Archive for the ‘Human Resource’ Category

Customer Service

Monday, January 11th, 2010

It is an opportunity for you to gain the confidence of your customers. If you are successful, you can rest assured that you will never be in need again. However, if you cut this critical aspect of running a business, then God save you!

If you are a business that sells a creation or a service, there will be times when digit or more of your customers will need to talk to you about something related to what you have sold. It could be a simple question about how to use your creation or it could be a call to tell you that something you sold to them is not employed the way it should. Customer service reflects the attitude of the company. That is why you staleness take utmost care when selecting employees who will be employed in this department. You would want to hire people who can treat your customers as you would do yourself. Your employees should also understand that they need to treat other people as they would like to be treated themselves.

Employees who work in the Customer Service division should realize the meaning of the responsibility they are carrying and staleness is polite, patient, and genuinely interested to help a client in distress. No matter how great the provocation, they staleness remain dignified and calm. Anger is something that comes out in short bursts. So, if you are an employee, you staleness earmark the client to let out his frustration. Once the client calms down, you can have a better conversation with him and help him better. A customer’s anger is not directed at the person he is conversation to in Customer Service, instead it is directed at the company which has provided with a service or creation he is not happy about! So, just follow this golden rule, if a client compliments you on providing great service, go ahead and take credit for it. However, if a client is angry or dissatisfied about something, do not attempt to pass the buck on to somebody else.

It would be unwise to underestimate the knowledge of a customer. If a client does not seem to understand what you are trying to tell him, it just effectuate that you are not providing him the information in a manner that he can understand.

What Do I Get to Keep if I File Bankruptcy in Tennessee?

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

When considering filing for bankruptcy Knoxville, you will probably have many questions. Many bankruptcy lawyers in Knoxville, TN, asked asked one question in particular, “What can I keep?”. This is a valid question. Bankruptcy lawyers in Knoxville know that people are concerned that they may have to relinquish their home or automobile. Every state has it’s own bankruptcy laws plus there are federal laws as well, so the advice of bankruptcy lawyers in Knoxville, TN is particularly important for those people considering filing bankruptcy in Knoxville.

The advice of knowledgeable bankruptcy lawyers Knoxville is essential. Tennessee does not allow people filing bankruptcy in Knoxville to keep many possessions, in fact you can only keep a few thousand dollars worth of your personal belongings and your home if it qualifies.

Determining the value of your home and personal property can require the services of bankruptcy lawyers in Knoxville. After all, you want to keep as many of your possessions as possible. You worked a lifetime to acquire your possessions, why should you have to sell them just because of financial hardship that may not be your fault.

Bankruptcy laws are notoriously complicated. Filing for bankruptcy in Knoxville requires the services of one of the bankruptcy lawyers in Knoxville, TN to insure that you keep as many of your possessions as possible.

Increase Rates Without Losing Clients

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

If you are in this situation then a good first step is to check the market to see what your competitors are offering. You may find that if your client could go someone else but they would be unlikely to get the same level of service. Alternatively, you may find that you are about the same but that does not mean that you cannot still increase rates provided you have something additional to offer. Ideally something that does not cost you a lot of money but is valuable to your client and worth paying extra for.

For example, I was working with an adviser who was attracting lots of clients based on low rates but frustrated that he was not making enough money from it. His service level was much higher than it needed to be, yet he was uncomfortable with charging more or taking away some of the services.

One service that he was providing was traveling to see clients rather than them having to come to see him. During the traveling time he was stuck in the car and not earning. He did not charge for traveling time. We worked out some service packages and gave them each a name, list of contents and price. There was a service package that had the current pricing but excluded some things like traveling which went into a higher level package with a higher price.

The outcome is that most of the clients were quite happy to accept the lower service level which meant that although the sales income for those clients did not increase, the service became more profitable and freed up a lot of time.  Some clients did decide that having the extra service saved them time and money and were happy to pay the extra. Giving them the choice made the negotiations so much easier.

If you are currently charging a reasonable rate for what you do then you could still look at the Terracing technique in order to create more revenue by upselling certain clients onto packages that provide extra value added services. Creating lower tiers can make lead generation easier by using price and then upselling to the high value added packages if required.

Fraud Investigation Getting it Right The First Time

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Firstly you need to work out what kind of fraud you are looking into. Bribery; corruption; the theft of intellectual property and proprietary information; industrial espionage; accounting irregularities and many other similar activities are regarded as fraud.

When there has been inside business fraud, many companies look to the authorities to deal with the issue. The problem here is that not only does this cause a lot of disruption to the business, but it also puts pressure on the employees. Granted that this can be a good thing in order to find out who has been committing the fraud, but by making everyone feel guilty, many employees might lose confidence in their company. Therefore, discretion and indirect questioning is the key to keeping the business running smoothly without having to worry about people’s dedication being questioned.

There are many options available to businesses when trying to carry out an internal investigation. The first as you would expect would be to narrow down the possible suspects, question them or to look through surveillance to see if any of them have done something suspicious. However, if the business is untrained in such things, then getting an external support business may be crucial to keeping everything controlled until you find out who the fraudster is.

When looking at outside companies to do a fraud investigation, or even multiple fraud investigations if you hold multiple firms, then you should look out for some key ingredients; the company you approach should quickly and unobtrusively establish the facts of what exactly happened. After this they should then gather the evidence in order to produce a clear concisely written set of facts to support any appropriate legal action and serve the relevant advice to protect the client’s interests.

By finding a business that can provide these services and that has been providing those same services for a long period of time, you can rest assured that any fraudulent activity will be picked up, researched and packaged to your needs without any real disruption to company’s day to day activities.