3 Ways How Tech Can Save Your Time and Money

No one will deny that technologies have become an inseparable part of our daily lives. And perhaps we got used to them so much that we no longer notice how much they affect our usual routine - whether it be work or hobbies. Technologies are created to help and take on the most mundane tasks and automate them so that we can focus on more important matters - such as how to expand our businesses or customer support.

The perfect example of how useful technology is, is the whole concept of a home office, widely used in pandemic conditions. It allowed so many people to save their job positions or continue running their businesses. Not to mention the amount of time they save you every morning as you don’t need to reach the office to be able to work.

You may consider to buy an AR Software or install a time tracking app or find something even more convenient to increase your business' productivity and efficiency, but read more about how technologies save your exhaustible resources:

Cloud Services

It is not just about storing data in the cloud, as you can transfer accounting, CRM, warehouse management, and telephony there. Cloud solutions are great for companies with remotely working employees or those who work on a freelance basis. The team gets a set of tools necessary for the work, and the only thing that is needed is a stable internet connection.

With cloud services, you can manage your business from any device, including your smartphone. You will always be aware of how the company is doing, and you will be able to quickly solve work-related problems no matter whether you are on a business trip or vacation.

Cloud solutions help you save money on hardware purchases as well. For example, if you are launching a new promo page for an ad campaign, there is no need to spend money on the server. You can easily rent it in the cloud and pay only for the resources that you really need.

Workflow Automation

Even the most professional specialists can make an error when dealing with everyday routine and critical tasks, and incorrect or delayed decisions will make your company inefficient. Automated systems based on definite business rules can significantly reduce the possibility of human errors.

The software can handle data streams, notifications, send emails, post on social media, and more that will free up your most vulnerable resource - your employees' time and attention to complete critical, creative tasks. Besides, automated workflows that are performed proactively respond to an incoming trigger and ensure a timely response to any request from your customers. It significantly increases customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Online Advertising

Besides contextual, teaser, and banner ads, advertising via social media is rapidly developing. Promoting your products or services online allows you to immediately answer customer questions, give them the necessary information, conduct surveys, votes, and email newsletters.

The ability to customize ads specifically for your prospective clients is another advantage: you can set up views based on time, geographic location, interests of your target audience, and so on. You can monitor views through statistical services and quickly evaluate the effectiveness of advertising.

Compared to other advertising types, online advertising costs are much lower due to its various options and an enormous quantity of apps and platforms that you can use for free. Switching to online ads will allow you to focus on the content, reduce its production time, and be more precise with your target audience.

Conclusion

It is quite hard to imagine leaving home without your smartphone, let alone a world with no technology at all. Some of it is so integrated into our lives that excluding them would disrupt the flow of usual processes.

However, don’t be mistaken - while technology is without a doubt very beneficial to both businesses and individuals, sometimes it can be too much, as its influence can be found in almost all spheres of life. Such a significant impact sometimes leads to people feeling like they need digital detox or reduce how much tech they use in general.

The key is to find the right balance. By avoiding the overuse of technology and letting it take on only those monotonous and time-consuming tasks, you can allocate more time for creativity and increase your business' productivity and efficiency.

Examining your business field as well as your working routine will allow you to determine which tech solutions will work best for you. Your employees will benefit by not being overloaded with excessive technologies, and it will also impact total operating costs, in a good way.

How Your Business Can Better Manage High Call Volume

We are, as this is being written, coming into the Christmas period. For many businesses, this is a prosperous time and a very busy one. However, because of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic and the restrictions around it, many businesses are unable to open physical stores, and instead, are reliant upon eCommerce. Because of this, companies are expecting call traffic to rise and need to deal with this high call volume effectively and efficiently. If they do not, it can hinder their performance and deter their customers from wanting to return to do business with them.

In this article, we will tell you how your business can better manage high call volume and improve the efficiency of your call centre [or call handling team]. By the end of this article, you will be appropriately equipped to handle the Christmas period and will not have to worry about the underperforming staff and lacklustre call centres.

If you want to improve your customer experience this winter, you need only read this page, for we will tell you everything that there is for you to know so you can improve your call centre’s performance by 110%.

Here is how your business can manage high call volume.

Call Centre Management Platforms

For many businesses, the problem does not lie with the call centre itself, nor the staff, but rather the management thereof. Thankfully, many platforms offer call centre solutions that enable you to manage the progress of your call centre remotely and digitally. These platforms allow you to check your analytics, call volume, and responsivity. These platforms are often suited to all types of call centre, from small to large, and can be used to great success in any business type. For the benefit they offer, we have included these platforms at the number one spot.

Assign Your Team Properly

A problem for many call centres is that they are assigned other duties, which can hinder their progress and slow down their performance. If you want your team to run at maximum efficiency and effectivity, it is essential that you assign them to the call centre and the call centre alone. If your staff is bogged down with other tasks not relating to answering calls, their performance will be hindered massively. When in a busy call centre, they need only answer phones and deal with the calls directly. Trying to have them multitask will not be successful.

Alternative Self-Service

With call centres, it is not uncommon, as your staff will attest to, for customers to ring and ask the same questions over and over. Because of this, it may be easier to set up an alternate self-service program on the internet for your customers to use. This self-help program will mean they do not need to call into your call centre and suggests that they will be able to answer their own queries a lot quicker, working out better for every single person involved.

Data

Analysing your data is very important should you want to predict when the largest surges in calls will be. For many, as we have mentioned throughout this article, Christmas is a very busy period. It is safe to say that you can expect to see a surge during this period [in some businesses]. However, there are other periods throughout the year when a business may surge. By reading your data, you can predict when these surges may be and designate more staff into your call centre for the duration of those periods, thereby improving your call centre’s efficiency.

Automation

There are many tools with which you can automate your staff’s work. Automating their work enables them to focus on the real issue – the phone calls. We previously mentioned that you should not assign them to work not relating to the call centre itself, but even so, the work from the call centre can still become too much when the phone is ringing every few minutes. Instead, automate many of the functions relating to the call centre, such as the ticket system. By automating these, your staff will be able to focus on calls and calls alone and improve the customer’s experience.

Call Back

Call back services have been very successful for many major companies and their call centres. As the name may indicate, a call back service is when you call into the centre and are given a designated slot. This slot is when the call centre staff will phone you back. During very busy periods, this can be a great help to your team and your customers. Instead of them having to sit on hold for hours, and instead of your staff having to rush to pick up calls, they can be called back later, which is convenient for them.

Voice Response Systems

Voice response systems, or as you may know them, ‘the annoying call centre robots,’ are a must for every single call centre. Voice response systems are much more developed than they once were, which means you can provide a more seamless and fluid experience for your customers. Your customers should hear a voice immediately upon ringing, even if it isn’t human. These voice response systems will enable you to direct your customers to the right department without having them block up phone lines or having to employ someone to handle calls.

Outsourcing

If you simply cannot keep up with the high call volume, outsource. Outsourcing has become the most popular way for businesses the world over to improve their efficiency in recent years. Outsourcing is when you source your services from abroad. Overseas call centres are an excellent way for you to improve the efficiency of your call centre and ensure you have a twenty-four-hour phone line for your customers to call into. Outsourcing agencies are everywhere, so you should have very little trouble finding an agency to outsource from. We recommend outsourcing very highly, although it can be expensive.

With the help of this page, you now know a few ways to deal with high calling volume in your call centres. The solutions that we have listed here are recommended by experts and said to be the best way to improve your call centres. We hope this page helped.

How Day Traders Can Improve Their Skills To A Whole New Level?

Many ingredients go into the art of trading, key among them being cold-blood analysis skills and some precision. Contrary to what many people insinuate, trading has nothing to do with chance. Skill will always override chance and luck. 

Therefore, every trader should devote more time to sharpening their skills and preparing for the next move of the day. We’ve prepared 10 of the most popular tips that will significantly take your skills to the next level. Keep reading to learn more!

Create a Trading Journal

Many people create a false impression that the experience of having traded for a while means they are aware of most of their steps. This is simply not true. Time changes our memories, and the complex analysis that goes into decision-making makes it harder to remember every previous step. Therefore, don’t rely on just hunches. Have some historical data. 

Everyone that is in this field should make it a habit to have a trading journal. The journal will have two elements. The first covers your past activities in chronological order. Have the results calculated in an excel spreadsheet and record all the data and accomplished goals in the journal. The second part helps you understand how you determined your past trades. 

Essentially, it is a printout of previous analysis charts. It offers you a detailed analysis of stop-loss levels, entry levels, and profit levels. Simply put, a trading journal will help you make a present decision based on historical facts and data and help you advance to a professional investor in a shorter period. Monitoring your trading journey will help you turn good decisions into a good habit.

Get Trading Software

We all know that technology takes our expertise to the next new level. Actually, it only sharpens the skills you have, so it only makes sense to look into the latest trading software. Trading software offers great benefits, including research and technical analysis. Having Bookmaps data visualization software by your side allows you to perform visual tests before investing in real-time. Results from the visualization ensure your trading decision is more informed and minimize the risk of cash loss. 

Seek Help

We would be lying to say mistakes are not part of the trading workflow. What’s most irritating about trading mistakes is that someone else could have easily spotted the error had they had a closer look. And, even professional traders often make such mistakes. 

These minor mistakes could be as a result of feelings, stress, or simply distracted attention. To avoid such little yet costly mistakes, be sure always to ask a friend to take a closer look at your trading strategy. They might notice something you didn’t- you never know. 

Practice Makes Perfect

Even professional traders with years of experience understand that regular practice is one of the most effective tricks. There is a risk of losing perspective on some of your strategies in real action without practice. And, a loss of perspective is a costly mistake. But, a demo account from a reputable online platform allows you to practice your strategies without the risk of losing money. And, if they prove worthy, then making a real investing move becomes more rewarding for you.

Study the Big Fish

What are the big names doing? As investors trade over time, they gather some skills, and historical data have obviously made them successful. Your trading skills could use this knowledge. The stories from such people not only inspire but also enrich your trading perspectives. Some of the big names in trading include Warren Buffet, George Soros, Benjamin Graham, and many others.  

Take Affordable Risks

The rule of thumb in trading is to trade with what you can afford. Whether you are a beginner or a professional, you always make sure you can afford your chances. And explore all the techniques that reduce the risk before making the trading move. Trading should always use expendable cash from your account. Simply put, the account that supports the family, or pays the mortgage, or college tuition should not be in your trading plans. Use only your spare resources. 

Have a Trading Activity Standard

There are thousands of trading opportunities daily. Every single one will have its unique potential for success, depending on your budget. But, going for all of them isn’t advised. There’s the right type of trade and the right time to invest- you just need to be patient. 

Most importantly, be aware of your strengths as they play a defining role in the chances you take. Shape your trading personality based on this. Once you master one trading style, it will sharpen your skills and proficiency to take your expertise to a whole new level.

Differentiate between Data and Rumors

Trading is a highly volatile field. This gives rumors based on suppositions room to thrive. But rumors are just that- noise that has increasingly come to represent the trading environment. 

But, an excellent trader is always on the lookout for such rumors. They’ll always stick to data-based analysis. 

The irresistible temptation that comes with rumors is high. It is for this reason that feelings have no place in the trading business. Work with the numbers and the data. The success will be slow but sure. 

Explore New Strategies

While playing safe is a great strategy, it doesn’t often mean you can’t sharpen your skills further. To revolutionize your skills, you should embrace new techniques. In fact, flexibility is vital in staying on top of things. This is because, in trading, there are no one-size-cuts-all approaches to success. Besides, most trading styles are unique to individual personalities. There’s always more to learn from the other. 

Confidence is Everything

In the trading business, confidence and success are more related than you think. Investing grounds are always shaky, and the moves are risky. The only constant agent is you. Therefore, never take failure personally or let it get to you. 

In fact, failure is the greatest lesson in trading. The difference between big names in trading and unsuccessful ones is how they handled their losses and what they learned. As you gather more data and experience, your skills are bound to get better and make wiser moves. These tips are amazing to help you achieve success in trading. All it takes is dedication, focus, and hard work.

Effective Ways to Help Grow Your Small Business

Small businesses face a lot of challenges throughout their journey towards success. Being able to overcome these obstacles and persevere through the hard times is what gives a business the ability to succeed. While there isn’t one fixed blueprint to follow to grow your business, there are tons of different tips and tricks that every successful business out there utilizes to their advantage.

Research Who You’re Up Against

One of the first things that a small business should do is to study their opponents in the market.  It’s more likely that they’ve been around for much longer and have more experience. This can give you very good insight into vital information like their prices, product quality, and marketing strategy. Doing this makes it much easier to tell what the standard in the market is while also highlighting any possible advantages that your business has over theirs.

Go The Extra Mile For Your Customers

An issue that most small businesses can’t overcome is their low customer retention rates. It's very easy for customers to be swayed away by the larger businesses in the market, so making your customers feel valued and appreciated at your business can make a big difference in developing their loyalty. This requires your business to be very fast with resolving any complaints that the customers may have or answering any questions regarding your products/services.

Have A Clear Picture Of Your Target Audience

Large businesses spend millions of dollars every year researching their target audience’s behavior and there’s a very good reason why. Understanding the people you’re trying to sell your products/services to makes all the difference in how you’re going to market yourself to them. A business that doesn’t accurately figure out what their target audience likes ends up failing to grab their attention, rendering all their marketing efforts useless.

Utilize The Power Of Social Media Platforms

The average person spends around 2 and a half hours a day on social media, which means that there’s an opportunity for your customers to be searching for a product that you offer at any given moment of any given day. Using social media isn’t as simple as it’s perceived to be as a lot of time and effort is required to be able to create good social media content that grabs people’s attention. Every social media platform has its own set of tricks that you need to learn, so find out which ones your customers use the most so that you can begin creating content there.

Participate In Local Events

Making your business known in your neighborhood can be a great way to acquire a good amount of customers in a short time, as the location will be convenient. Making yourself known to your neighborhood community can be done easily if you either participate in local events, sponsor these events, or even host them yourself. This can be a great way of improving your reputation locally while also potentially attracting customers through word-of-mouth.

Prioritize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Under 6% of people who search for things on the internet visit the second page on Google and only under 1% visit any page after the third. If your website is buried under hundreds of other websites then the chances are that no one’s visiting it when they search for products that you offer. SEO changes that through optimizing keywords using effective SEO management that causes your website to shoot up the results, potentially making it the first result that your target audience sees whenever they search for things related to your business. This significantly impacts the traffic that your website gets so make sure it’s capable of handling it without any speed issues.

Always Be On the Watch For Trends

The market can shift very quickly towards a specific direction and if your business isn’t ready to adapt then it might lose out on a big opportunity that can help its growth. Jumping onto new trends as quickly as possible can greatly boost sales throughout that period, just make sure that the quality doesn’t drop due to hasty manufacturing. Some trends are seasonal, like Christmas, while other trends can appear out of nowhere, so you’ll have to always be ready when one of them appears.

Expand Your Team Whenever Possible

As your business grows, it’ll be harder to maintain the same quality of work without hiring more people to lessen the load on your existing employees and yourself. This can benefit the quality of work immensely as having more people makes it easier for everyone to put in all their effort into a small number of tasks rather than having a small set of employees that compromise quality by focusing on way too many tasks.

Remain Goal-Oriented

After creating short-term and long-term goals for your business, maintain them by regularly checking if you’re on track to achieving them by the date that you’ve set. This can easily be done through proper data management as setting it up correctly will automatically cross-reference the results that you require with the results that you’re currently getting. If you’re failing to achieve your goals, figure out what the problem is, and solve it. If you’re on course for achieving the goals that you’ve set, then keep up the good work and start planning your next set of goals.

Partner With The Right Businesses

Some products/services synergize very well, like cereal boxes and milk, making it very beneficial for businesses from each industry to partner together to create new products and promotions that attract customers that would be interested in both businesses simultaneously. Search for a business that offers products/services that complement the ones that you offer and begin thinking of how you could utilize this to your advantage. Once you come up with a good plan, set up a meeting with the business you’re interested in and make your proposal.

It can be quite a frustrating journey for a small business to grow while battling against large businesses that offer better quality products at lower prices.  However, thousands of businesses have turned the odds in their favor by using different tricks to acquire a loyal customer base. Patience plays a huge role in achieving that success that most businesses desire, as most businesses will tell you a lot more about the trouble that they’ve encountered throughout their way rather than what they currently have.

How to Conduct a Successful Audit?

Conducting an audit can be more difficult than it seems. However, it is mandated by ISO Management System Standards. Successful audits can be great tools for your organization. They let you know what you are doing right and what needs to improve. Internal audits can help you streamline your company’s processes to promote efficiency. They can give you insight into compliance issues. The following are a few tips to conduct a successful audit.

1. Initial Planning

Initial audit planning is important. It ensures that everyone on your team knows the purpose of the audit and what is expected of them. During the initial planning stage, you need to answer the following questions;

2. Schedule an Open Meeting

Schedule a meeting that involves the administrative staff and senior management before conducting an audit. The open meeting is a chance to present the scope of your audit. During the audit, you can determine the timeframe of your audit and discuss other important issues. Heads of the department may inform members of their teams about possible interviews with the auditor. Take the following steps to prepare for a planning meeting with the relevant stakeholders:

3. Choose the Right Audit Software

The right audit software can make work easier for you. It can help you get a closer look into the finer details and inner workings of your business. The tools in safety audit software can improve your general performance. They can help you identify inefficient procedures and under-performing departments.

If you completely rely on traditional auditing, you may spend a lot of time in the auditing process. Traditional auditing demands the use of manual methods in many functions. The larger the organization, the more difficult traditional auditing will be. Automated auditing software eliminates the possibility of human error and you can do everything without disruptions.

4. Have a Clear Set of Processes

Having a set of processes will make your job as an auditor a lot easier. The main purpose of having a specific audit process is to standardize your operations. Standardized processes use the best practices. A standardized process will:

Following specific audit processes will protect you against audit error. Mistakes can have significant consequences.

5. Create an Audit Program

After understanding the process and risks involved, you need to create an audit program. The program should include the following details:

6. Request Financial Documents

Once you have notified the organization about an upcoming audit, you may request the documents listed on your preliminary checklist. The documents include receipts, ledgers, a copy of the last audit report, and original bank statements. Other important documents include the organizational charts, copies of their standing rules and bylaws, and copies of the committee and board minutes.

7. Maintain Independence and Objectivity

The audit activity has to be independent and the auditors must remain objective. If an auditor has been assigned to a department, they should have no professional or personal association with the processes being audited. They should be able to report all non-conformities without fear or bias. As an auditor, you have to examine all the available evidence objectively before determining the findings.

8. Expertise In Subject Matter

Conducting an audit based on information from the internal company is a good idea when you are trying to assess process controls and the effectiveness of operations. However, you need external expertise to ensure that your audit matches the changing landscape of the industry. Use at least one of the following when evaluating the design of your processes:

9. Initial Document Request List

When preparing to conduct an audit, you need to request and obtain the relevant documentation. Make your request for the documents before starting the planning process. They may help you understand the relevant applications, processes, and important reports. Some of the most important things to request include;

10. Conduct Onsite Fieldwork

Gather information from an open meeting and use it to finalize your plan. You can conduct fieldwork by speaking to the members of staff and reviewing the processes and procedures. Evaluate internal controls and ensure that they are adequate. If there are any problems, discuss them as they arise and give the company a chance to respond.

  1. Draft a Clear Report

After fieldwork, you need to prepare a detailed report of your findings. Important things to include in your report include mathematical errors, payments that were authorized but not paid, posting problems, and any other discrepancies. Write a commentary with the details of your findings. Recommend solutions where appropriate.

Businesses all around the country need procedures to record, monitor and calibrate the functions, inputs, and outputs of different departments. They need to assess the efficiency of all departments and their contribution to the company’s goals. Without a proper auditing process, it may all be difficult or impossible. Employers and their supervisors may not always provide objective feedback. Relying on their opinion may give you inaccurate information. Audits add credibility to your financial statements. They give your shareholders confidence and help you detect and avoid fraud.

How Can You Give Your New Business The Best Chance Of Success?

The most important thing to you when you’re starting a new business is figuring out how you can make it successful, right? All every business owner wants is to run a successful company that provides a high-quality service to clients. But, do you know some of the things that you can do to give your business the best chance of success? If the answer is no, then you need to keep reading down below where we’re going to give you all of the information that you need. 

Hire The Right People

You’ve got to make sure that you are hiring the right people. Your business is never going to get anywhere if you don’t have the correct teams and employees looking out for you. What we mean by this is that there are some people who just aren’t interested in working, so instead, they are happy to simply sit back and allow everyone else to do the work. You don’t need these people on your team because they are just a constant drag on everyone else. Instead, you’re going to need people who are dedicated to providing a high-quality service or product to your customers and also doing everything they can to make a successful business with you.

Your team is going to be the backbone of your business. At the end of the day, experience must come second to a willingness to learn and succeed. Those who are willing to put the effort in and learn are more important than those who think they know everything because they’ve held a similar role previously. 

Make Sure You Are Insured

Something else that you need to do is make sure that you are insured. When it comes to your new business, the last thing that you want is for something to happen and everything to go down the drain. We highly recommend that you speak to an insurance broker and see what they can do for you. For example, if you are insuring your house cleaning business, they will let you know what kind of cover you need and what you can ignore. This is the best way to make sure you’ve got the right level of cover without going overboard.

Learn About Marketing

The final thing that we are going to suggest is that you learn about marketing. The more knowledge you have in this area, the better you are going to market your business. You don’t have to hire a professional if you don’t want to because once you have the knowledge you need, you will be able to create a fantastic marketing campaign on your own.

We hope that you have found this article helpful and now have a better understanding as to how you can give your business the best chance of success. Take this advice, and you should be able to give your business the best boost possible to see success on the market. Good luck, and we hope that this works out in your favor.