How To Communicate Without Speaking To Your Customers?

On average, support calls are perceived like a waste of time by your customers. Indeed, many need to wait over 15 minutes before being able to speak to an agent, who will often acknowledge the issue and refer it further. Something as simple as asking where your parcel is can take several hours if not days before you receive an appropriate answer.

As a result, it’s not uncommon for customer service agents to deal with people who are frustrated and short-tempered. Even though it’s a little easy to blame the customers for their bad attitudes, in reality, the whole communication process is draining on everyone. Your customers are sick of waiting to get a proper answer. On the other hand, your agents are also tired of dealing with abusive customers who have lost patience.

Confused customer

Admittedly, you can’t eliminate communication from your business model. However, what you can do is to reduce the need to interact with your customers when you want to help them through the transaction process. Can you communicate with actually speaking to your customers? The answer is yes. Here’s how to do it successfully:

Your website is a valuable source of information

Everything starts with your website. The website is typically the first point of contact between a business and its audience. Creating a site is always a daunting project, but it is essential to provide an informative platform to your customers. Your site serves to answer the main queries that customers can have about your brand and your offering.

As a result, it needs to introduce your business — more often than not, brands opt for an about us page as well as a summary of their values. You can also make sure that all your products or services are clearly displayed and described. For products, a gallery showing the different sides of each item is necessary, as well as a detailed description of the specific features, maintenance and care aspects. For services, you need to clarify the target audience for each element. For instance, a software tool that is designed for the manufacturing sector should be promoted only for manufacturers.

Creating self-managing emailing campaigns

Newsletters and other email campaigns are especially useful to inform your clients without needing the interact individually with every single person. However, you need to plan the entire emailing journey ahead. For instance, if you’re sending an email to introducing your new product, you need to work closely with a workflow messaging software tool to design responses for future buyers, users who interact with the message, users who don’t open the message, and users who abandon their basket before completing the transaction. As you tackle multiple scenarios, you can make sure that each customer receives the appropriate response to their behaviour.

Have questions? Try the FAQs

Every customer seeks reassurance before committing to a purchase. Review websites can provide insight through the feedback of previous buyers. However, as their feedback focuses on unique experiences, it can be tricky for potential customers to find the information they need. Typically, your customer service centre and social media platforms are the first points of contact to address queries. But you can also address the most frequent questions in your FAQ page. A useful FAQ page helps users to solve problems, showcases your expertise, and covers topics related to the transaction, location and offering of your business. It’s a good idea to combine your FAQ section with a search function that lets each visitor asks their questions. The page can match the problem with the most relevant answer. When an answer isn’t available, you can automatically inform the marketing team that the page needs updating.

Create emotional engagement

When a customer wants to build trust with a business, a phone call is the preferred method of contact. Indeed, the brain is wired to seek personal interaction. Hearing someone’s voice is by far the closest many businesses get to bringing a personal touch. But the video marketing trend can help your business to move to the next step. Indeed, seeing a real person talk about a company’s services or introduce a product builds a trust relationship. Videos are especially engaging because they allow viewers to relate to the person in the film.

But keep an eye on their reactions

Last but not least, while you can reduce the need for direct contact, you still need to keep track of your customers’ behaviour. Are they satisfied with your communication style? Do they have questions you have failed to address? Are they confused by the FAQ page? Analytics tools can give you an insight into the way they use your site. But if you want an honest opinion, you will have to run surveys and ask your customers what they think.

Google Analytics

Can you communicate with your customers without speaking with them? Using tech innovations and solutions, you can create an informative, engaging and friendly environment for your customers and take away a lot of pressure from your call centre!

How To Secure Excellent Employees and Retaining Them for the Long Haul?

Your business is booming more than ever before; sales are skyrocketing, competition is fierce and motivation levels are high. As much as you want to celebrate your glory, there is a small thing missing from your company right now. All your business needs is to find those golden employees who bring their best to the table every single day. At the moment, your team is distinctly average and they get the job done. You want them to be amazing and bring something fresh to your company. Here’s how to secure excellent employees and retain them for the long haul.

Smart Hiring

The first step to securing those winning employees is to hire them in a smart and seamless way. Instead of wasting your precious time scouting for talent, you could invest in reputable recruitment software. This will help you to improve on the most important hiring metrics such as time to hire, cost per hire and quality of hire. By smoothing out the hiring process for your HR department you can land those golden employees with minimal stress and wasted time. Hiring mistakes are much less likely to be made too, which will save your business a lot of money in the long run.

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Thorough Interviews

The interview process is vital when it comes to landing the best employees for your business. If you don’t ask the right questions and approach the candidates in the appropriate way, you risk making hiring mistakes. Have a clear set of questions that relate to the job role and their previous experience. As soon as they hit key points during the interview they should be acknowledged and rewarded in your scoring system. Interviews can be a time consuming process, but it is very important to get it right the first time.

Using Their Strengths

When you offer the job to a new candidate it is worth thinking about what they can bring to your business personally. You might want to add responsibility or change the structure of your team so you can be assured their skills are being put to good use. When your new recruit is happy, you are much more likely to keep them on board for longer.

Rewards and Recognition

Even if you are on a budget you need to reward your employees for their hard work whenever necessary. Rewards programmes are a fundamental part of managing your business as they keep your staff motivated. Make sure you recognize positive behaviour in your workforce and do what you can to reward them in an appropriate way. Some of the best options include a day off in lieu, a team lunch or a group away day.

When you are able to create a happy and healthy work environment for your employees, they will want to stay with you for the long haul. Understanding how to find those golden employees will happen over time, but there are many tools out there that will help you. So go out there and expand your team professionally and effectively; your business will benefit right away!

Should Professionals Take Further Education Seriously?

It's never going to be easy for professionals to admit they might be lacking in some areas when it comes to their expertise. They might have been in their respective industries for many decades.

But, where there is a gap in one’s abilities, learning or educating yourself further in that particular field is not something to be scoffed at. If you are a professional and having trouble in your role, then you will always seek to make sure you improve while away from work.

No one’s job is ever guaranteed, so taking on a further education course might save you from being let go in future. Professionals in all industries should be educating themselves regularly. Scientists will read science journals to keep abreast of the latest cures and treatments, so why shouldn’t a businessman do the same? In that sense, further education isn’t all that different to what you’re probably already doing.

It's just more ‘official’ and with an accreditation at the end.

The standards have shifted

Modern day professional standards have changed dramatically. On the one hand, anyone can start up a business, but the traditional realms of business still require you to be greatly educated. For roles like accounting, administration, risk assessment and financial planning, you really do need to have a university background and good degree pinned to your list of accomplishments.

Therefore if you would like to enter into a new field of business and have a change of career, it's a good idea to look at a further education course. With a degree you stand a higher chance of being accepted into a prestigious business. Experience is of course very important but showing fundamental understanding of complex systems is just as valuable.

Looking for leadership opportunities

For those that would love to take on a more leading role, you really do need to consider proper academic accreditation. Take for example the Kent State Online courses in music, and look at how they are designed. The structure and the subjects covered will allow those that pass to take on leadership roles. It's not just practical application such as learning to play instruments at a higher level but also, general music administration.

This allows the individual to possess the skills required to manage talent, start up their own record label and generally know how the music industry works behind the scenes. For those that are in a professional capacity, achieving a degree in their spare time which will help them become a leader is well worth the time and effort.

Proof positive

For those that really love their industry, taking on a further study course might be just something more to add to your resume. You might already be a business administrator but want to work abroad, therefore having an accredited degree from your chosen nation is perhaps going to greatly benefit your chances of being hired.

Professionals should never discount the amazing benefits further education degrees can have on their prospects. If you really want to become a leader, then having an accredited degree in this skill is something to take very seriously.

Introduction To Venepuncture Training

If you want to work in the medical sector, or you already work in this industry, it is important to know about the different training options that are out there. There are many different areas of medical training, and so there are lots of opportunities for you to advance your skill set and enhance your employability. In this blog post, we will focus on venepuncture training especially, so read on to discover more.

Venepuncture training is an important tool for any healthcare professional to have in their arsenal of capabilities. But what exactly is venepuncture and why is it used so often? In medical training, venepuncture (or venepuncture as it is sometimes called) is the process by which intravenous access to the body happens. In other words, it is how blood is taken from the veins of a patient.

Many different people are called upon to carry out blood sampling such as phlebotomists, paramedics, EMTs, medical laboratory workers, medical practitioners, and nursing staff – plus others. These people, therefore, should be trained in venepuncture.

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How Are Venepuncture Courses For Medical Training Taught?

There are various ways that venepuncture training can be carried out. The easiest way to learn about venepuncture is to attend one of the varied venepuncture courses that can be found online via the likes of Bradley University Online or up and down the country. These courses are the best way to learn how to carry out this seemingly simple – yet difficult to master – medical technique. Many of the venipuncture class courses that you can register on will have a number of different ways of learning the venepuncture technique.

These include learning through workbooks (this should take up approximately one third of the course). These workbooks are designed to enable to learner to take their learning with them when they go out into the medical field to carry out the technique on a patient. By having a handy notebook of useful information nearby at all times, they will be able to refer to it when they need to, allowing them to gain confidence. Soon it won’t be needed at all, when more practice on patients is carried out.

Another third of the course should be a focused practical day in a classroom setting. This will be a full eight hours or so of learning and carrying out the procedure over and over again. By the end of this intensive day, the technique of venepuncture should come quite easily. The final third of the course will be practical assessments with real patients. This will be supervised by qualified professionals at work to ensure that the techniques have been mastered.

Who Would Benefit From Venepuncture And Cannulation Training?

Venepuncture and cannulation training is essential for healthcare professionals. Although members of the public can – and should – book themselves onto other medical training courses (such as CPR training, for example), this is not the case with a venipuncture course.

This is because it is a highly specialised and (once training is complete) highly skilled technique that only those qualified to do should carry out. This means that anyone wanting to enrol on a venepuncture course must be employed in a patient facing role as a healthcare professional. Another must is that anyone enrolling on a course such as this must also be able to access a supervisor at their workplace who can supervise them after the classroom based learning is completed.

Without this, only part of the course will be completed and full training will not have been given. This supervision should be arranged before the course begins to ensure that it will be available at the required time. Supervisors must be registered healthcare professionals. As to who would benefit, the list is a long one – anyone who carries out venepuncture procedures is eligible to register on a useful course such as this.

Not only will it make them quicker and more efficient at what they do, but it will also put patients at ease and make the procedure less painful (ideally). People such as district nurses, prison nurses, health care assistants, phlebotomists, and some GP surgery staff (as well as the GPs themselves) would benefit from a venepuncture course

First Time Leaders: How To Lead A Team And Project

In the world of business, you will need to eventually cut your teeth on some kind of leadership role. Projects are the first kind of leading roles that managers will give employees. Most people aren’t prepared for this level of responsibility because of what it entails. Now, you’re not only having to be the creative brains behind the idea, manage different kinds of people but also, keep the finances in check.

Everything that allows a project to evolve from blueprints to reality, depends on your shoulders. It's little wonder than that many people don’t decide to take on higher positions until they know they are ready. But how do you become ready? You should be listening to people who have seen and done it before you.

These don’t have to be people from your line of work, just leaders in general that can enlighten you on the kinds of things you will go through. It also depends on what kind of project you’re dealing with. It could be marketing, financial planning, sales, research, social engagement or literally anything else. But, let’s go with the most common which is a product project.

Standard vs waterfall technique

It has been noted that creative people often struggle with structured approach project management. This is because most of the time, they are looking at things from a perspective of creating something that can do something and not creating something within the realms of what it can’t do.

It sounds complex but really, it's just two different schools of thought that you will need to understand when it comes to leadership. The classic technique is when you use a waterfall effect for structuring the project and indeed, your team. This will begin with the aim of the project, what you intend to accomplish then coupling this with what you know your business is capable of.

Sure consumers would love to have a car with an engine that is 1.0-litre and producing 250bhp, but your technology can only do 150bhp. Therefore you have to know what limits you not what you can do. It gives you a much more accurate picture of what is possible.

The waterfall technique will make sure the hierarchy is properly implemented with the smartest people getting their say with regards to research and overall development.

The standard and definitely the simplest approach to project management is to give small tasks out to different teams and seeing what they come up with. You’ll also be allocating resources a lot more fluidly. You’ll plan out the course of action day by day or week to week.

You will need to monitor the feedback you get from your employees and this may change your outlook and performance. You’ll also need to keep a check on quality and nurse everyone along to meet deadlines. This is a technique that doesn’t necessarily deal with complex problems, but rather smaller issues and inches closer to the ideal end result.

Flexibility and helping employees

For the first time you’ll be motivating employees and giving them the confidence they need to perform their tasks well. Not everyone does, but many employees will have rises and dips in their confidence and understanding of what their role is. A product project might take a couple of years to finish, which means it will be a long and at times arduous responsibility.

The initial planning stages might take a quarter of a year before you’re even ready for some tests to see what your team is capable of. What this also means is that for however long the project is going to be, you need to consider what the needs of your employees will be. T

ake a look at New England College Online where they have written an in depth article on this topic. They not that employees want flexibility, the option of using different software and technologies to get their tasks done. Generation Z especially want their job to be fulfilling as 74% would like their role to be meaningful.

It's a good idea then to keep everybody in the loop. Allow departments to work separately but keep them abreast of what is going on around them and how their work is making a positive impact on the project as a whole. They also work better autonomously as micromanaging them leaves them to believe the project head, thinks they are incompetent.

It's good practice to give clear instructions or the task at hand and then let them get on with it. Showing trust in your team can be done by simply leaving them alone and not visibly babysitting them. If they do need help, make yourself available without hesitation and guide them where you can.

Weekly project status meetings

Every project leader will need to have senior members of the team that will lead small groups. For example, a CEO will have a Director of Sales, a Head of Marketing etc. These are the departments leaders which runs the various different teams and tasks that will all add to the project.

As team leader you need to appoint people who you trust to be in such roles. You’ll need to have weekly status meetings on Monday and the end of the working week.

The Monday meetings shall be to recap what occurred last week but mainly to go through what the tasks for the week will be next. Make adjustments where you can by giving more resources or time to teams. The end week meetings will be to recap what went wrong and what progress has been made.

This clearly sets out what objectives have been met and what others are still outstanding. It's a check in and check out process that keeps you informed and keeps the leading members of the team on the same page to guide the rest of the employees.

First time leaders will always have nerves about leading a project. It's natural to be this way but you can shake off these nerves by focusing on what kind of overall technique you’ll be using to lead the project.

Will it be a standard technique where small groups are used and you will go off the success of each day, or will you use the waterfall technique where there is a hierarchy of competency?

8 Reasons Why You Need A Business Strategy In Malaysia

Today, businesses need corporate strategy especially when you are aiming to score big in the business world.

Regardless the size of your business in Malaysia, you need a business strategy not only to stay afloat, but as well as to generate more sales for your business.

If you are still thinking if you need a business strategy for 2019, carry on reading below to discover the top 8 reasons why it is paramount to have a business strategy in Malaysia.

How To Create A Business Strategy That Rocks

Specific goal setting for your team

Great business owners will create actionable goals for their employees—specific key performance index (KPI) will drive your team to work harder which will lead to higher productivity.

Remove unwanted barriers in communication

I understand that there are different goals for different employee's level. However, establish a common goal (or goals) and remove all unwanted barriers to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Deal with displacement

Displacement is probably by far the most important business strategy concept you've never heard of. It goes like this: "Whatever you do is something else you don't do." Displacement lives at the heart of all small-business strategy. At least most people have never heard of it.

Avoid fancy 'silver' objects

If you manage to catch your first big catch in business, don't get tangled in the shinny object syndrome. A proper business strategy (for the access funds) is needed and one of the best ways that won't go wrong is to invest back into your business. Getting new company car or renting a space will just increase the commitment.

Hire more of the 'right' people

There's a huge different between hiring good and great employees. Good employees will follow your orders but great employees will take your business to new heights. Focus in hiring the right person for the right job is a critical business strategy for businesses in Malaysia.

Build strong business alliance

In today's world, you cannot just be successful by yourself. You need a strong network and it starts by building business alliances. Consider collaborations and partnership to grow your start up business especially during the early stages of your business.

Grow your existing business

Getting comfortable is one of the biggest mistakes done by many business owners. Focus in expanding and growing your existing business through better goal settings and having the right business mindset. Even if you are the market leader in your field, there is no guarantee that you will continue the dominate in the next 12 months—especially in the fluid business environment in Malaysia.

Get professional help

Smart business owners know how to seek help without second thought. Partnering with professional business consultants will help remove a large weight on your shoulders. Typically, business consultants will work with you and your team, especially when it comes to building strong unique selling points, brand positioning and sales frameworks.