Customer Service Management Tips – Part 2

In part 1 we discussed the importance of Post-Sale Customer Support teams in retaining repeat customers, and why this is so important. Now let’s look at some practical customer service management tips to help you get the job done.

What Is the Role of Customer Support

The customer support team needs to ensure customers are happy by representing the customer’s interests inside the business at time when no one else is motivated to do so.

The customer support team, along with the sales team, represents the customer’s interests inside the company. The sales team does it to get new customers. The support team does it to keep existing customers.

The major challenge that customer support teams face within most organizations is that it is hard to tie specific support activity to a specific amount of revenue dollars. There is always a temptation to ignore your existing customers, because they probably won’t leave right away. There is always a temptation to ignore any customer that doesn’t have an open order because as a business you need to raise enough money to pay your bills and your employees in order to stay in business.

What Can Support Team Managers Do?

As a Customer Support manager, there are a few things you can do to help your cause.

Recognize that fundamentally the Customer Support team is there to ensure repeat orders. Know the repeat order potential of each customer and factor that into the time, money and priority you give any given customer. Very often a small number of customers take up a large percentage of the customer support time and budget. Make sure you are not neglecting the high potential customers because you are busy serving the needs of needy customers with lower potential. I know we like to help everyone, but let’s face it you make priority decisions every day on which issues to handle first. Many customer support teams have no idea what the repeat order potential of any given customer is. Make sure you know, and make sure that repeat order potential is at least as big a factor in your decisions as how loud the customer is. Tying action to financials will get the attention and support of upper management.

Get to know the Sales team. In most organizations the sales teams are much more influential than the support teams, it’s just a fact of life. The sales teams are also the people inside the company who benefit the most from good customer support. They get the credit and the commission checks for repeat orders. Let the sales team know when their high potential customers are having issues, and when you are not getting the support you need to help them. You can be guaranteed that a commissioned sales rep will not sit idly by and risk losing a repeat customer. Keep the sales team in the loop. When things go well, tell them. It’s a great opportunity for them to go in and make their next pitch. When problems are brewing, tell them that too so they can avoid walking into the lion’s den with a new sales pitch, and instead make a timely service call to show they care and offer assistance. The sales team is motivated, influential, and has the most to lose from poor customer service. You already have the power to help them; use it to help them help you.

Look for ways to actively help your customers use the products or services they buy from you. Don’t just wait for complaints and repair calls to come in. Think of ways that you could help your customer’s use your products. Think about this. If you can help a customer use something he or she has already purchased, they will be much more likely to come back a second time. If you can help a customer use up something he or she has already purchased then they will need to come back and replenish their stock. Remember that customer support is there to help the customer use the product or service. Why do you think craft stores sponsor craft fairs? Because it helps people use up their craft supplies, and it also makes them happy. If you can help them use it up, or consume it, then you can rightly claim that you have helped the customer and increased revenue for the business when their frequency of buying increases. Be creative.

Summary

Fundamentally the role of customer support is to ensure repeat sales. Post-sale customer support teams are a critical cog in the business cycle. They should be respected. They should be in constant communication with the sales team. They should be actively looking for ways to help the customer use the products or services they have purchased.

As a customer service manager one of the best things you can do for your team is to learn to tie their actions to the business financials. That’s how decisions are made at the top.

Enterprise it Asset Management – Managing Your Company’s it Assets

By effectively managing the life cycle of an organization’s IT assets, the IT manager has significant influence to improve an organization’s overall performance, reduce costs, improve effectiveness, and improve and demonstrate the IT department’s ROI. Managing an Enterprise’s IT assets is essential for an organization’s competitiveness today. Deploying an IT Asset Management system will help avoid failures and quickly identify wasted IT resources and other inefficiencies.

Corporations, small business, government agencies or educational institutions, all require a comprehensive solution for managing computer and software assets, controlling expenses, and automating license compliance. Enterprises require an end-to-end solution that is capable of:

Taking IT Inventory, including computers, software, servers, laptops, and mobile devices that connect to your network. Get Instant IT visibility: Have an accurate Computer Inventory and easily view updated configuration and physical location of each computer, server or laptop. View over 200 different hardware properties and know which software titles are installed on each computer. Search every IT asset by CPU, by operating system, by vendor and many more. Then export the data to CSV, PDF or HTML files directly from each view, giving you an easy way to export your data from the service and create useful reports. The Compliance Manager ensures IT compliance by tracking computers and software that are installed on your network and matching your software inventory against your software licenses to determine compliance status.

Online IT management software such as SAManage allows you to make sure that your organization has the ability to manage their IT assets throughout their lifecycle, and helps you better manage your enterprise IT assets.

Different Business Management Styles

Business management combines an interesting mix of theory and practice, and it is a particularly good topic for management and entrepreneurial types to study. Finding a business management style that suits your personality and the nature of your business is both important and worthy of time investment, as being self-aware and being able to identify strengths and weaknesses of various approaches will enable more effective personal development and ultimately more effective management.

While many have their own individual business management styles, these are traditionally broadly categorized into three main classes of business management approaches.

Autocratic Management

Firstly, there is what has come to be known as the autocratic approach to management, which installs more trust in the leadership as opposed to the individual staff. This involves pulling rank and leaves employees in no doubt as to whom the management is or what decisions are being made. Rather than engaging employees within the decision making process, this business management style typically concerns businesses that require direct, effective leadership to produce results, often under pressure of working in a tough environment. Upon hearing the term autocratic, many tend to visualise a dictatorial approach to management. While that is perhaps the case, it is seldom as strict as this and it is often a necessary management style, for example in the armed forces or in a high-paced trading environment, where there is no margin for deliberation and group consideration.

Democratic Management

Alternatively, there is a business management style known as the democratic style, where employees are effectively engaged in consultation before decisions are made. While some consider this to be more motivating and more enjoyable to work under, it does nevertheless have its own disadvantages. Giving employees a say may undermine the authority of the management, and may ultimately cause inefficiencies in the decision making process. It is also time intensive, and perhaps not as effective in larger organisations with thousands of employees. While of course at a board room level this kind of decision making goes on everyday, it’s one that works most effectively in slower paced business where decisions can be fully deliberated and considered.

Laissez Fair Management

An alternative to those two business management styles and the third main category is what’s known as the laissez fair management style. This is by definition a more hands-off approach to management, which puts the trust of running the business within the hands of employees themselves, and allows a greater degree of autonomy than would otherwise be the case. While this is strong in creative industries, some business people find that this style of management can lead to a fragmented approach to doing business and is less organised and perhaps less professional.

Whichever business management style you liken yourself to; there are advantages and disadvantages of that approach. What’s important is not that you recognise which of these categories you fall under, but rather that you’re aware of the improvements that can be made to make your management more effective and efficient while also improving the relationships you share with employees at all levels of the organisation.

The Abc?s of Money Management Tips for College Students

Being in college is a great way to prepare your future. Money management tips for college student is a powerful starting point that will encourage you to find ways to make money online by finding the best affiliate program. The fact that you are reading this article shows your concerns about the subject.

Four powerful ways to manage your money:

1. Increase income

Do you have income now? How do you increase it? Is it by working longer or starting to make money online?

2. Create multiple streams of income

Some ways to have sources of income:

- Tutoring students such as high school students or junior college.

- Using your skills such as writing, drawing or repairing computers.

- Working part-time at local stores or college.

- Starting an internet business. It doesn’t require a lot of capital nor a company. You can start now.

3. Manage expenses

Reduce your personal expenses such as food, clothing, and transportation.

4. Increase Return of Investment (ROI) in your investment

Learn to invest your money. You can get so much valuable information on investing from libraries or online. There are many sources of investment. One of them is how to make money online by finding the best affiliate program.

I regret that I wasted my college years only for fun and study. Now I realize the importance of understanding money management tips for college students. Money management works the same way like exercising in the gym; you can’t see your muscle built the first time you lift weight, but as you exercise consistently and correctly, you’ll see the muscles develop nicely.

You must master money management tips while you are in college. Otherwise, you will end up with large percentage of our population that deal with debts.

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Small Business Management

Business management refers to one’s ability to manage a business effectively and efficiently while retaining profitability. But what does that mean? Anyone can ‘manage’ a business, right?

But do we really know how to manage a business? And if we do, what does that entail? Do you just run around your company telling people what to do or run to the bank and make deposits at the end of the each week? Is that business management?

If that is all it takes to run a business, why isn’t everyone a business owner? If managing a business is so easy, why are there consultants? Simple answer: business management is more daunting a task than we may think.

I have always said that no matter how large or small a company is, it is an overwhelming task to manage the everyday issues. We could all use a little bit of help.

Traditional business management, which is what I have studied and is the methodology I use when discussing business issues with clients, takes into account all aspects of running a business, large or small.

Whether it is a million-dollar company or a billion-dollar company, all companies run the same.

Traditional business management is pretty much self-explanatory; it is managing business through traditional methods that have been used for many years.

Those traditional methods incorporate three aspects: sales and marketing strategies, efficient operation and productions methods, and finance and accounting (SG&A). I believe all business owners should have some understanding of these areas of business and try to manage them as best they can. Most large companies focus on these areas in that they have the resources to pay employees who specialize in these particular areas.

For example, consider some of the largest companies in the United States like Home Depot, Starbucks and Dell. These companies require precise and expert management of their business operations at all times while maintaining a positive financial position for investors. These businesses pay full-time employees to function in the company in particular capacities.

When we look at small businesses in the United States, we have to ask, “Do small businesses have the financial resources to pay for similar resources such as a chief financial officer, or a qualified VP of Sales”? Quick answer: no! Actually, no is the only answer.

When we look at larger companies and how they manage their sales and marketing efforts, we find that larger companies have the financial resources to hire employees on a full-time basis who are experts in sales and marketing.

We can say the same for the third aspect of traditional business management, operations and productions. Once again, large businesses have the revenue available to have full-time positions for a general manager, a production manager, and sometimes, a Vice-President of Operations.

Again, small businesses rarely have the opportunity to pay experts full-time salaries, which could cost a business thousands of dollars annually.

So, now we know that traditional business requires the expertise of individuals in particular areas, such as finance, marketing, sales, production, operations, and management.

As a small business owner, can you pay the full-time wages of each of these employees? Do you have to hire all these employees in order for you to spend less time in the office worrying about business issues?

I have seen many million-dollar companies and I have seen a few billion-dollar companies; the only difference is that one pays for expert full-time employees and the other doesn’t. Obviously, the larger companies have the money to pay for expert employees, and small businesses don’t.

So how does the small business owner learn the basics of business management without paying for an MBA or spending thousands of dollars in annual salaries for experts?

Recently traditional business management had to make room for a new aspect of business: technology.

Through the years traditional business management has had to marry its strategies with the proliferation of technology where every business owner from Starbuck’s to Jim’s Auto has had to incorporate technology into its everyday operations.

The problem is that business believed that technology was going to be the solution for every problem, but it wasn’t until recently that business management thinkers realized that technology will fail if it is not implemented properly. That is, traditional business management must seamlessly marry itself with technology.

So, now you have this traditional business model to think of, and you also have to think that the model has incorporated technology. You see, managing a business is not as easy as it sounds. When you look at this business model I know for sure that you have never looked at your business in this way before. Believe it or not, graduate schools teach this stuff and larger companies obviously have the money to pay someone to think of this stuff, but what about the small business owner?

Small business owners do not have the financial resources to pay for this thinking and consulting companies for some reason; do not necessarily speak to the small business owner. Why not? Most consulting companies are always looking to fry the “big fish”, the 1% of businesses in the United States that can afford the phenomenal fees they charge.

Larger consulting companies do not have the time or the desire to speak to small businesses, nor will they change their fees which range over 0.00 per hour.

One of the comments I hear often in small businesses is, “Great idea, I wish I could get my people to do that, but I can’t expect them to change their ways.” I say, “You’d better get them to change their ways or you could be out of a job”!

Oddly enough, small business owners are reluctant if not skeptical in getting help for their business. To this day, I have yet to figure that one out. Why don’t small business owners look for help?

I firmly believe that business is business regardless of the size of the company, the annual revenues, or the number of employees. Keep in mind that the largest businesses in the world were once small businesses and today they are worth a great deal of money. All businesses “managed” their way to the top, regardless of the industry.

I have seen numerous multi-million dollar businesses in every industry, to include contractors, restaurants, service companies, and manufacturing companies. And I have also worked for companies that are worth billions and billions of dollars. They all have one thing in common: They all run the same some just have more revenue than the other.

I have always said that no matter what you produce to sell, HOW you produce it is what is of paramount importance to the growth of your business.

Your business is not too small or too large for a review of its current business processes. I have not met a business owner, a president or CEO of a company who can tell me that their business is running so smoothly that they don’t need to change. That is simply not true.

The natural stirring of the U.S. economy is what causes the need for change in all businesses of all sizes and I guarantee that if you are not constantly rethinking your business strategies, your competition is.

Can you say that your business is flexible enough to manage your competition and stay ahead of the curve, or that your business can handle the daily economic fluctuations in the U.S.?

Ask yourself some of the following questions.

1.Have your total revenues gone up or down from last year?

2.Has your profitability gone up or down from last year?

3.Where is the next dollar coming from?

4.Are you tired of going to work?

5.Do you have adequate inventory levels?

6.How many employees report to you on a daily basis?

7.Do your employees actually do what you ask and expect of them?

8.Do you have a management team in place?

9.Is there business expenses you wish you didn’t have?

10.Does every employee in your company have a specific job function that justifies their labor burden?

11.Do you remember when owning your business was fun for you and your family?

12.Do you believe your company operates as smoothly and efficiently as it could?

13.Do you have a long-range plan?

14.Do your employees share your vision of the business?

15.Who do your employees go to when there is a problem?

16.If you actually met me, would you be able to tell me that your business doesn’t need to change, or that it is truly profitable?

If you are ready to move your business forward, get some help. Believe it not, the success of your business is important to this great Nation.

Debt Management Tips: Shows You Best Ways to be Out of Worries

The debt management tips provided by several financial experts have made it easier for people to handle their excessive debts without any problem. But before knowing it people used to suffer from the unnecessary debt burdens and the result of such sufferings was quite dangerous and pitiful. To bring people out of such worries these new tips and programs have been implemented so that borrowers can live life stress-free.

For getting the best tips on managing the excessive debts and to pay these off without panicking you can go for the financial experts. Such experts are being found in the loan market and also in the online lending sites. You can receive free of cost or priced suggestions from these consultants and can use these to get relief.

The mostly advised solution based on the condition of the borrower is the debt negotiation program. According to this program a debt negotiator will act as a mediator between you and your creditor and he will reduce the payable amount. As soon as the amount of the monthly installments gets reduced the repayment burden on you will lighten to a great extent. You will have to make the payment through the negotiator and so you should keep noticing his activities. For such purposes you should therefore, get the reliable agent only. This way getting rid of debts will be possible.

Another best step will be to take up the debts consolidation programs. It will help you in reducing your debts burden by merging the multiple debts in to one. In this program your rate of interest too will get decreased. So, when the amount to be paid off will reduce it will be easier for you to maintain a repayment without much problem. The role played by the debt management tips is thus worth praising.

However, if you control the unnecessary expenses and plan a proper budget of the total expenses then you will be able to make good savings. No extra debts will be there and no needless stress will be required to be taken.