Three Steps to Success in Internet Marketing

Online marketing is much more than putting your advertising online. Marketing online includes such areas as communicating with your customers, promoting your business or product online, and making sure that your website content is useful and up to date. The great thing about online marketing is that you don't need to have a huge budget to put together a marketing campaign that is effective. There are tools that you can use to make your marketing techniques easy and profitable such website templates, shopping cart templates, and online marketing templates.

But before you incorporate any of this, there are some important points to consider for creating a successful internet marketing business.

Step One: Communication - One of the most important aspects of online marketing is response to your customer's inquiries and needs. You don't want to lose potential customers after you've made the effort to have them visit your website and then contact you for more information or repeat customers who have purchased a product and need assistance. E-mail is a very effective and cost efficient way for you to generate more sales and communicate with your customers. But you must be prompt and consistent in your response and maintain a friendly yet professional tone. Efficient websites incorporate a personal touch with a fast response time to customers. Reasonable response time for a business day contact is 24-48 hours. If you wait any longer you risk losing the customer. So consider your work plan well. If you don't have the ability or the man power to return e-mail in two days you need to take another look at your setup and either reorganize your business or hire someone to help you.

Step Two: Products and Services - Before you start marketing online you need to be sure that you have a product or service that people want to buy. Customers need to find value in what you have to offer, whether it be your free report that sells your own product or your direct sales product or service you have to offer. There are two motivating factors when it comes to selling online: cost and convenience. Will your customer find it easier to buy online than finding the same product in a local store? Is it cheaper for your customer to buy this product from you online?

Step Three: Delivery - Is instant delivery a selling factor that can turn the tables for you in offering your product? Would your potential customer be more inclined to purchase from you if you offer your service within 24-48 hours? Convenience, instant access, and quick service are key selling points and can mean the difference in you getting a sale or losing a customer. Test your system. Make sure it is user-friendly, easy to understand, functioning as promised.

Online success starts with the building blocks of business design. Put yourself in your customers shoes. Communicate with your customers, offer them what they need at a great price and with quick, if not instant, delivery and you will have the three keys necessary to open the door to online business success.

Cynthia Mosher has been working online since 1998. She shares her advice on working at home and internet and affiliate marketing at her website http://www.wahmdaily.com

Dealing With Buyers Remorse - Returns and Refunds

Requests for returns and refunds are one of the most damaging aspects in the profits of any direct marketing business. You waste a good deal of your time, efforts and funding on these two courtesies.

Keep in mind that all businesses endure some degree of this problem and many do nothing about it. Many businesses a simply accept returned merchandise and refund requests as a normal business cycle. It is as if they can think of nothing to solve this expensive scenario.

On the contrary, you can do plenty to reduce returns and refunds drastically. I am about to tell you how you can eliminate the majority of them. It is a simple and painless process.

To be able to understand what causes an excess of return and refund requests, you must first know what does not cause them to happen.

Returns and refunds are not the cause of rendering poor service or faulty good, since a little time, care and concern guarantee quality in the services and products you offer.

Dishonest consumers do not cause them, although you may come across a shady character from time to time. The majority of your consumers are those who are searching and satisfied with getting honest value for the price they pay.

Customers searching for a better price somewhere else does not cause them, although, pricing is an element in selecting merchandise for purchase. However, this is rarely the reasoning for a customers decision of returns or refunds.

If none of these aspects is the single, most reason for the largest number of return and refund request, then what is.

The reason is buyers remorse.

Yes, it is true; buyers remorse is the leading factor or returns and refunds. This is enough to send shivers up and down your spine. Buyers remorse is your powerful and rotten opposition.

The explanation for this is that all the reasons mentioned above are reasonable, matter-of-fact problem situations that have logical and practical solutions. They are much easier to overcome. On the other hand, buyers remorse is a more difficult problem with an even more complex solution. Buyers remorse is emotional in nature. Therefore, buyers remorse will not find a solution with any amount of logical and sensible problem solving.

To understand the strong influence of buyers remorse, you will need to understand when it occurs. Buyers remorse occurs the moment, of a completed transaction of purchase.

You will find this true when a customer makes a purchase on an explicit decision rather than that of an implicit decision. An explicit decision is, when outside sources influence your customer, while an implicit decision is one that the customer makes on their own.

Of course this is a completely other topic on its own and we shall now leave it at that, for the moment.

Buyers remorse causes fear in the customer as soon as they have completed their purchase, the moment that money changes hands.

However, the good news is that you can turn this type of scenario around quiet easily. However, you must use the right tools to accomplish this. I am sharing this tool with you now. It is a powerful fast moving tool.

This tool is post purchase reassurance.

Post Purchase Reassurance

Post purchase reassurance indicates you understand that customers will suffer from buyers remorse. It also indicates that you recognize this problem comes from their emotions. Once you understand this, you can take creative action to eliminate the unfortunate influence it has.

To achieve your post purchase reassurance goals, you will need to create and send a very personal follow up letter to your consumers, soon after they have made their purchase. You will also benefit by giving away special reports and bonus products in your letter to your consumers.

You can deal with buyers remorse, while eliminating the amount of returns and refunds you might incur. Do it now!

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://besuccessfulnews.com/

Design Your Offering to Be Friendlier to Do-It-Yourselfers

The people who design offerings are often the worst people to design do-it-yourself directions for beneficiaries, customers, and users. Why? Designers know too much! They can help themselves very easily. But do-it-yourself features aren't going to do much good unless they are easy for everyone to use.

What's a good way to make offerings more do-it-yourself friendly? Prompt the person with what they need to do next.

If you've ever stood behind the lectern at a large event, you may have noticed that the two big sheets of glass at either side of the lectern are actually screens to run the text of a speech. To the audience, these look like slightly unattractive decorations.

To the speakers, there are prompters. If you lose your place in your speech or cannot remember enough to approximate the text, you can glance at the prompter and get back on track. In the same way, you can post prompts for using your offering from beginning to end.

If no one needs the prompts, the prompts will be ignored. If prompts are helpful, they will be eagerly sought out and appreciated when needed.

If possible, make your prompts simple. For example, "yes" or "no" choices help. A computer screen might ask, "Do you want to save the changes you made?" Or for our MP3 player, it might ask, "Do you want to save this recording on your computer?"

If we hit "yes" that would take us into a step-by-step demonstration of what to do next. Each screen would then give us the choice of whether to continue or not. A more advanced set of prompts might allow us the choice not to be asked a particular question again the next time we come through a screen.

A better approach is to make your offering self-sufficient for do-it-yourselfers by designing for simpler use. That may sound like an obvious point, but few organizations put any emphasis on simple use.

Why? Those who work on the project have different objectives. Designers frequently want the offering to appear to be "cool" while the engineers want an elegant design that other engineers will admire. The operating executives want an offering that's easy for them to provide. The accountants want the offering provider's costs to be low. Pursuing such objectives will normally lead to an offering that's unnecessarily complex and time-consuming for beneficiaries, customers, and users to employ.

What's the difference you should seek? Designed-in prompts can take you through a complex process. Make the process simpler to begin with, and you may not need to use any prompts.

For instance, those who want to make voice recordings as their primary use could be offered a different MP3 recorder designed solely for voice recordings that will be e-mailed. This recorder could have buttons resembling those on a tape recorder.

The player's software could then automatically segment the recordings into 15-minute sections for easier handling of the files as e-mail attachments. With the right design a beneficiary, customer, or user would be taking the right steps within a few seconds of popping in the battery. Few would miss going through hours of advance preparation for a recording.

Here's another idea: Have someone who wears reading glasses help design your offering. In the race to miniaturize almost everything, the symbols and words on some devices are becoming microscopic to those who wear reading glasses. All 16-year-olds will do well with the miniaturization, but few people over 50 will be able to make out what's being communicated.

Finally, make your offering more mistake-proof. Have you ever looked at those plug-in sockets at the back of your computer? If not, take a look.

Sometime when your system is off, take out the various wires and inspect how the sockets vary for different devices that are attached to your computer. It looks like someone with a weird taste for modern art has been at work. Actually, the reason is far more practical.

If you make the sockets unique enough, no one will plug a device into a socket that will cause harm to your computer. To speed finding that unique receptacle, you'll usually find that the plugs and sockets are color-coded to aid those who aren't color blind.

In other words, the computer makers realized that most people would be putting their computer systems together on their own. You need to make such a do-it-yourself step foolproof. Otherwise, manufacturers know that they will simply be receiving back a lot of computers that have been destroyed during the installation process.

How can you make using your offerings simpler, more fool-proof, and more fun?

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Make Doing-It-Yourself Faster Than Getting Help in the Usual Way

What benefits can come from having beneficiaries, customers, and users doing more for themselves? In our harried lives, most people favor doing things themselves when that action saves their time.

That observation seems like a paradox. How can do-it-yourself be faster than having a service fully provided?

Part of the answer is that many offerings with full service are provided inefficiently. Here's an example: Half the gas stations and vehicle repair shops near our home prominently advertise low-priced oil changes.

Go for one of those oil changes, and you'll probably end up waiting two hours, even if you have an appointment. Be sure to bring a book or pick a location near where you can do some useful shopping.

Every 5 miles or so we drive, however, we'll pass another choice -- a quick oil-change emporium. If no one is waiting at the quick place, you can drive right into a bay designed to make oil changes fast. Unless you decide you want some other service, you'll drive out of the bay again in about 10 minutes and be on your way.

What are the do-it-yourself elements? First, the quick emporium makes the timing of oil changes an impulse buy through allowing passing drivers to see when fast service is available because no customers are waiting. That aspect of the business model is like being a mass merchandiser. The customer helps himself or herself to an offering based on noticing the offering, rather than having a prior intent to purchase.

Second, the drivers never leave their cars. In essence, it's like an improved version of a drive-through lane at a fast food restaurant.

We are often reminded of that comparison when we end up waiting in line longer for fast food in a drive-through lane than for an oil change. In part that's because quick change places usually have at least three bays while fast food drive-through lanes usually have only one line served by a single window.

For the customer whose time has an economic value to herself or himself, the quick oil change emporiums offer a good value. You save almost two hours over standard "full service" by spending an extra $10 to $15.

Do-it-yourself time savings can be even greater for accessing a physician to help you solve a medical problem. Let's look at an inefficient method first.

In the United States, seeking most such health solutions begins by visiting your primary care physician who is usually a general practitioner, an internist, or a pediatrician (for children). Primary care physicians are busy people, so you won't get to see them for at least two weeks unless you are experiencing a near-emergency. Once there, you are sent out for tests.

Depending on the test results, you either come back to the primary care physician or are sent on to a specialist. If it's still not a near-emergency, you will wait one to six months to see the specialist. The specialist will then examine you and order more tests.

Once the second round of tests is done, you'll have another chance to make an appointment and see the specialist again in one to six months. At this point, you've been pursuing this health issue for more than two months, and no one has started to treat what's wrong with you.

When you return for your second specialist visit, you can expect in some cases to be referred to one or two other specialists. Of course, unless it's a near emergency, you cannot get into see them either for another one to six months.

After those visits and tests are over, you make an appointment to see the first specialist again. Once again, you wait one to six months. Chances are, too, that each time you visit one of these physicians, you wait to be seen.

Between travel, tests, waiting time, and more travel, you may have invested four days of your time by now. Hopefully, your medical problem has gone away on its own. Otherwise, you're on a three-month to two-year treadmill that may or may not lead to a solution.

What's the alternative? One choice that many people favor is to visit one of the famous diagnostic clinics. You'll be poked and prodded continually for two to three days, and you'll pay quite a lot out of your own pocket for the visit.

But you won't leave until all of your physicians have received strict marching orders from the clinic for how to treat you. If you really need medical treatment, you're now way ahead of the game.

What's the problem? You may have to wait six months to a year to get an appointment at the diagnostic clinic. But that can be a big improvement over two years that may lead to inconclusive results. Some people gain an access advantage by simply scheduling annual checkups at such clinics.

What's a faster, less time-consuming alternative? Conjure up a scary symptom, and you can simply head for the emergency room of the best hospital in your area. If your problem is serious, you'll be admitted to the hospital within hours and you'll have specialists checking you out within 24 hours.

Tests will also be accelerated. Two years of waiting may be compressed into a few days in the hospital.

As you can imagine, this do-it-yourself approach to health care is increasingly popular in the United States. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed with people, most of whom don't need to be seen there. But the appeal of fast service brings patients in, much like the quick lube place with no lines.

Recently, more hospitals are getting smarter about this back door into accelerated care and now locate general-purpose outpatient clinics next to their emergency rooms. As you enter the emergency room area, a triage nurse figures out if you are well enough to go to the outpatient clinic and wait to be seen on a first-come, first-served basis.

This choice does speed things up for the patient by eliminating the need to wait to see your primary care physician when she or he next has an appointment opening. If such clinics can learn to affordably help people track down their health-care solutions faster and by spending less time, many patients will flock to these clinics.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Add Desirable Do-It-Yourself Features to Lower Costs and Add Customers

I acted and my action made me wise. --Thom Gunn

If beneficiaries, customers, and users can help themselves, costs can fall while satisfaction rises. For instance, some stores now offer the experience of being a potter. Everything you need to make and decorate a pot is there, and your artistic creation can be carried away to use after it has been fired and cooled by the store's staff.

Selling you a decorated pot simply wouldn't be the same. This experiential approach is also a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than taking a pottery course. With plenty of written directions at the work stations and people you can ask for help, customers find it easy and pleasant to create pots.

But many organizations start with the idea of people helping themselves to reduce costs and fail to execute well. Why? Setting up workable do-it-yourself conditions is hard to do.

Here's an example: Promises are sometimes easier made than kept. That's a lesson I learned the hard way when I founded The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind.

Members were promised that they would receive recordings of all the group's teleconferences in MP3 format. Why did I promise that? Because the teleseminar-based courses I have taken provide replays in MP3 format. I liked listening to those replays and thought that such recordings must be the best way to go.

After touring more store shelves than I would have liked, I picked up a few boxes from a section that said "MP3 recorders" and bought the version that a wandering teenage clerk told us would serve this application. Since the first teleconference was now less than 14 hours away, I opened up the box and began to read the directions.

Good news! There was a separate owner's manual to make a "fast start" and I soon had the item charged up and running.

But after the fourth "fast start" step, I could never get the control screen to change to the one shown in the manual. Frustration was setting in. More buttons were pushed and different batteries were tried. A flashlight was used to inspect the minute buttons but revealed nothing helpful.

Then I eventually noticed that the "screen" was actually a piece of protective plastic with a printed imitation of a real screen on it. Peel off that plastic, and you could see that the actual screen was showing just what it was supposed to . . . as the owner's manual promised. But there was no mention anywhere of an opaque printed plastic strip pretending to be a real screen that needed to be removed. That item of missing information was strike one against that manual.

In baseball, a batter is out if three strikes are recorded against him or her. Americans often accept three failures from organizations and directions before concluding that there has been unacceptable performance.

Feeling more confident, I decided to test the player to be sure it was recording. I read the manual from cover to cover and learned how to record voices. I next did the "testing, 1, 2, 3" routine as a voice check.

But I could find no place where the operating manual told us how to play back and listen to voice recordings. I could see that something was happening when I recorded my voice, but without hearing a playback I could not figure out how the sound quality needed to be adjusted. That lack of information about voice playback was strike two against that manual.

Feeling less confident, I decided to also use a regular tape recorder for the teleconference in case the MP3 recorder wasn't working properly. With both recorders appearing to function, the first teleconference took place and was recorded. A great sense of relief set in. Now all I had to do was to send out the MP3 recording.


I reread the manual a few more times and couldn't find any description of how to send an MP3 voice recording to someone else over the Internet. Thinking that I had just reached strike three, which would mean pitching the recorder out or going back for a refund, I noticed a 5-inch by 5-inch piece of orange paper that said in large letters: "TOP! Having Trouble? Before you return it . . . Contact our Web site. We Can Help."

Okay, now perhaps I was getting somewhere. I visited the Web site and felt pretty good until I realized that all of the information there was a PDF version of the owner"s manual I had already read more often than the Bible. Strike three was clearly headed for the plate when I noticed in tiny type on the orange sheet a toll-free number to call.

Picking up the telephone with shaky fingers, I soon reached someone who calmly asked what the problem was. I told him, and without pausing he told me the eight required steps. He double checked to be sure the steps worked, and I was off the phone in less than two minutes.

Wow! I was about to score. The MP3 file was quickly loaded onto the computer and I could listen to its lovely quality. Ah! Relief was setting in.

Quickly opening an e-mail program, I began attaching the file to e-mail for the members. After grinding and grinding through the attachment loading process, nothing happened. After six false starts, I noticed that the file seemed to be too big for my service.

No problem. We would just compress the file.

After finding out how to do that, I tried to attach and send the file again. The same problem occurred. Feeling a little panicked, I bought the upgraded e-mail service that allows e-mailers to send huge files. You guessed it. The file was still too big.

Here's what I began to understand. The reason that MP3 files sound so good is because they record vast amounts of sound details. But within 15 minutes, you've got more data than most e-mail accounts will send or accept.

No wonder those course replay MP3 recordings we had been listening to always divided the material into 20 to 25 minute segments. Also, the courses never sent us the files by e-mail. The courses always directed us to sites where we could download the files.

Did the MP3 recorder manual mention this issue? No, of course not. So I had a file I couldn't share electronically unless I posted it to a Web site (not a very secure solution) or burned the file onto CDs and physically shipped those all over the world.

And so I needed a plan B for electronically sending this recording. Thank goodness for that tape recording. I played the recorded tape back in 15-minute segments and recorded each segment as a separate MP3 file.

Then I e-mailed five times to the members to send them all the segments as attachments. Naturally, I overloaded many of their accounts with data, too. One poor fellow had his segments sent to three different addresses before he received a complete set.

But I did succeed in keeping my promise. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending . . . if you overlook the nine hours dedicated to buying the player, learning how to make it work, and sending the eventual files to our members.

Thom Gunn was right. I acted and that action made me wise. But that wisdom came from an unexpected direction. Mainly myr actions made me wise about how to write this chapter to help you avoid the mistakes that many make in adding do-it-yourself features to their offerings.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Follow the Rules of the Road for Helpful Do-It-Yourself Owners' Manuals

Because of potential lawsuits related to harm caused by misusing an offering, few will decide to avoid providing directions. For elaborate offerings, owners' manuals will be required.

In addition, some of your beneficiaries, customers, and users will want to refer to these directions and manuals whether or not they need the help. Rather than providing directions and manuals that become the butt of comedians' jokes, how can you turn on people to using do-it-yourself features?

Many newer vehicles now have global positioning satellite (GPS) systems that provide driving directions. You input your destination and the system spells out a route for you and displays a map.

Those systems do something even more helpful. When you miss a turn, you can quickly get revised directions.

This capability can help overcome a problem that most people have experienced. With preset directions, you may find yourself driving extra miles simply to arrive back at where you missed a turn.

After not following a direction, a GPS system may locate a new route that will eliminate most of the looping back to where you made a mistake. That iterative quality of GPS directions relieves a lot of frustration as well as saving needless backtracking.

Directions and manuals can be designed to operate in a similar way. As soon as you're stuck or seem to have made a mistake, your directions could be quickly adjusted to tell you what to do next.

That interaction would be a great help. Many people don't realize they've made a mistake until after doing a lot of work that then needs to be undone. The best way to provide these error-recovery messages would be to have the directions or the manual actively monitor the offering and what you are doing with it.

Not everyone prefers the same format for directions and instructions. Naturally, some people will want to have a written manual. They are used to that approach.

What are the lessons? Make that manual's index as complete as possible. Few people other than your proofreaders will examine the manual from cover to cover.

Most people will have a question or a problem with your offering at some point. When that happens, people want to turn immediately to the most helpful page.

One nice feature of some manuals is to have more than one indexing system. For instance, sections may be color coded at the edge of the page for their subject matters. Die cuts may help you find the first page of a section like the ones you use to put your thumb into a physical dictionary to find the first page for a letter of the alphabet.

Other manuals also employ symbols to identify locations. These symbols often match icons on the offering itself such as a stylized image of windshield wipers. Of course, the page that most people latch onto is the index where all of the most common problems are listed along with a cross-reference to where the relevant do-it-yourself details can be found.

With more and more offerings, it's also possible to include an electronic directory inside the offering that can be queried in a manner similar to employing an online search engine. That approach is of great value when you are using the offering in a different location from where you normally keep your directions and manuals.

Many times, it's just not convenient to carry around all of the relevant information because it's so bulky. How many people, for instance, carry around telephone directories in their vehicles?

Think of how many times you've been traveling and needed to contact a certain type of local business for which you don't have any names or telephone numbers. If there's a classified directory near a pay phone, you're all set. But if someone has torn out the page you need or there's no directory in sight, you have a lot of potential frustration and wasted time ahead of you as you work with directory assistance and begin making calls.

Another advantage of electronic directories is that you can inexpensively update and bookmark them. When you become aware of new issues or locate better information for ordinary problems and tasks, you can adjust your directory. Make those updates automatic (such as anti-virus programs do) to bookmarked pages, and you're making do-it-yourself more and more desirable.

But there are times when reading just doesn't make sense. For instance, it's a good idea to stop your vehicle before you read anything other than a road sign.

But you may not be able to safely stop when you need immediate information. That's when voice-based information systems can be a great resource.

A helpful version of such a resource works just like an electronic directory except that you speak to the resource and listen to the answers. Many credit card information lines now have this technology.

General Motors provides this kind of help in another way through its OnStar services. At the push of a button, OnStar allows you to be in voice communication with operators who can assist you with a variety of driving needs. Operators can remotely unlock your vehicle when you've left the keys inside or provide emergency advice and assistance after you've had an accident.

However you provide your information, connect together everything the do-it-yourselfer will need. Switching back and forth among six different information sources or sections in a manual isn't going to do the trick when your vehicle is broken down after dark in a scary location while your eight children in the back noisily demand their dinners.

Here are questions to make it easier for people to succeed in helping themselves with your offerings:

-How can you help beneficiaries, customers, and users save time by doing things for themselves rather than getting help in the usual ways?

-What features will make do-it-yourself solutions easier and more engaging?

-Who can help you design do-it-yourself features for offerings that are very simple to use?

-How many simple ways can you provide helpful directions, manuals, and assistance that fit the needs of a do-it-yourself moment?

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Let Customers Adjust Automation to Fit Their Needs

Here's a better idea: Encourage beneficiaries, customers, and users to decide how much automation they want to use . . . and when they want to use that automation. Customize your automation to uniquely fit each beneficiary, customer, and user in the same way that Dell customizes its computers for each customer.

Let's consider how this principle might work for credit card customers. Some customers would like to be able to look up details of their account on the Internet. Others would like to receive a standard oral report customized to their interests by making a toll-free telephone call. Some would like to be able to call someone who can answer their questions. A few might want to receive e-mails that provide updated account information every time there was a transaction, while others might simply want a daily e-mail update.

Whatever those individual preferences are, the customer's desires are bound to change. The process to go from one set to another set of solutions needs to be very fast and simple.

But information isn't the only thing that's automated about a credit card: The basic offer is also automated.

A customer signs up for certain benefits and agrees to pay certain charges for those benefits. Credit card companies treat customers as though their needs never change.

Customers only find out about more relevant choices when yet another unsolicited offer arrives in the mail from a competing credit card company. Wouldn't it make much more sense to just allow customers to shift benefits and charges at will on an existing account?

For instance, a company that uses its credit card very heavily to make purchases at certain times of the year might want the maximum percentage of cash back during those periods of time. When the same company's cash flow is temporarily lean, the company may find itself carrying an unpaid balance and may wish instead to receive the lowest interest rate rather than a high cash-back percentage of purchases.

Payments for credit cards are usually required to be monthly. That schedule is fine for those with a steady cash flow, but many small enterprises have greatly variable cash flows. Such firms may be strongly profitable over the course of a whole year, yet struggle for many months to make minimum payments.

Credit card companies take advantage of such variability. Carry a balance due and miss making a minimum payment, and the credit card company begins to charge penalties and interest like a loan shark.

Clearly such customers would prefer a payment schedule that required regularity as measured over a multiple-month period of time. Credit card companies might argue that regulators don't allow such flexibility. But if the cards were issued by offshore financial institutions, few regulations would limit more flexible offerings.

In fact, companies involved in global commerce might find it attractive to be able to select the currency in which charges occur and a different currency for payments. Select depreciating currencies for making payments and that's an additional discount for the company using the credit card.

The credit card issuer wouldn't be harmed because the overall currency position could be inexpensively hedged and the expense passed along to those who wanted this flexibility. Such a program would allow small companies to have the kind of inexpensive currency hedging choices that are only available now to larger firms.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Opportunities for Improvement Often Start with Flexible Automation

Too often, businesses treat customers as though they could all wear the same size shoes. Although they would never do that with products, the processes that customers need to use often have that overly uniform quality. Let's look at how this problem pervades society.

Governments, for instance, could do a better job as well by offering flexible automation. In a spirit of fairness, many benefits for citizens are doled out equally . . . regardless of need. It would be better if citizens could automatically adjust those benefits.

Here's an example: In the United States, a major retirement benefit is to receive pension payments based on the taxes paid into your Social Security account during your working years. The pension's size is also partially based on the age at which you retire.

But many people find their needs are changing. Some may retire and later decide that they've made a mistake and want to go back to work. But they cannot stop their Social Security checks from arriving and delivering taxable income. If they could suspend those payments until they permanently retire, the pension could be a lot higher when they permanently retire while taxes would be reduced in the meantime.

Others aren't very good at investing money and don't want to learn how. Some of these people would probably like to have an opportunity to put extra money into their Social Security accounts to increase their pensions.

And some people are from long-lived families and don't need pension money at the maximum retirement age. If such people are still healthy and working at the maximum retirement age, they might want to defer receiving their pension in order to increase its size after they aren't able to keep working.

Other retirees may be more concerned about avoiding long-term health care costs than having a certain sized pension. These people might want to swap part of their pension benefit for more coverage against nursing home care should they need it.

Allow everyone at their will to move benefits from what they get automatically to what they want to receive automatically, and you can probably deliver much more benefit to citizens at a lower cost. Perhaps if politicians continue to be insensitive to individual needs, entrepreneurs will find ways to allow retirees to swap for better bundles of government benefits.

Here are questions to remind you of what to focus on to properly automate your offerings and the ways you deliver them:

-What process steps should be improved before the steps are automated?

-How can automation allow you to provide even simpler, more effective offerings through improved processes?

-When and where would it make sense to encourage
beneficiaries, customers, and users to avoid automation?

-What aspects of automation should you let beneficiaries, customers, and users adjust to meet their preferences?

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Increased Security May Make Customers Flee

The motto of many organizations is "Customers come first." Read or hear that motto, and you might assume that an organization is bending over backwards to make life simple and easy for customers. But that's rarely the case. Such mottos are usually lip service rather than commitments that are enacted in reality.

Consider how so-called customer service usually works online. A Web site decides to become more secure by requiring you to select a more complex log-in name and password.

If you try to make this new selection on a Web site and make a mistake, you are usually advised to try again. Make too many unsuccessful attempts, and the site shuts you out.

You gnash your teeth in annoyance, but to no avail. You are being treated like a potential criminal trying to hack into the site rather than a confused person seeking a service.

Many such sites, especially for security brokerage firms, then make it very difficult to find someone who can help you. You can reach a human being by telephone, but that human being usually has no clue what the problem is. But before they can confess their ignorance, you have to answer several kinds of identification questions such as when was your last deposit, what was your last trade, and so forth.

Naturally, you cannot answer those questions in your paperless account without being able to open your account. Eventually, you establish that you are a real customer.

The clueless service representative then passes you along to someone who may have a clue. You start the whole identification process all over again with different questions that are all but impossible to answer.

It would be pretty funny if you weren't the one being treated like a new army recruit. Every time this happens to me, I find myself looking for a new online broker.

How is the problem ultimately solved? A programmer comes onto the line and makes the change for me. If the programmer is considerate, the person actually stays on the line until I succeed in making the change and can easily open and close my account. My anger slowly dissipates as we work through the problem together.

Now, I realize that such sites cannot have programmers talking every single customer through the change. But wouldn't it be possible to provide computer-based prompts that break the process down into little tiny steps?

An even better solution from my point of view is to issue a temporary password so I can take a second attempt at the problem online. With enough verification questions, surely that's as least as secure as making me mess around with the clueless representatives.

Increased security is fine as long as you don't lock customers out and frustrate them in the process.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Philippine Call Centers and Government Support

The economic life of the country is always tied up with its political life. In the Philippines, the boom in the call center industry is being developed and supported by the government. In fact, the growth of the call center industry is in part because of the support of the Philippine government. Call centers provide an alternative for Filipino professionals to work in the country instead of working abroad.

The call center industry has grown so much since 2001. Currently, there are more than 100 call centers spread out through different cities all over the Philippines. Although Metro Manila houses most of these call centers, a number of them have decided to locate in the Philippine provinces in the North and in the South. The provincial cities where call centers are located include Baguio City in the North; Clark Field, a former US military base converted into an economic center; Subic Bay Metropolitan Area, another former US military base; Cebu City, and Davao City, the queen city in Mindanao. This decision is because labor costs in the provincial cities are even lower than in Metro Manila.
Philippine call centers are also helping the government lower the unemployment rate in the whole Philippines.

In fact, more than 200,000 Filipino professionals are working in call centers, most of them are twenty-something and usually fresh graduates. Because of these call centers, the revenues generated from these centers amount to almost USD 2.5 billion in 2005 alone. By 2006, another USD 1 billion had been projected to add to this amount. These call centers are engaged in sales, customer service, and technical support among others.

The Philippine government projects that by the year 2010, around 2 million Filipinos shall have been working for call centers. In order to achieve this, the government is actively campaigning for investments from developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia among others. In addition to this, the government has been strengthening the educational system of the Philippines so that the next batches of college graduates will be able to fulfill the growing market for call center professionals. In addition to this, the government is actively developing economic zones and technoparks in the country to house call center offices and buildings. By engaging in these pursuits, the government is enhancing the competitive advantage of Filipino call center agents.

The United States had presence in the Philippines for fifty years. Because of this, the Philippines has become exposed to American culture and the language that they have. As a result of this, Filipinos can easily adapt their listening ears and their accent to American English. In addition, they are able to relate well with American culture because of the continuing relationship between the Philippines and the United States.

By drawing upon the superb English skills of Filipinos, companies all over the world have much to gain. This is even bolstered by the efforts of the government to promote call center agents.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

Mystery Shopping No Longer A Mystery

Mystery shopping is becoming more and more important for businesses to ensure they offer exemplary customer service. So what is it? I hear you ask. Well Mystery shopping sounds mysterious and alludes to something covert and spy-like. The reality is not quite as glamorous as the image of an international spy but nevertheless the mystery shopper provides a similar service. Mystery shopping is utilised by businesses that want to have someone impartial analyse the performance of their staff and the services they offer.

The company will employ a mystery shopper typically to visit their place of work and provide feedback so that the company can make sure there company is up to scratch in the areas that the mystery shopper has been dispatched to analyse.

There are a number of areas in which a mystery shopper can be useful. This can be by visiting a store, shop, restaurant or other place of work where the staff are customer facing and provide a report on their performance. These reports are typically a mixture of both qualitative, the opinion of the person that has performed the analysis, and quantitative. Often the mystery shopper will be asked to fill out a form with ratings on different aspects of the performance that they have experienced. Because much of the information they provide can be quantified this makes it very easy for the company that have employed the mystery shopper to keep on track with their performance. Figures can be collated and used to keep track on the performance of the area that has been scrutinised. As a result this is a very welcome method of analysing performance.

There are a number of different types of mystery shopping and these types of mystery shopping tend to be used for analysing specific areas of a businesses relationship with their customers. One of the most exciting types of mystery shopping is covert video shopping. This type of shopper attaches a video camera discretely to their person and then proceeds to enter the place of work that they are analysing and film the interaction that they have with the staff. The cameras these shoppers used are extremely small and should be indistinguishable to the employees. The video mystery shopper will perform a pre-determined task such as buying a skirt or returning an item and they film the interaction. Alongside the film footage they also submit a written report.

Another typical type of mystery shopping that is utilised by a wide variety of companies is email mystery shopping. This type of mystery shopping makes use of the modern technology of email. The mystery shopper will be asked to monitor the communication they receive from a company through email. This is a vital aspect of modern business and is all too often overlooked by managers and they do not have to deal directly with customers this way. Nevertheless it is vital that the communication that you have will customers over email is spot on. Customers deserve the same level of respect and time as you would give them face to face. It is also important that you offer them as much as you can through the email. Often customers of your are interested in the new products that you offer so you need to make sure that you tell them about them. If used effectively the email mystery shopper will give you useful feedback on this vital aspect of the modern business to make sure that you can get it right in the future. This job can be done from home as all you need to monitor email is a computer. Like all forms of mystery shopping the mystery shopper will fill out a form along with supplying qualitative information about the service they received.

Shaun Parker has worked in the customer service training industry and is an expert on mystery shopping. To find out more please visit http://www.performanceinpeople.co.uk/mystery-shopping/

Outsource Your Call Center to the Philippines

The Philippines is being viewed as the second destination of choice for call centers all over the world next to India, which is the biggest player in the outsourcing industry. This is because of the cheap cost of labor in India coupled with the information technology skills of Indians.

The Philippines, however, is quickly catching up with the gap because of the increasing labor in India and the increasing capabilities of Filipino call center agents and the technology skills needed in maintaining call centers and its IT infrastructures. In fact, several Indian call center companies have set up a subsidiary in the Philippines to boost the capabilities of the call centers in India. Through this strategy, companies that outsource their customer contact center can maximize profits and minimize costs.

Another benefit of outsourcing to the Philippines is the loyalty of call center agents to their companies. Attrition rate in India is around 50-70% because of the high level of competition among call center agents. In the Philippines, the attrition rate is way lower. Such loyalty benefits the company over the long run because the agents can increase their level of skills and know-how of the accounts they handle. For high attrition rates, the cost of training goes up and hurts the talent development of call center companies.
Cost is not everything, however. There is an old adage saying that you get what you pay for.As such, even in the presence of low labor costs, the quality of the customer service being rendered to customers calling in from all over the world should be ensured. Given the cultural barriers separating people of different nationalities, companies seeking to outsource their call centers should look at the way that Philippine call centers are addressing this issue.

Language issues and cultural barriers are being addressed through cultural sensitivity training, accent and culture training, together with a briefing of the idioms and metaphors being used by customers from all over the world.

The Philippine government is also doing its share in promoting the call center industry in the Philippines. It is enhancing the English language skills of Filipinos as well as the political and economic situation of the Philippines. Although there are a lot of news featuring different events that tend to undermine the good business environment in the Philippines, the businesses are generally unaffected in such instances. After all, one bad incident in the Philippines does not mean that the whole Philippines is experiencing turmoil.

A number of companies all over the Philippines are now reaping the benefits of outsourcing their call centers to the Philippines. There are over 100 call centers in the Philippines employing more than 200,000 employees. Filipino culture is essentially a hospitable one and this cultural trait translates well to excellent customer service.

Although the Philippines tend to be considered as the second option for outsourcing, this is expected to change in the next few years as the Philippine call center industry improves its infrastructures and the government enhances the English skills of the future members of the labor force.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

Outsourcing Call Center to the Philippines

By outsourcing call centers to the Philippines, companies and corporations in different countries all over the world can save as much as half of their costs in labor. The amount saved can then be diverted to capitalization and the development of additional resources that can be used by the company. Cost savings is but one of the potential of call centers in the Philippines. By outsourcing call centers to the Philippines, companies can take advantage of the excellent English skills of Filipinos as well as their ability to deliver good customer service.

Philippine call center agents do have a strong customer orientation. Together with other business process outsourcing outfits, call centers have been growing exponentially to as much as 70 percent since the year 2000. Because of the strong customer-orientation of Filipinos, customers calling the call centers can receive amazing service and their issues and concerns will be addressed. Of course, corporations do not want to compromise their customer service because the customers are their lifeblood. If the customers do not receive good service, they will transfer their business elsewhere.

The English language skills of Filipinos are at par with the rest of the English-speaking world. After all, the Philippines is considered as the third largest speaking country in the world. Add this to the strong consciousness of Filipinos of the culture and society of Western countries.

There is a huge labor market for call centers in the Philippines. After all, the English language is also an official language in the country. As early as kindergarten, Filipinos are already learning about English. This continues well into elementary, high school and college. The literacy rate is also very high, it is currently at 95 percent. This makes the country very attractive in terms of fulfilling the demand for call centers all over the world.

The number of college graduates in the Philippines is also high. There are more than 400,000 each year, including thousands in the area of Engineering, Information Technology, and computers. As such, there is no lack of skilled workers in the Philippines. A large percentage of these yearly graduates are making their way into the call center industry. Because of the boom in the industry, it is expected that a million Filipinos will be working for call centers by the year 2010.

The advantages and benefits of outsourcing call centers to the Philippines have been noticed by a lot of companies all over the world. Good thing, the level of connectivity in the Philippines is also high. There are a lot of phone line routes connecting the country to the rest of the world. Internet technology is also relatively high. As such, voice quality and the connection are clear.

The call center industry is considered as the sunshine industry in the Philippines because of its strong performance. As time passes by, more and more companies will recognize the strengths of the Philippines and will invest in the further development of the industry.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

Are You Satisfying Your Customers?

While high levels of customer satisfaction typically lead to company growth, it is not always the case that business growth leads to satisfied customers. In many cases, the opposite is true.

The latest report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (Michigan School of Business) reports the following:

Customer dissatisfaction with the quality goods and services offered in the marketplace is more than a nuisance. The US economy is heavily dependent on increases in consumer spending. Such increases are hard to come by when consumers become less satisfied. The ACSI fell dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2004. The Index now stands at 73.6% dropping nearly 1% compared with the third quarter. One would have to go back almost seven years to find an equivalent decline.

What's interesting with this study is that since 1995 customer service has consistently not made the grade, and services continue to top the list in terms of customer dissatisfaction. Remember we're all in the service business!

Taken even further, growing customer dissatisfaction with contact center service levels is boosting the use of IVRs as 20% of customers opt for self service channels over live agents. That's 1 in 5 customers bypassing the human because of poor service. (CRM Today, 2/18/05).

We know the impact and cost of repeat calls, bad call experiences, and poor service. What can you do starting right now?

First, how and what are you measuring for customer satisfaction? Measurement systems must not only be in step with the customer's preferred communication channel, but the effectiveness of service delivery should be immediate. What does this mean? If the interaction is via phone, a survey should be via phone, not by a subsequent email. Are you actually asking the customer for feedback on their experience--what is now jargoned as 'the voice of the customer?' Merely using metrics will give you guidelines, but could be false security. Go to the source. Ask your customers!

Second, according to the third National Complaints Culture Survey unhappy customers are growing increasingly frustrated with the way their complaints are being handled, and hard-pressed call center staff are being hindered by a lack of training and support from their employers.

Since calls coming into a center are escalated before they're even answered: if I could successfully find my answers through the website, self service, VRU, IVR, etc. I wouldn't need to talk to a human. Agents need more tools than ever before to diffuse what is being presented to them such that they can move the customer onto a more productive interaction, and close the call.

Where will they find these tools? The simple answer is with customer centric training. Off the shelf, generic, or outdated training is like trying to put a round peg in a square hole. Today's training modules must be robust, must be customized to the customer, not the statistics, and training must be presented ongoingly. Remember, training is a process, not an event. And we, the people, are who and what makes the difference.

ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., customer service expert, provides needs analyses, customer service training; authors Wake Up Your Call Center, Customer Service & the Human Experience, Lay Your Cards on the Table, Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch; tips newsletter at http://www.HumanTechTips.com

Is Mystery Shopping A Mission You'd Choose To Accept?

Mystery Shopping has always fascinated me. I guess it is the notion of doing something covert, something sneaky, something spy-like. I always wanted to be the kid that got asked to go into a shop and try and buy cigarettes without the right identification. But then again I always wanted to be James Bond.

As I got older I began to recognise the difference between good service and bad service and the more money I had to spend the more irritating it became when things did not go right. After all good service should be a part of any product or service you purchase. It shouldn't be an expensive add-on. Especially bearing in mind that good customer service is not difficult it just involves a small amount of effort from the people offering the product or service. So now I make a living evaluating the level of customer service for a wide range of clients. The variety of paces that use mystery shoppers is vast. Here is an introduction to some of the major types of mystery shopping that exist.

A mystery shopper will generally work for an agency. This agency will dispatch the mystery shopper on different assignments that can encompass a broad range of businesses and activities.

Covert Video Shoppers

Covert Video shoppers record the performance of staff. They are recruited and trained to work in and report on an enormous range of types of businesses. This type of Mystery Shopper is most like a conventional Hollywood spy in that they are equipped with a small camera. They hide this small camera on their person - usually in a bag or lapel of some description. The covert video shopper, equipped with the camera, then enters the company or business they have been told to report on and acts like a customer. They will be given a particular task or question to ask the staff and will record the process. They are utilised many different situations. These include high street shops, banks, car salesrooms, offices and public services. They will also provide a written report to go with the video that they supply.

Report Only Mystery Shoppers

Report Only Mystery Shoppers do exactly what their title suggests. They supply reports on the business they are sent to report upon. The reports that these types of mystery shopper compile are typically based around a number of pre-determined tasks which the shopper is expected to fulfil as part of his or her research. They then evaluate their targets against the predetermined criteria. The data the report only mystery shopper provides to the agency can be both qualitative and quantitative. This gives the shopper an opportunity to share their honest opinion as well as the specific answers that are required to collate for analytical purposes. These reports are typically completed online and the time it takes between collecting the data and submitting it is minimal. This means that the company seeking their advice can get the results and start to rectify any problems immediately.
Postal monitor

This type of secret shopper analyses correspondence between a company and a customer through the post. So any letters that are received are analysed and the mystery shopper and the shopper reports back to the agency. The shopper will usually make a note on the speed and accuracy of replies to letters they send. The Mystery shopper is reimbursed for the postage costs and is also paid a fee for their work.

Email mystery shopper

Like postal shoppers email shoppers monitor mail from a company the only difference being that they do so on the computer and analyse email correspondence. Again they will look at things like speed of reply, accuracy of reply, quality of written English and they will also make comments on how accessible the information is to the reader. They will also have the opportunity to comment on whether circular emails from a company are useful or annoying.

Shaun Parker has worked in the customer service training industry and is an expert on mystery shopping. To find out more please visit http://www.performanceinpeople.co.uk/

Eliminate Mistakes and Delays and See What Else You Can Eliminate

Unfortunately, the world is still beset with too many stalls based on complacency, tradition, disbelief, misconceptions, unattractiveness, miscommunications, bureaucracy, and procrastination. While those stalls persist, unnecessary delays and mistakes will continue to plague us all.

But a small organization could make the effort to learn how to bust all of these stalls using the breakthrough solution process. When that occurs, the organization will have a large opportunity to eliminate many other practices that were in place solely to deal with mistakes and delays.

For instance, the first thing that a desk clerk who works the registration desk in a hotel or motel is usually taught is how to calm down an enraged customer. When there are no enraged customers, that bit of training can be dropped.

There are other costs that will go away with failing to enrage customers. Here's an example: I went to a hotel for a week's stay. Before arriving, I had spoken to the hotel staff three times to ensure that the type of room we wanted (a large nonsmoking room with a kitchenette and two double beds) was reserved for us in our price range.

I was told there was no problem, and that all would be well. When we arrived after a 12-hour plane flight, we found that the hotel had no unoccupied nonsmoking rooms as we had reserved.

No problem. We were flexible. We would just check out smoking rooms until we found one that didn't smell like we had a smoking roommate. Almost 2 hours later, we finally located such a room after trying what seemed like half the hotel.

This chewed up our time and the time of three people on the hotel staff. The hotel probably could employ two fewer people on the front desk at that time of day if the rooms that guests had reserved were readily available.

Will we ever go back to that hotel? I'm sure you know the answer. So there was a missed revenue opportunity involved entailing thousands of dollars as well. With more loyal customers, the hotel wouldn't need to advertise so much. Travel agency fees would be reduced as well.

Now wouldn't it have been cheaper for them to have saved a room they promised for us? I think so.

Mistakes cost a lot of money. So do delays. Organizations with low error rates and few delays have smaller, simpler staffs that focus on what's important in serving customers, consumers, and users.

When you visit a Dell computer factory, for instance, you don't see that many people who aren't actually assembling a computer or taking the completed product to a truck. With low error and delay rates, Dell can pay attention to assembling and shipping from those facilities.

Because they do a good job of ordering and using inventory, you don't see many parts stockpiled outside the work stations. That means that the company doesn't have to spend a lot of time and effort accounting for and tracking down the inventory. It's a much better way to go.

What costs can you eliminate by getting rid of time-consuming mistakes and delays?

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution. Read about creating breakthroughs through 2,000 percent solutions and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at

http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Communication Is Not A 4-Letter Word

What four letter words do we mean? Here are a few:
Talk
Chat
Tell
Blab

Let's look at 'talk' as an example. If I asked you, you could all talk about almost anything at a moment's notice. In the computer in our brain, we have lots of programs--what we think, what we feel or believe about anything, even things we know absolutely nothing about! And we can go on and on about any topic. That is the good news. However, the bad news is that this is what people call communication--and it's only talk (or chat or blab, etc.).

Poor communication is the most frequently reported single major source of frustration in companies today. What is communication? Simply, communication is threefold. It means that a message was sent, that it was received, and that it was understood.

Experts say that we spend approximately 80% of each day communicating, as follows:

7% words
38% tone of voice and
55% physiology or body language

Since you are not always face to face with customers, the first two are most important. Your inflection and tone of voice are more impactful than the words. The positive and negative impressions of what you say, and how you say what you say, are more exaggerated. Therefore, you need to learn to control your tone, your tempo, and volume.

Make no mistake, body language can be heard over the phone. Suppose you are slouching, I bet your voice is very different than when you are sitting up straight. Also, we all know that a smile can easily be heard over the phone.

The good news is that communication is a learned behavior. If you learned negative patterns, you can release them and replace them with positive ones.

To me communication and listening go hand in hand. We all think we know how to listen, don't we? The fact is that very few people truly know how to listen. In our earnestness to serve we get pulled out of a conversation by preparing for the answer while the other person is still talking. We wait for a pause and when the person takes a breath, we jump in to take them where we think they want to go, to improve or remedy the situation, but the truth is if we are not listening to what they are saying we won't even know the question or request, let alone the answer.
Our intentions are good. We want to give the best response we can, hopefully the right answer. However, if we are not present to the conversation, the other person feels not heard, unimportant, ripped off and the like.

Listening is a respectful act. We have two ears and one mouth. Is this a coincidence? Is there a lesson here? For those of you who do anagrams, Listen = silent.

While it is true you cannot control how the customer (or anyone) speaks to you, you can control your own response to that person, and thereby greatly influence the course and outcome of any conversation.

ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., customer service expert, provides needs analyses, customer service training; authors Wake Up Your Call Center,Customer Service & the Human Experience,Lay Your Cards on the Table,How to Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch; a tips newsletter at http://www.HumanTechTips.com

Dealing with Customers on the Phone

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, the company would have no reason for existence. Hence, the customers should be treated as courteously and as special as possible. In Philippine contact centers, this is being practiced so that their clients would be as happy as their contact center agents are.
Customers would also do well to understand the customer service process on the phone. This way, they would be able to deal with phone officers better with their expectations in check.

Phone officers in the Philippines are always on the go in understanding their customers better. This requires good listening skills and intelligence. After all, how can a customers concern be resolved without technical expertise?

The primary purpose of customer service is to look into the problems of customers and provide the solution, whether it be complaints management or sales the basic principle is the same and the customer should walk out of the phone happy because he got what he needs. Contact center agents in the Philippines receive training in enhancing their English language listening skills to deal with different accents from customers. Even if they are not able to emulate the accent of their customers from the United States, Australia and other arts of the world, they are capable in dealing with the complexities of providing excellent customer service on the phone. Having the technical expertise and other related skills and knowledge is of paramount importance in providing customer service.

For foreign companies that decide to outsource their customer service to the Philippines, important business information, statistics, and processes are taken from them. These skills, knowledge and processes are not fork-lifted directly. Rather, important cultural and informational contexts are also taken into account so that whatever cultural and language barriers are addressed in the process.

As every contact center would realize, professionalism is a key ingredient in the business. Without thorough knowledge of the company, the products and services offered and the possible problems that may arise, contact center agents will only appear unprofessional and unskilled in dealing with customers. If this happens, then outsourcing shall have harmed the company instead of helping it improve.

Another important aspect of outsourcing phone customer service to the Philippines is the ability of contact center agents to provide helpful and skillful insights to improving products and services.

Filipino contact center agents come into contact with customers on a daily basis. As such, they would be able to diagnose and look at the problems reported by the companys clients. Since they are knowledgeable in all aspects of the company, they can then make necessary suggestions and comments to concerned people in the company towards the improvement of products and services. This feedback process is immensely helpful to the company in the long run.

If the companys products and services improve, then ultimately, both the stockholders of the company and the customers will emerge as winners in the process. The contact center agents in the Philippines and other areas of the world shall have become important agents of change in the customer service of the company.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

Technology and People for Excellent Customer Service

Customers are at the heart of the products or service being provided by companies and organizations worldwide. As such, customers need nothing but the best customer service there is. This is also the reason why the Philippines is being considered as a prime destination for offshore call centers. They are inexpensive yet at the same time, the level of service being delivered is excellent. Because of this amazing level of service and the cost savings generated by companies, call centers in the Philippines have grown in the last seven years.

Customer service entails understanding the needs of customers and providing for these needs in accordance with the policies and specifications of the company. In some cases, call center agents have to deal with customers that are irate and upset over the company. Effective customer service also helps convince customers see the benefits of using the services of the company. Retaining customers also contributes to the savings of companies.

In order to effectively provide service to customers, companies need at least two things excellent people and technology.

Companies need to hire the best people available in the market. In the Philippines, call centers conduct hiring campaigns in the major colleges and universities all over the Philippines just to attract the best talents from these schools. The government also helps call centers in scouting for talents through job fairs. The local governments where these all centers are located are particularly helpful in scouting talents and encouraging them to apply at call centers.

Call centers also invest on their people in order to capitalize on their talents and skills and for them to upgrade their qualifications. By investing on their agents, call centers maximize the way that their agents contribute to the company and to the call center. As a popular maxim goes, a happy workforce will in turn lead to better customer service.

Technology is another important investment of call centers. In the first place, without technology, they will not be able to deliver the promised service to their clients who are usually located abroad. Phone lines, computers and numerous infrastructures are built and improved so that the process of providing service is smooth and hassle-free. In addition to this, computers and their phone lines should be integrated in order for the agents to deliver excellent customer service. Even if agents have excellent customer service skills, poor technology is inimical to the provision of this kind of service. Furthermore, if call center networks are down, this would lead to the shutdown of customer service, which would lead to millions of losses.

The level of technology in the Philippines complements the call center industry. The laws and regimes in importing machines and other technologies are good and there are also government regulations that help support call centers in the Philippines.

People and technology are important aspects of providing good customer service in the Philippines. Both factors enable call centers to serve more than two million customers whose calls are routed to these call centers in the Philippines.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

What Makes Philippine Call Centers Dynamic?

The global market for outsourcing and offshore services is very competitive. Yet, Philippine call centers and other outsourcing companies are able to grab a bigger percentage of the world market since the year 2000. The good results for the country are the economic boom being experienced and the increase of job opportunities for the labor force.

Call Centers have sprouted everywhere in Metro Manila. Most of them are located in business centers such as Ortigas Center in Pasig, Eastwood Cyberpark in Quezon City, the Central Business District of Makati City, and several other areas in Pasay City and nearby areas. Call Center agents tend to be young professionals who are starting their way into the corporate ladder. As such, they are ambitious, dynamic and willing to give their best shot in working for these companies. In 2001, there were only about 2,000 call center employees. Who would have thought that such a number would grow exponentially to around 200,000?

As businesses from the United States, Australia and Europe continue to outsource basic services to companies in the Philippines, the outsourcing industry in the Philippines, call centers particularly are looking forward to several more years of growth. If you consider the robustness of the call center industry in the Philippines and the continuous patronage of different companies all over the world, you might wonder what makes Philippine call centers the preferred choice for outsourcing.

One factor that contributes to the boom in the Call Center industry is the culture of hospitality of the Filipinos. Because of this hospitality, it is not very difficult for Filipinos to be trained in the rudiments and basics of customer service. In fact, the popular maxim of going the extra mile is easily extended by a Filipino to anyone in need. In addition to this, Filipino society does have an important connection to Spain and to the United States.

Although the cultural ties with the US is stronger now, it nonetheless shares several features of the Spanish culture. Since most of the industries outsourcing to the Philippines are in the US, this presents a clear advantage because it becomes easier for most Filipinos to understand the varying accents and meanings that American English presents. Among the Asian countries, the Philippines is the one that can most easily relate with the cultures of the West. The ears of Filipinos can also easily distinguish and adapt to both British and American English.

Filipinos also have company loyalty, which enables companies to save money from the high attrition and turnover rates as is the case in a lot of countries. A call center staff is able to gain more expertise as he gets to practice his craft everyday of his life. This level of expertise will therefore work best for the staff and for the company as a whole.

As of today, the English skills of Filipinos are still among the best in the world. As such, companies do not need to spend thousands of dollars in elaborate accent training. A Filipino call center agent will be able to adapt well in his current situation.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

The Philippines and the Global Outsourcing Market

Large scale enterprises are not the only ones who have discovered the benefits of outsourcing their business processes. In fact, because of the leaps and bounds made by the Internet, even small and medium scale enterprises have joined the outsourcing bandwagon. As a result, they are raking in millions of dollars in terms of productivity outputs and cost savings. More often that not, these companies found in developed countries outsource their business processes to developing countries, where labor costs are way lower and where there is an abundance of people with good English skills. These countries include the Philippines, which is slowly taking a bigger share of the global outsourcing market.

The global outsourcing market is divided into the Information Technology (IT) outsourcing and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The former kind of outsourcing was more popular in the first boom of the dotcoms in early 2000. In this model of outsourcing, multinationals have relied on the skills of IT professionals from developing countries such as the Philippines. The IT infrastructures of the companies were managed no longer by in-house IT personnel but by people whose offices are located abroad. The development of IT applications for the use of companies was among the services being used for this purpose. In addition to this, Technical support, Data center, and the management of IT infrastructure were likewise outsourced.

During the early years of business process outsourcing, only the non-core processes were outsourced. This included call centers, accounting processes, payroll management, and even the collection of receivables and payables. Upon knowing of the limitless possibilities of outsourcing, the Philippines started out in the year 2000 with only a handful of call centers and less than 5,000 employees.

Companies in India, however, dominated the outsourcing market for both IT outsourcing and BPO. It was able to capture around $5.2 billion of the market. The Philippines, on the other hand, brought in $1 billion in 2005. Although the gap between the two countries is great, there are worldwide developments that are making the Philippines close in the gap with India. In fact, the growth rate of the BPO industry in the Philippines, particularly the call centers has been so phenomenal that the industry has been called the Philippines sunshine industry.

The global outsourcing market is not yet saturated. Actually, the industry still has a lot of room for growth and improvement. The growth rate for the market is expected to be at 43% in 2008 because of the increasing awareness among companies in the United States and Europe of the benefits that outsourcing brings. The Philippines is expected to play a bigger role in this market as the worlds outsourcing market becomes even bigger.

With its huge pool of highly literate college graduates sporting good English skills, more call centers will outsource their need for customer service and technical support to the Philippines. In addition to this, the government is providing its full support to the industry in order for it to continue growing at its phenomenal speed.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

Call Centers and the Situation of the Philippines

As a developing country, the Philippines is prone to several political and economic instabilities. The world often hears about a bombing in Metro Manila, terrorist activities in Southern Philippines or even coup d etat here or a mutiny there. As a result, tourists and visitors to the Philippines often get discouraged to push on with their trip. In worst cases, this image of the country as politically and economically unstable undermines its drive to enhance its image as the destination of choice for companies wishing to outsource their customer service, particularly, their contact center.

Generalization is always a difficult process to undertake. If a particular unrest occurs in Southern Philippines occur in Davao City, a city in the southern part of the Philippines, does that mean that the whole Philippines is exploding like a time bomb? If an incident of racism occurs in a southern State, does that mean that the whole United States is a racist country? This is hardly the case!

At times, a lot of businesses make the mistake of prematurely concluding that the Philippines is in a state of unrest because of a small incident disturbing the peace of a segment of the society. This is not to deny that there are indeed legitimate concerns for the safety and continuity of business operations in the Philippines. If it is any indication, during the supposed incidents of unrest in Makati City or the supposed bombing in a mall in Makati City, the operations of Philippine call centers and other business process outsourcing firms continued unabated. After all, the government still is committed to protecting the interests of the business sector in the Philippines.

On the part of the government, however, there really is a need to assure the business sector that it is in control of the situation and that no major unrests occur in the country. Otherwise, businesses, investors, and companies will be scared away by the littlest rumors of war and political instability. If this happens, then the current momentum of Philippine call centers will be lost and the industry as a whole will fail to fulfill its potential in the coming years.
Alongside the improvement of the political and economic climate in the Philippines, the government is also committed to improving the language and communication skills of the members of the workforce. Right now, there are programs of the government seeking to enhance the teaching process and skills of teachers all over the Philippines to maintain and improve the level of English proficiency of high school and college students in the country.

The government has now shown to other countries its commitment in ensuring peace and order. The President, in fact, is very much active in promoting the call center industry of the Philippines. Through her efforts a number of investors from both Asian and Western countries have been flowing into the Philippines. If these efforts were further enhanced, then surely, the call center industry in the Philippines will fulfill its promise of employing around one million Filipinos by 2010.

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com