infrastructure that made US an economic super power and juggernaut for the past century. However, the American entrepreneurial spirit is driven by freedom of expression, value creation and the betterment of our lives while Chinese entrepreneurs work within a social framework that includes an element of government control and lack of self expression. We just recently witnessed Google’s commercial retreat from China highliting that freedom of speech and privacy has limits in China. The US State Department has had talks with the Chinese Ambassador in Washington regarding the troubling issues related to cyberattacks on Google and that a “blanket denial” by China on the issue would not be helpful with regards to the broader aspects of US-China relationship.

However, the Google-China spat is unlikely to have any adverse impact on US’ broader relationships with Beijing…It is far more stable than it has been in some time. There are a range of issues where the countries have disagreements. But, there were many facets to the US-China relationship and a cross-cultural understanding could create healthy co-opetition which could help speed up a global economic recovery.

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Tags: Answering Services, B2B marketplace, Call Centers, Energy, entrepreneurs, Manufacturing, Mining Equipment, payroll, Toy Supplies
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From Lingerie to HDTVs, How Super Bowl XLIV Can Benefit Your Business

Monday, January 25th, 2010

It’s obvious that the Super Bowl is good for bartenders and bookies, but a surprisingly wide range of other businesses also benefit from the annual Super Bowl event. Some of these examples might surprise you, and they should get you thinking about how your business might benefit from Super Bowl XLIV.

Even if it has nothing to do with football, just about any business can find a Super Bowl tie-in with a little creativity. It can be as simple as redecorating a store or revising your web design to play up the Super Bowl theme. It may involve showing how your products can enhance a viewer’s enjoyment of the big game. Or, it may involve using search marketing to promote football-related items or memorabilia for either Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts who are now headed back to the NFL title game for the second time in four years and their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history or Drew Brees and the Saints who have helped revive the city of New Orleans that was devastated by hurricane Katrina four years ago.

The following are some examples of how businesses have found ways to benefit from previous Super Bowl events:

The Super Bowl of snacking. Super Bowl Sunday is the top day of the year for snack food consumption. One company alone ramps up production of potato and tortilla chips by 10 million pounds leading up to the game. In all, food and beverage sales jumped by $261 million leading up to the 2009 Super Bowl, compared to an average week. It doesn’t all have to be about snack foods, however. As an example of how business owners can broaden the football tie-in, caterers have also found a profitable niche serving Super Bowl events.
Referees watch replays on a tiny screen, but other people prefer something bigger. While the ref is still under the hood peering at that miniature screen, viewers at home have already made their minds up about the call, because they are sitting back in comfort and watching the game on a wide-screen HDTV. In 2009, retailers sold 61 percent more HDTVs in the week before the Super Bowl than in the previous week. The business lesson goes beyond television equipment–an event like the Super Bowl can be used to create a perceived deadline that prompts buying behavior.
Memorabilia lets fans make the most out of their bragging rights. When either the New Orleans Saints or Indianapolis Colts wins the Super Bowl XLIV, the fans of one of the franchises will wear the victory on his or her sleeve–and coffee mug, license plate, or anything else that can be stamped with a team’s logo for 2010 and beyond. Don’t feel restricted by whether or not an item has anything to do with watching football. In fact, the more unconventional it is for an item to carry a football logo, the more in demand it might be. And this years super bowl featues two teams with potent offenses to make it a spectacle worth watching and remembering for a life time.
What’s an armchair quarterback without an armchair? Furniture retailers also benefit from the Super Bowl, as fans seek a larger couch to accommodate their guests, or the perfect recliner from which to watch the game. This line of thinking can be stretched to promote sales of any household item that is used when entertaining. With two hall of fame quarterbacks – Peyton Manning of the Colts and Drew Brees of the Saints managing the game, a new reclining armchair for all want to be NFL quarterbacks will most likely be the hottest selling item for Super Bowl XLIV.
Some women know how to take a man’s mind off of football. A racy Victoria’s Secret ad during the Super Bowl once drew 1.2 million visitors to their Web site. After all, what better way to celebrate victory or take the sting out of losing? The point is, even a product as far removed from football as lingerie can use the Super Bowl as a promotional focal point and boost sales to kick off the new year earnings.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Super Bowl XLIV

Here are some quick tips on using the Super Bowl XLIV to benefit your business:

Highlight items for use while watching the game. Get creative about this–it doesn’t have to be an obvious fit like televisions and snack food. It can be as simple as Peyton Manning and Drew Brees quarterback dolls that can be used by the opposing fans to get into the game at this years Super Bowl parties.
Revamp your website design to feature a Super Bowl theme. Incorporate some football-related content for either the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints teams to play on interest generated by this years game.
Predict the Super Bowl XLIV winner between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints and plan on putting the winner’s logo on your products on the night of the game. It’s actually been done with coffins, so there really are no limits!
Create Super Bowl promotions. Look at your products and services from a football perspective, so you can do things such as tweaking your pay per click campaigns to tie into Super Bowl-related terms, or using football trivia and fun facts to draw people to your Web site - do you know how many super bowls the Saints have won in their franchise history? Has a rookie coach ever taken an NFL team to the Super Bowl? If you don’t have an ecommerce website, get an online merchant account today and provide online credit card processing capabilities on your website.
Use promotions tied to the final score to get customers to return after the game. This can stretch the benefit of the Super Bowl out by a few extra days and weeks, and prolong your sales as we try and recover from the deepest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.
Use temp staffing and call center outsourcing to ramp up capacity. Don’t let capacity constrain you from taking maximum advantage of the promotional potential of Super Bowl XLIV. Temporary staffing, telemarketing and call center companies can provide you the flexible capacity to handle the surge in volume during the next two weeks.

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Tags: Call Centers, Credit Card Processing, E-commerce Solutions, Internet Marketing, merchant account, Web Design
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Telemarketing vs. Internet Marketing

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Internet marketing has gained popularity in recent years, accelerated further by the current economic climate. Internet marketing is more targeted and measurable than traditional advertising. However, recent research data shows that telemarketers can convert almost 60% of calls into sales leads by using customized templates and scripts for specific customers. Additionally, telemarketing can qualify the customers before setting up the appointment by asking a few questions unlike internet advertising where it is not as easy to qualify the user based on a click to your website.

The good news for online advertising is that the advertiser can choose to pay for performance where you can choose not to pay for the number of times that the ad appears on a particular site online but pay only when the user clicks on your ad and lands on your website. This helps reduce the “marketing waste” and reminds us of John Wannamaker’s quote which is so relevant today “I know half of my marketing dollars are wasted…I just don’t know which half!”. On the other hand, the purpose of telemarketing is to make calls, qualify business leads and setup appointments for your sales team to close them into sales. Telemarketing companies get paid on number of calls made and not number of appointments setup. This has made it difficult for them to compete with internet marketing based on the “pay for performance” message that is so heavily used by internet marketing companies to shift more dollars online. But, if you are looking to target a specific customer such as the 14.6 million US small businesses or consumers with household incomes of $100K+ it may be more cost effective and easier to do so with telemarketing than online marketing.

Online marketing has gained more popularity because it is non intrusive compared to telemarketing that is often considered intrusive specifically when it comes to targeting individual consumers. The government has also passed several regulations including the “Do-Not-Call” lists so that consumers can register their phone numbers if they do not want to receive intrusive calls from telemarketers. However, telemarketing companies are still very much in demand when it comes to qualifying and targeting business leads and setting up appointments with business owners and decision makers.

Online marketing provides marketers with several options such as search engine marketing, search engine optimization, banner advertising and social media marketing. Each of them serves a different purpose depending on whether the marketer’s objective is to looking for a direct response or create an impression. It is important for every marketer and business owner to better understand the sophisticated internet marketing solutions and practices before allocating marketing budget to them or you will overspend and waste half of your marketing dollars on them. In comparison, telemarketing is very simple as its purpose is to make calls, qualify business leads, setup appointments and fill the sales pipeline so that the sales rep or account executive can follow-up and close the sale.

To conclude, online marketing and telemarketing are both effective. But, its important for marketers and business owners to know their marketing objective, understand the various options and select the one that will best address their specific business needs.

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Tags: Business Leads, Call Centers, Internet Marketing, online advertising, online marketing, sales leads, Telemarketing
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From CFO TO CEO: What Does It Take To Make The Jump?

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

The realities of the new economy are reflected in CFOs changing career goals. A recent survey revealed that considerably fewer CFOs today seek CEO positions than five years ago (5 percent in 2009 compared to 52 percent of CFOS surveyed in 1990).

While fewer opportunities exist for CFOs to make the jump to CEO positions, the skills and experiences CFOs possess make them strong CEO contenders in the changing economic landscape.

CEOs are not made with cookie-cutters; it takes years of appropriate experience to build to that position. Here are some of the professional experiences that contribute to the making of CEOs in this new economy:

Internet Marketing

The clamp on marketing budgets for fiscal year 2010 is unyielding and businesses are trying to cut corners without compromising on customer acquisition strategies and customer loyalty programs. The pie is shrinking, to make their companies grow CEOs will have to steal customers from their competitors. The internet allows CEOs to increase the return on advertising spend (ROAS) and customer profitability by reaching customers wherever they are online, generating qualified sales leads and closing deals with fewer heads and by minimizing waste. Focus on Return On Investment (ROI) initiatives are dominating these economic times. A CFO who can bring an appreciation of the cost and revenue anatomy of an organization is uniquely positioned to help with implementing efficient online marketing strategies such as social media marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing to generate new revenues at much lower costs resulting in higher profit streams.

VOIP

Any business with a broadband connection can use VOIP phone systems to enjoy the same features as expensive PBX systems. Apart from the low cost of calls and user friendly features, VOIP phones reduce the need for travel as they have built in advanced capabilities like video and web conferencing and require only one network for voice and data; they also allow easy integration with CRM applications. The person who can articulate how an organization can make the transition from the traditional systems to the new ones and can do that with some eloquence, who can exhibit the courage to cut costs without creating significant insitituional trauma is one who exhibits the kind of leading-edge mentality needed by a CEO in 2010.

Call Centers

What is one thing that small and medium businesses with limited budget and resources have in common with Fortune 500 companies that boast of thousands of customers? It is probably the common conundrum of how to serve existing customers profitably. Many businesses, these days, are turning to 24/7 call center companies that can handle large volumes of both incoming and outgoing customer calls to address this challenge. A call center essentially engages in receiving and resolving customer complaints. Customers hardly ever call to express satisfaction in a company’s products or services. However, what if these dissatisfied customers are somehow tapped and turned into life-long customers of the company. This is exactly the business proposition of call center companies. CEOs must have a tolerance for risk and be willing to try new things, including outsourcing customer service to outsourced call centers that operate round the clock to enhance customer loyalty.

CEOs have to balance the financial imperatives with the realities of the economic times and resolve conflicts that arise between operations and finance, which all fall in gray areas of managing a business. Making the jump from CFO to CEO takes a lot of energy and commitment and a willingness to do whatever it takes. Some individuals, once they discover the actual job requirements of the corner office, find they do not want to be CEOs after all.

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Tags: Call Centers, customer service, customers, Internet Marketing, VOIP
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Top 5 Return On Investments (ROI) For Your Business In 2010

Friday, January 15th, 2010

The recession is forcing small businesses to slash budgets and re-roganize for the new economy. Relentless focus on return on investment is the objectives for every business in 2010. Two trends that are gaining popularity are more outsourcing and a shift to online marketing and advertising. Five business ideas that will gain momentum in 2010 are:

Social media marketing

Social media has become increasingly popular with the young and the old. Social media marketing companies tap into this pool to market your business to a wide audience and create a buzz through forums and discussions. It is an explosive medium as word of mouth can spread about your business like wild fire. Vigilant businesses can enhance their customer relationships and build a customer-friendly image by monitoring and addressing any negative feedback that is posted on these websites so it does not result in bad PR.

Search engine optimization

Nothing can trump your website ranking on the first page in organic search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo! for relevant search keywords. White Hat SEO companies focus on building relevant traffic to your websites by researching on keywords that will convert into sales, effective link building to make sure your website is indexed by tier 1 search engines so your website can be found by users online, link baiting to attract visitors to engage with the content on your site and social bookmarkingof your website on the relevant social networking and media properties.

Pay-per-click marketing

PPC campaigns eliver results that are measurable and can provide a significant Return on Investment (ROI) for your business if you can identify and bid on the keywords that result in conversion into qualified business leads or credit card merchant sales. Search Marketing companies make sure your ppc campaigns are more effective by placing the right bids so that you can meet your ROI objectives.

Call Centers

While businesses have been compelled to lay off staff to slash their expense budgets for 2010, work still needs to be done. By outsourcing call center services, businesses ensure trained l center professionals handle customer service calls, interact with suppliers, take orders, qualify sales leads, provide technical support and also act as an answering service, all at significantly lower overhead costs.

Medical Billing

Outsourcing Medical billing can alleviate the workload on healthcare practitioners and medical centers by solving the time consuming task of filing claims, keeping track of medical billing and code changes, collecting revenues on difficult claims so healthcare professionals can focus on their primary focus ie providing for healthcare to patients and consumers.

As more small businesses rely on outsourcing services and permanent temporary staffing to keep expenses low, we can expect the US economy to recover from the deepest recession since the great depression.

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Tags: Answering Services, Business Leads, Call Centers, pay per click, ppc, sales leads, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, small business, social media marketing
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Hot or Not in 2010?

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Call centers are a hot commodity in 2010, helping companies retain customers and build customer loyalty so that businesses can benefit from repeat customer visits and product purchases. With fewer consumers and businesses opening up their wallets and spending in this economy outsourced call centers have become an important business strategy for both large and small business in 2010. Businesses can save big dollars by tapping into the economies of scale that outsourcing call center companies offer along with minimal upfront investment. With the pressure on margins and the economic upheaval, call centers are expected to grow in demand in 2010.

Within the call center industry, VoIP services and self-service applications are becoming an industry standard. Focus is on operational excellence, efficient use of resources, customer value and trainings to keep call center personnel updated and proficient so that they may handle demanding customers with ease. Some call centers cross-train workforce to maximize potential and flexibility.

Modern call centers offer much more than call handling. Call center services can cover order collection, handling email and chat communications, tele-messaging, sending faxes and text messages from PDAs and cell phones, and more. Promptness and efficiency are key elements of the services.

Call centers are making great strides by incorporating technology into their business practices. Depending on business needs, a business can select add-on services such as integrating the call center services with CRM applications, speech recognition to enhance customer interactions, predictive dialing to save time and costs, call routing to increase first-call resolution rates and manage call spikes and email management for better response times.

Off-shore call center outsourcing, at a time unemployment rates are breaking barriers in the US, is building up a protectionist sentiment. Off-shore call center services have also received flak lately due to language issues and low quality services. In fact, many businesses are moving their call centers back on shore to avoid losing customers. Though off-shore call center companies will still be popular because of their cost savings, they have their work cut out.

On-shore call center services are coming up at a rapid pace in rural America. Home-based call agents are also becoming popular. High speed connections and technology are making it possible for on-shore call centers to offer attractive prices to their clients and grow profitably.

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Tags: Answering Services, Call Centers, customer service, customers, recession, small business, Telemarketing
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Don’t Go On Vacation Until You Have Customers under Control

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Competitive times have become even more cutthroat due to the economic recession. Small businesses, hit hardest by the recession, cannot afford to miss out on potential customer calls. The biggest barrier between small businesses and the realization of ambitious plans is restricted cash flow. Outsourced Call Centers enable small businesses to offer their customers the same services as large businesses at affordable costs.

Keep things moving forward

When a new customer calls in, you don’t want her to be greeted with an automated voice message while you’re on vacation. Answering services can keep things moving forward by completing the preliminaries and reach you on your mobile phone if it requires your urgent attention.

Big does matter

If a small business wants to grow out of its “smallness”, it has to aim higher than small customers. Small businesses trying to win contracts with big corporations need to project the image of a big business to be even considered seriously. A call center works like round-the-clock personal secretaries for small businesses. They receive calls from customers, suppliers and partners with professional efficiency.

Offset downsizing with answering services

While many small businesses have been compelled to downsize to reduce expenses, the action should not affect the quality of operations. Trained answering service personnel receive calls, address the caller’s concerns and can connect them to you if required.

Get more time to focus on business growth

Call centers give youmore time to pursue revenue generating tasks instead of expending valuable employee hours handling routine calls. Call center ecompanies can be trained to answer typical questions, provide information, and connect customers to experts only when needed.

Answering services companies are an asset to small businesses. Business owners can leave office for long or short breaks without worrying about missed calls. Exceptional situations demand exceptional solutions.

Answering services are a convenient and affordable option for small businesses to rely on in the recessional environment.

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Tags: Answering Services, Business Leads, Call Centers, customers, recession, sales leads, small business
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