Your outsourced customer service reps or in-house customer service department should learn to generate customer feedback. It helps to promote excellent customer service. The information generated from the feedback’s can help you discover and mend devastating loopholes in your business. Keep reading to learn more.

Adopt a Customer Satisfaction Survey

Often, business leaders conclude that their customer service is top-notch. Well, it’s important to find out the exact situation and your customers are great sources in this case. Are your customers truly happy and satisfied with your service? You should engage a customer satisfaction survey to answer this question more objectively.

Customers are not usually interested in filling out such surveys. However, you can motivate them by providing an incentive for those who would fill out the survey. Offers such as a coupon code can propel customers to fill out the survey forms.

When you create customer satisfaction surveys, ensure they are short and concise. Customers do not have the patience to fill out too many questions. So keep it short – about 10 questions or slightly more. You should consider including the following in the survey questions;

• Were you pleased with your purchase experience?
• Would you like to buy our products or use our services again? If no/yes, why?
• Are you satisfied with our customer service?
• Is our website friendly? To what extent?
• What problems did you encounter trying to purchase our product or use our services?

Find Out How You Can Serve Customers Better

Use your customer satisfaction survey to discover how you may serve your customers better. Your customers may provide you with insight on more innovative ways to resolve issues and offer improved customer service. So, ask your customers what you are not doing right and how they think it can get better. Also, you may engage this technique to learn how your competitors are dealing with customer complaints and problems.

Another approach is to directly ask customers about your competitors and how they handle customer service. You may learn better ways of offering customer service from the response that your customers will provide. This will help you beat the competition. Find out whether or not your customers think your competitors are offering better customer service than you.

Let your customers know how important it is to participate in the survey. It should be clear that their opinions count a lot and would help your company provide them with better customer service in the future.

And, don’t forget to thank them in advance for agreeing to fill out the survey and be part of the innovation that your business seeks. Finally, take the survey and generate innovative customer service ideas from it.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Whether you believe it or not, the rough times are already here and may linger after the pandemic. Therefore, it is important for both individuals and businesses to spend wisely. This will go a long way in making life less difficult while the crisis lasts. So, stay safe not just in terms of your health, but also in terms of your finances.

Prioritize Your Needs

You should focus on your needs rather than your wants in the season we are in. In essence, when you make budget for each period, you should focus on your needs such as your insurance, rent, utility bills, and mortgage. Other needs include your recurring medical expenses, groceries, gas and insurance. Pay less attention to non-essential needs, especially if you have not covered your essential needs.

Use Approaches that Cut Back Costs

A business owner should look for techniques that will save more cost. For instance, you can focus on online advertising (which is highly effective and cheap/free) than the conventional advertising channels.

Seek to maximize the cyberspace in promoting your business, even if it is not in operation right now due to the virus outbreak. Also, a business owner should increasingly outsource tasks such as customer service and admin tasks instead of hiring the employees on a full-time basis.

Shop Around

The internet has made shopping around completely stress free. With just a click of the button, you can compare the prices offered by different brands on a product or service in few minutes. While it is good to be a loyal customer, this time calls for being a smart buyer. So, before you order, check the price offered by other sellers – you may get a better deal and save more as a result.

Another reason to shop around is that you can discover an alternative to the more expensive option you have been used to. It is most likely that the alternative would offer the same result or even surpass your previous brand. This is one of the best ways to spend wisely now and hereafter.

Pay with Cash

You may discover that paying with cash can help you stick to your shopping list and as a result avoid spending unnecessarily. To avoid the lure to become extravagant, do not take your card with you when you go shopping in a brick-and-mortar store.

Finally, you should keep an eye on your spending. In essence, try not to spend more than you are earning. Use any approach that appeals to you better to keep an eye on your spending.

For instance, you may want to use a money-monitoring app for this purpose. Also, cut off any needless spending such as going to see a movie – you can make do with your home theater.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Investment websites allow you to accomplish different investment purposes. Some are basically platforms to log on, enter an order and log off. Others offer much more such as linking you with a financial advisor, or helping you manage your investment portfolio. Other websites also add financial education to their services so that you can learn more. Keep reading to learn how to search for an investment website.

Tip #1: Consider a Beginner’s Investment Website

If you are just getting started with investment, you would be better off looking out for the beginners’ investment websites and apps. These websites usually provide investor education tools, and no minimum investment applies. Those sites also have features that can benefit advanced investors, especially those looking for lower service fee.

Another plus with these websites is that you can start with the simulated trading tool instead of committing money from the onset. This way, you will only use artificial money to experiment trade.

Tip #2: Think of Investment Websites that Do the Work for You

Some investment websites will virtually do everything for you. All they require from you is to provide information about your risk level and investment goals. Subsequently, the site will use algorithm to do the rest of the work so that your money will start working for you. Some of these websites do not charge any management fee for investments worth up to $10,000. You will also find tax optimization features on some of those sites, which in return helps those with huge taxable income or a large balance.

Tip #3: Experiment with a Customer Service Investment

If you are more concerned about robust customer service, you will find some investment websites for this purpose. But, such websites offer even more, including stocks screener and profitability calculator. They are suitable for conscious traders, options traders, and active traders.

Tip #4: Look for Hands-Off Investors Websites

If you are a hands-off investor or your account balance reads $100,000 and above, you will find investment websites best suited for this description. You can use related apps or visit such websites and input your age, income, as well as investment goal. There is usually no minimum investment and your money will be invested in a mix of bonds and stocks.

Tip #5: Start with Small Amounts

If you are a beginner or just want to invest in small amounts, you will find suitable investment websites. So, the change you have from your daily purchases can become useful for this sort of investment. Usually, the investment websites under this category would separate the money into six different funds based on your risk tolerance level. Minimal charges such as $1 per month on $5,000 balance are applicable. Well, charges will vary from website to website.

Finally, you may consider outsourcing investment management to an expert.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Investing in a lucrative venture to make money can be quite exciting. The best part is that you don’t have to labor except the money you are putting out. But, do not be swift to let go of your money without carefully investigating the investment opportunities offered to you.

You should be aware of investment scams – a situation where fraudulent individuals pretend to be financial advisers or investment brokers in order to defraud you of your money.

So, here are major investment signs to watch out before you let go of your money;

• You Should be on an Alert when You Get a Cold Call.

Often, investment scammers tend to be smart. Instead of waiting for you to discover them, they go out of their way to seek you out. It could be in form of phone calls, a visit to your business outfit or residence, or an email. You should be at alert because they usually look and sound professional, making them unsuspicious.

Sometimes, they will present you with an investment opportunity you may not be familiar with. Don’t be rash to jump into action. Instead, if the opportunity sounds good, request for details and do extensive research and investigation on the proposed offer.

It doesn’t matter the returns on the investment presented to you, do not let the quest for money deaden your reasoning and pressurize you to sign deals or hand over money at the instance. If you do, you may have yourself to blame.

• If It Appears too Good to be True

If the offer sounds too good to be true, you should beware. You may be presented with a track record of past returns on the investment opportunity so that you would be convinced . The record may not be authentic, so don’t let such documentation fool you either.

You should be skeptical if nothing seems to be amiss with the returns year after year. There’s always a time of retrogression or track of low performance even with the best investment opportunities. So, don’t believe a 100 percent smooth-going record.

Do you remember the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme? Smart investors did not fall for the scheme because the promised returns were too consistent to be true. The initiators of this type of fraudulent scheme would usually use new investors’ funds to pay dividends to the older investors. But in the real sense, there’s no investment existing anywhere.

For such fraudulent acts, payoffs are certain provided there’s consistent inflow of new comers bringing in money. So, when there are no more people coming to put in their money, the organizers would close the scheme and cart away with the remaining funds.

Finally, if you outsource your investment management to a broker, you should not just fold your hands. It’s important you monitor what is going on with your money.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

If you are not sure of the interest amount to pay on a loaned amount, interest rates spikes may become a problem. It can even be riskier if you do not know the interest amount due to you from your investments or deposits. Therefore, you should manage your investments and assets to help you minimize the risks that come with interest rates. Interest rate derivatives should serve as hedging tools for you.

Be Sure about Your Risk Tolerance

Your interest rate may spike up on variable-rate loans. The payments and income coming in will determine your risk tolerance level. If you have variable-rate, consider what may become of interest rates in this case. To figure out what you can handle in terms of amount of increase, you need to project your income. This points to your risk tolerance.

Go for Fixed-rate Loans Instead

Consider ditching variable interest loans if your risk tolerance is little or zero. This is the best way to lessen interest rate risks. However, bear in mind that this approach would deny you of possible benefits that may accrue if the interest rate reduces below the fixed rate. You may be better off going for loans with fixed-rate if interest rates are expected to rise or if they are uncertain. This is particularly applicable to mortgages as well as bigger projects.

Mix Viable-rate Loans and Fixed-rate Loans

Consider a mix of variable-rate loans and fixed-rate loans to help you lessen interest rate risks. There’s no rule of thumb in this case, you just have to figure out the most suitable approach for your investment and financial interest.

If your risk tolerance is low, you may be more comfortable having most of your debts in fixed-rate. The fixed-rate eliminates the risk of potential increase. On the other hand, if your risk tolerance level is high, you can go for more variable interest-rate loans. Your high risk tolerance can reward you with benefits if the rate increases.

Use Your Assets to Offset Your Liabilities

Another great way to reduce interest rate risk is to ensure what comes in exceeds what goes out. Here’s an example; if you mortgage your commercial property at 6 percent interest and the interest rate rises to 8 percent as a result of leasing the property, a 2 percent interest is a point added to your tolerance. You will break even still if there’s a variable rate on the mortgage and you earn the extra 2 percent.

So, take advantage of these tips to manage your assets and liabilities and reduce interest rates risks.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Making plans to pay off your debt should be part of your money management efforts. Debts do not only hurt your credit report but will also take your peace away since your creditors can come knocking on your door at any time. This is why you should make conscious efforts to pay off your debts.

Here are helpful tips to help you pay off your debts and be smart with money;

Tip #1: Compute Your Debt Total

Knowing how much you owe is the first step towards determining how to pay off your debt. So, sit back and compute your costs and do not leave out any. Some of such costs may include short term loans, credit cards, students’ loans, auto-financing or even mortgages. This computation will also help you figure out what it will take to make full repayment of your debts.

Tip #2: Focus on High-interest Debts

When making efforts to repay your debts, you should prioritize credit cards and other debts with high interest rate. Ultimately, you will pay more when you allow high-interests debts to linger. Add more money in repaying the most important debts than the less prioritized debts.

Also, you should prioritize a short-term loan such as a car loan. It is important you pay down debts on short loans too. The reason is that you can be more indebted if you do not pay off the debts in full and when due.

It’s not time to relax after paying off your most prioritized debts. Instead, allocate the funds to the next debts in your list. For instance, you can allocate the same amount you were paying on a credit card debt to your student loan or the next prioritized debts in your list.

The whole idea is to enable you pay off all long term, recurring, and short-term debts sooner. This way, you won’t incur more debts as a result of being late in your debt repayments.

Tip #3: Always Stick to Your Repayment Schedule

Do your best to stick to your repayment schedule – both in terms of time and more importantly the amount and set date. Avoid falling for the temptation to use the funds earmarked for debts repayment to meet other needs.  Ensure you always have some funds reserved for emergency expenses, so that you won’t have to default on your debt repayment schedule. In essence, do not let anything distract you from the commitment you have made to repay your debts as soon as possible.

Finally, you should endeavor not to incur more debts as you repay the outstanding debts. For instance, to avoid further credit card debts, you should opt to pay in cash.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Economies undergo a roller coaster process – sometimes it is a boom, some other times it is a bust otherwise known as recession. During economic crisis, businesses and companies suffer also. As a result, they may start cutting down the number of their employees to help make ends meet.

Consequently, people will start competing for the few jobs available. During such times, job seekers should make most of their chances of landing a job by employing the following steps;

Step #1: Assess Your Skills and Qualifications

Since you know that the competition is stiff during an economic crisis, you should sit back and analyze your skills. What great skills and qualities do you have to offer a potential company?

In bad times, companies are looking for people who will add more value to their organization and move it to a greater level. So, take time and re-analyze your skills and qualifications, so that you can position them as something a potential employer needs for the hour. Once employers can find your skills and qualifications applicable and needful, they won’t think twice to prioritize you over your contemporaries.

Step #2: Focus on the Thriving Industries

While most industries and niches go through depression during an economic crisis, some industries and niches tend to shine. So, you should focus on the thriving industries and see how you can align your skills to become attractive to the employers. Bear in mind that every industry would usually require different skills. Often, if you want to migrate to a different industry, you may have to acquire extra skills and training’s required to thrive in the new industry.

For instance, an attorney seeking to earn more during a recession may consider getting extra training and skill on aspects of law required during recession. A number large corporations and companies may require the services of bankruptcy attorneys. They may hire such attorneys for full-time positions or simply outsource legal work regarding bankruptcy and re-organization to such attorneys. It’s all about being proactive and willing to try something new in order to survive the rough times.

Step #3: Target Specific Companies

As you focus on thriving industries during recession, you should target specific companies. First, determine the values you are targeting with the job positions you seek. Then, search for companies that are promising in terms of the benefits you seek.

Here’s a perfect example; if the value you seek is job security and stability for instance, you should focus on well-established companies when submitting your resume. In essence, you should channel more efforts on companies that offer your prioritized values with the job you’re looking for.

Finally, you should tailor your resume to showcase your skills, accomplishments and experiences to match the job you are looking for.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

Virtually every business, big and small, has suffered one form of setback due to the corona virus pandemic. There are lots of challenges facing businesses right now – disrupted supply chains, employees locked down at home to stay safe, including shift in consumption patterns. But, in the midst of the chaos, some organizations have proactively used technology as a vaccine against potential irreparable devastation from the pandemic.

So, the lessons for entrepreneurs from the present crisis include the following;

Lesson #1: Implement Digital

The pandemic crisis is a wake-up call for businesses of various types and sizes to fully implement digital in business operations. From the look of things, businesses that delayed in implementing digital are the ones that probably suffered the impact of the crisis more. It is now clear beyond doubts that digital should be a must adopted strategy for core functions.

For instance, organizations are faced with limited call center personnel for customer and operations support. But, companies that have learnt to integrate technology and digital long before the crisis are engaging mobile apps, self-service tools, social media and artificial intelligent chat-bots to stay afloat during the crisis. As a result, the current crisis has become a stepping stone for such businesses to shine and not go down the drain.

Lesson #2: Buckle up on Remote Working

Work from home, remote working…whatever name you may call it, has proven important and helpful in this period. Remote workforce is now the buzz word as employees work from home to stay safe from the virus. Also, companies are outsourcing to remote workers, including those in offshore locations.

The lesson to drive home is this; remote working must become a new normal for businesses even after the pandemic. It has become necessary to develop inclusive remote workplace system. Working from home this period has been with certain challenges for organizations because they were not prepared for it. Some of those challenges include the following;

• Poor bandwidth
• Absence of VPN licenses
• Little or no robust video conferencing tools
• …and more

So, going forward, organizations must resolve these challenges, not just for the moment but also for the future. The crisis has taught everyone that it is needful to prepare for the worst situations even in the good times. No one knows what may erupt next and what impact it would have on businesses.

Lesson #3: Cloud Computing Must Become a Norm

Businesses that have already adopted cloud computing have gained greater competitive advantage during the covid crisis. They leveraged cloud to accomplish instant solution to two major challenges – security and scalability. It was easy for the IT team to use cloud and scale up resources for systems that experienced instant spike. These systems include help-desk, call center, and websites.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

You don’t have to let a crisis or recession cripple your business. Don’t fold your hands and say there’s nothing you can do. The truth is, there’s something you can do. In case you’ve forgotten, some of the fortune companies you celebrate today were born and grown in the midst of severe crisis and global recession. One of such companies is Microsoft.

Developing a fresh business model can help you reshape and redirect your business for success when crisis or recession hits. Some of the great ways to come up with improved model for your business include the following;

Embrace new Technology

Clinging to an outdated and rigid business model can further hurt a business, especially when crisis hit. So, if you have been sluggish to embrace new way of getting things done, a time of crisis is a perfect time to have a rethink. Embracing a new technology can be the turnaround point that your business has been waiting for. It can help reduce cost of production, and as a result make your prices more competitive than before.

Also, embracing new technology includes updating your products, services and business practices as a whole. This can help attract new and more customers. For instance, a publisher should consider offering publications more in digital forms than hard-copies. In recent times, traditional magazine and newspaper companies are increasingly embracing online advertising and digital media subscriptions to expand their customer base. Many people now prefer to read online publications to traditional prints.

Go Online

It’s surprising that in this digital era many businesses are still traditional-bound. Obviously, they are losing a big chunk of potential customers since many buyers now prefer to explore and purchase products conveniently by going online. If you do not have an online presence, a time of recession or crisis presents you another good opportunity.

For instance, staying safe is the watch-word for most people around the world right now because of the virus outbreak. People are locked down at home and they prefer to order groceries and other products from the comfort of their homes and have them delivered at their doorsteps. They are not prepared to risk their lives queuing in traditional stores.

Consider Passive Income Streams

You can also look for other avenues to stay in business and earn income during recession. The best part is that you don’t even have to do something directly to earn money when passive income stream is involved. For instance, you should consider a dividend investment. Instead of spending your dividends on personal stuffs, you should consider re-investing dividends to help sustain your business during crisis.

Finally, you can use outsourcing solution to cut back cost in times of crisis, instead of maintaining a full-time staff.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.

The world is about to enter into a major economic depression. You don’t need a forecaster to figure that out. The pandemic which started from China and spread to virtually all parts of the world is the major cause of the anticipated economic crisis.

For months, operations and business activities have come to a grind. As a result, employees are being retrenched, governments’ reserves are declining and there’s pandemonium in the atmosphere. However, even in the midst of the crisis, you can still find a way to keep your business alive using these major trends;

Trend #1: Outsourcing

As you probably know, outsourcing is an evergreen business solution. Large companies adopted outsourcing in time past both to fast-pace production and reduce staffing cost. This trend has continued till date. Smart companies are increasingly outsourcing in recent time to achieve the same purpose and much more.

Thankfully, the pandemic has proven that working from just anywhere is doable, as long as the right tools are set in place. More than ever, now is the best time to outsource more work to independent contractors to save huge on full-time staffing cost. It’s also the most cost-effective way to fill skill-set gap. Offshore outsourcing offers much more cost-saving benefit without bridging quality, as long as you are diligent to hire the best skills.

After all, conventional work in the office may not get back to how it used t be for the rest of the year. So, this is the right time to make the most of outsourcing to keep your business activities alive in a cost effective manner.

Trend #2: Remote Working

Remote working has proven effective and needful during the pandemic. The employees who were not been retrenched now work from home to stay safe. According to recent surveys, this trend is likely to become a new normal even after the crisis. This is because it is helping companies cut back overhead costs significantly among other benefits. The remote employees are also enjoying the trend since it saves transportation costs and helps them stay closer to their loved ones.

So, if your company has been paying lip service to remote working all along, now is the time to get serious. Look into possible obstacles such as lack of robust internet access and strive to get them resolved.

Trend #3: Delivery Services

If your business is among those that are stuck in a brick-and-mortar operation, it’s high time you started having a rethink. During the lockdown, smart businesses that have already gone digital were still generating income.  Their eCommerce websites allow people to order groceries and other items online, and the items are delivered at the customers’ doorsteps. It’s time to go completely digital with your business. Take your offers to your customers in their comfort zones instead of waiting for them to come to you.

So, go ahead and make these trends essential part of your business during and after the pandemic.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.