Customer Service Is No Longer Enough
Too many organizations today focus on the image they have as opposed to their identity. Most medium and large sized organizations have some type of customer service training program for all front line staff. This training usually focuses on service and escalation procedures, handling difficult customer situations, and how to keep a positive attitude and smile when working with customers. Some organizations have facilitated their staff’s mastery of these skills and procedures. You will spot these companies anytime you have a problem. They immediately know what to do, who to call, and what their policy says they can offer you to try to keep your business and keep you happy. It’s impressive when it happens. In today’s world of international mergers and acquisitions, industries that are reinventing themselves and a more fluid change in staffing roles, business is faced with a new challenge: How to create and communicate a business identity to our customers. Good quality service will always be important to customers, but now they also want to know what and who they are dealing with in a business relationship. They want to know what you are in business for, what you believe in, who you partner with, and why it would be good for them to be a long term customer of yours.
Identity Versus Image
Image change initiatives have been getting kicked off in many organizations because the front line staff or the marketing people get customer feedback of this nature:
· Customer service is inconsistent or poor
· Your firm has merged so many times I don’t know who owns it or in which country it is based
· I don’t know who to do deal with
· It’s not clear which of your product lines apply to me
· Is your organization still financially viable?
Image is often symptom of the larger problem of business identity. The intrinsic values, beliefs and attitudes of the people and management of an organization will do more to shape the identity of the company, than the effect of any image change program. Image changing initiatives often do more to conflict with the real identity of the organization than improve it and usually cost a lot of money. The phrase, “inner beauty”, can be applied to organizations, just as it’s commonly applied to individuals.
Identifying Your Business Identity
To document your business identity you need to be able to answer the following questions:
· Who is running the company?
· What are the company goals?
· What are the company values?
· What are the customer responsibilities for each process?
· How do marketing and promotional materials describe the organization?
· What motivates employees to stay with this organization?
Improving Your Business Identity
Customers, processes, financial conditions and new leadership styles can all be reasons why organizations need to look at changing their identity. The “inner beauty” of an organization is developed by starting with the core and identifying strengths and weaknesses. To improve your business identity, begin by taking the following 10 steps:
1. Identify the leadership’s vision of “What are you in business for?”
2. Poll customers and employees to ask their opinion of #1 and do a gap analysis.
3. Review the organizational goals and objectives (long and short term) and identify which ones do not support the core identity.
4. Poll employees to obtain a list of perceived organizational values and the examples that led to these opinions.
5. Create a list of leadership values and beliefs and do a gap analysis with the staff results.
6. Analyse the processes, procedures and policies to determine which ones support or conflict with the desired values and goals.
7. Analyse product packaging including the way products and services are delivered to customers to determine which elements support or conflict with the desired values and goals.
8. Analyse current and planned marketing and communication tools to determine which ones support or conflict with the desired values and goals.
9. Create a consistent set of values and goals and communicate those to staff.
10. Prioritize the changes required from the analysis in numbers 6, 7, and 8 above and immediately start making the high impact changes.
For all changes you attempt to make, set up a customer and employee feedback mechanism to monitor that you are steering the identity consistently. Many organizations spend a lot of time and money creating annual goals, objectives and other organizations even try to list their desired value sets. The organizations that fail to meet the desired results often are the same organizations that have goal and value lists that are inconsistent with the true business identity. Be one of the organizations that learn how to develop and nurture its own inner beauty.

_______________________________

By Thomas Nash
Thomas Nash is an experienced project director for systems implementation projects, a business strategist, problem solver and a change leader. He is also an author, trainer, international public speaker and business advisor. He has run Xalles and its predecessor companies for over 10 years. He is a public speaker on 4 continents, and has provided business advice to more than 200 firms worldwide. Mr. Nash also trains companies using Xalles’ proprietary programs including “Successful Systems Implementation”, “Problem Solving POWER™” and “International Marketing for IT Firms”. His speaking experience spans conferences, associations and special training events, presenting to audiences of up to 800 people. His keynote speeches and multi-media presentations at conferences are generally considered the best in show. For more information about Xalles Limited please visit http://www.xalles.com.

For years now, many companies in and out of the United States have been practicing human resource outsourcing. Lower labor and operational costs, as well as the efficiency to which the tasks are finished are two of the primary reasons why this has become a popular business decision.
The question is, is outsourcing really the ultimate business solution?
'Defining Outsourcing'
Basically, outsourcing happens when a company entrusts specific tasks that should have been part of its internal operations to a supplier or a subcontractor which expertise lie in that field.
For example, a company will concentrate on manufacturing a particular product would not want to deal with the customer service side of the business. They will outsource the customer service needs of the company to an outside subcontractor which specializes in offering good customer service to its clients.
The company might require the subcontractor to answer calls or reply to customer e-mail messages and other related tasks. This is when the sharing of trust and responsibilities happen, that is why trust should be built between the client and the third-party or subcontractor.
'Human Resource Outsourcing'
Before concluding whether outsourcing is really good or bad for the business, take a look at the advantages of human resource outsourcing:
- Reduced Costs
There is such a thing as offshore outsourcing. With this, a company in the United States may outsource its customer service or manufacturing operation to a third part contractor outside of the country where labor costs are cheaper.
This is the main principle applied that is why a lot of companies do outsource part or all of their labor needs to a third party service provider.
- More Efficient Service
Because of the specialization of these third-party service providers, the quality of service required by a company can be consistently met.
Meanwhile, here is a list of the specific tasks which are outsourced:
1. Customer Service Functions
This is the most common type of service outsourced to a foreign country. With the emergence of the call center industry in offshore locations, labor and operational costs are easily reduced.
The services offered by third-party vendors include answering customer service inquiry calls, technical support, replying to e-mail messages, online support, telemarketing, sales and data gathering.
2. Research and Data-gathering Services
Data gathering, data analysis and research services can also be outsourced. On a smaller scale, a company who is building a web site might need content writers and web site developers. They can get outside help to get a lower cost for the writing and building of the web site.
On a larger scale, companies dealing with a huge amount of data that needs updating everyday will outsource the services for the data analysis.
Just like any other aspects in running a business, outsourcing has its low and high points. In deciding whether your company should outsource specific tasks to an outside service provider, make sure that you have weighed all of your options.
Consider the costs and implications in the quality of service that you will get. Once you have made an analysis as to whether the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, then outsourcing might just prove to be the solution in pushing your business to the next level.

______________________________

By Dave Poon
Dave Poon is an accomplished writer who specializes in the latest in Human Resource. For more information regarding Human Resource Outsourcing please drop by at http://www.humanresourcesite.com/

So the time has finally come and you've decided that you want to take your business to the next level and provide your product in Spanish. However, you don't really know the first step in starting the process. However, you do realize that you need to find someone that speaks the language so that you can start them translating your product information and marketing material into Spanish.
You don't really know what kind of requirements you are looking for in a translator so you just start searching online for someone that translates Spanish and English. You find someone that has good credentials, has a lot of experience in your industry and has good feedback from previous clients. You decide that person would be a good fit for your project, but before you hire him/her you look at what the translator charges. After you see what they charge, you decide that it's too much for what you want to pay.
You wait a couple of days trying to decide what to do and then remember that one of your nephews spent some time in South America in the Peace Corps and speaks a little Spanish. Maybe you could get him to translate your project?
Good idea?
No, way; no way; and NO WAY!
Thinking you can save costs and trust your business projects to someone who is not a professional translator is ridiculous. Professional translators are worth every penny you will spend on them to translate your projects.
If you choose to go with someone you know who isn't trained professionally as a translator, not only will you get an unprofessional result, you will most likely have to end up retranslating the work, which will more than double the cost of having had a professional translation done in the first place. Also, a professional translator is used to working with deadlines and will work to ensure that you get your translation when you need it. Someone who doesn't translate professionally will be a lot less likely to understand the importance of getting your project back to you when you need it.
In addition, if you decide to ship your product out with an inferior translation done by a non-professional translator, your reputation will suffer and, like the commercial says, you won't get a second chance to make a first impression.
So in the end, while it may seem expensive to hire a professional translator for your project, in the end it will save you both time and money and your business will be better off for it.

_________________________________

By Clint Tustison
Clint Tustison is a translator interested in helping other translators improve their businesses. His website, Spanish-translation-help.com is filled with information helpful to translators regarding the translation industry, and his free monthly newsletter, Translator Techniques, has tips and techniques for translators.

In this article I will discuss complexity theory and complexity science. We will also look in to the positive and negative sides of the strategic planning process from different points of views.
There is a new scientific renaissance in the making. It will usher in new industries, alter how businesses compete, and change how companies are managed said Richard T. Pascale. He was referring to complexity science or complexity theory. Complexity theory deals with systems that show complex structures in time or space, often hiding simple, deterministic rules. This theory contends that once these rules are found, it will be possible to make effective predictions and even to effectuate control of the apparent complexity. Complexity theory, or, to be more precise, the science of complexity, is the study of emergent order in what are otherwise very disorderly systems.
A recent paper by Davenport in the MIT Sloan Management Review bemoans the lack of a Frederick Taylor or Henry Ford for knowledge workers. Organisations, according to Taylor, are like machines; people are like cogs in those machines. Processes can be stripped down and streamlined for greater efficiency. The best management, said Taylor, is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules and principles. Henry Ford took this line of thinking and applied it to the manufacture of cars, breaking down the industrial process into a series of repetitive tasks performed by semi-skilled but well-paid employees, working beside a slow-moving production line. In this way, Frederick Taylor’s ideas came to underpin many of the ways of doing things which gave rise to the new industrial age at the start of the 20th century. Natural science in the meantime has moved on. The deterministic, closed system world of Newtonian physics has been changed forever. Complexity theory views the world in terms of systems; not the linear, mechanistic systems of classical physics, but complex, non-linear, highly interactive systems complex adaptive systems in the language of complexity. Complexity provides a rich vein for new thinking on leadership and management. Perhaps Davenport is wrong. Perhaps there is a new science which is highly applicable to the leadership and management of professionals and other knowledge workers.
Businesses are complex adaptive systems, living companies according to De Geus; people are people, not cogs in a machine. While this is true of all businesses, indeed all organisations, somehow it is particularly true of professional services firms, in which traditional capital (plant and machinery, etc) is minimal, and human capital (people, their behaviour, practices, knowledge, etc) is dominant. Management guided by the principles of complexity science constitutes a style that is very different from the management model based on the ideas of Frederick Taylor. The type of leadership required is very different too.
Like traditional theory, complexity theory also concerns itself with processes and how these influence employee behaviour. The concept that procedures may be designed to motivate is arguable from a contemporary social science perspective. For e.g Herzberg’s hygiene factors, stated simple, that a procedure as a hygiene factor does not motivate. In terms of complexity as a dynamic system, Locke’s theory (notes that based on his values/agent/event factors, procedures do in fact motivate) offers both negative and positive feedback loops, providing non-linear causality and the possibility of internally generated cyclical behaviors and non-equilibrium.
The view of organizations as complex adaptive systems suggests that organizations gather information about their surroundings, themselves and their own behavior and then use this information for adapting to and coevolving with their environments. From the view of complexity theory organizations in which there are a large number of ties or connections, widely distributed, are more capable of variety in their behavior which in turn leads to adaptability. According to Weick, without such variety organizations will miss important data points, will oversimplify their view of what is happening in the environment, and will generally be unable to respond to the high levels of variation among elements in the environment.

______________________________

By Mary Anne Winslow
Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.

If you have been in business long you know that the bulk of your sales will come from the months leading up to and going through the holiday season. The time to start your marketing for this season is July or even earlier!
Online sales are expected to reach 12 billion dollars this year so be sure you get a piece of that huge pie! This is a 1.5 to 2 times increase over 1999 as more people adjust to online shopping.
Here are some ideas that could help you get a slice of that holiday shopping pie:
1. You could offer a free holiday gift with every order over $25 or any set amount.
2. Offer free or discounted shipping with every order.
3. Send Christmas cards to your mailing list offering them a special discount or deal.
4. Offer a gift wrapping service for your customers. Make their shopping as easy and hassle free as possible.
5. If you do home parties, have a Christmas shopping party to split the shipping costs and/or wrapping costs. Have a holiday themed party with gift certificates and free samples.
6. Start a gift referral club with other businesses. If a customer is looking for something you do not offer, give them a place they can get it and other businesses will do the same for you.
7. Have a holiday themed contest on your site to draw in more customers.
8. Work with charity. Offer $x off for everyone who brings in a old toy for kids' charity. For online shoppers have a donation button. This will attract customers as well as provide good publicity for your company.
9. Give a free holiday tips report out with every purchase. Provide tips on saving money, holiday decorating, etc.
10. Make sure everything on your site is working and up to date. Build a special holiday section for your holiday customers.
11. Have a gift ideas section for your shoppers who have trouble picking out gifts. Be sure and have gift certificates or cards available as well.
12. Mail out gift idea cards to your customers/mailing list.
13. Send out coupons with a chance at a free gift with every coupon returned.
14. Do not forget customer service. Provide a little extra for your customers so they come back for more.
15. Become the company with the most Christmas spirit. Donate a portion of all sales to a popular children's charity.
16. Provide a quality product at a good price along with good customer service and your customers are bound to remain loyal to your company.
Take these ideas and add to them. Once you start trying new ideas you will be able to think of more and more. Don't be afraid to try new and creative ideas. Test the results and keep track of what works and what doesn't. What might not work in spring might be very effective during the holiday season.
The holiday marketing season is a chance for you to expand your business and gain more customers, but you must give them a reason to come to you and then to come back to you!

_________________________________

By Terri Seymour
Terri Seymour has several years online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site at http://www.seymourproducts.com for resources, $1 resell ebooks, wholesale gift business opp, free affiliate programs & a free ezine with bonus report: 77 Ways to Get Traffic! mailto:subscribe@seymourproducts.com

I’ll bet you don’t have a clue as to what I am talking about – Sea Gull Management.
Let me give you a scenario. The typical manager flies into the department, rapidly flapping his wings while squawking loudly enough to hear it in the next building. He then squat shakes his butt, craps all over his employees and flies out of the department. For those of you with less vivid imaginations, it is when a manager delivers only bad news, never praise or positive feedback or recognition.
Ever worked for someone with this approach to management? De-motivating wasn’t it? Many managers just don’t get it. Most employees would like to be effective, do a good job and get their work done on time and right. Problem is, many organizations sabotage employee performance top-down and refuse to look in the mirror to determine the cause of this situation.
For over 30 years, I have consulted with hundreds of organizations in a variety of industries worldwide. Would you be interested to know what I have learned as one of the most common critical mistakes managers make every day? …Too little positive feedback and recognition, and poorly delivered negative feedback or discipline.
You get the behavior you reward. Behavior reinforced is behavior repeated. What goes around comes around. Doesn’t matter how you say it, the result is always the same. If you don’t like the behavior you are getting, don’t just look at your employees, but look at your management style, corporate culture and communication patterns to determine where part of the problem lies.
Remember: You will get more of the behavior you want with positive feedback – than by only giving negative feedback.

________________________________

By Tim Connor
Tim Connor, CSP is an internationally renowned sales, relationship, management and leadership speaker, trainer and best selling author. Since 1981 he has given over 3500 presentations in 21 countries on a variety of sales, management and relationship topics. He is the best selling author of over 60 books including; Soft Sell, That’s Life, Peace Of Mind and The Male Gift Giving Survival Guide. He can be reached at tim@timconnor.com, 704-895-1230 or visit his website at http://www.timconnor.com

Along with a business plan, a mission statement is an important tool that will capture the spirit of your business. A mission statement helps to clarify the goals and objectives of your company. In just a sentence or two, the mission statement for your cleaning business will set your business goals, your underlying philosophy, and what special benefits you have to offer to your customers. A good mission statement will reflect that special niche that your cleaning business is catering to and provide a long-range vision for you to build on.
Following is a sample mission statement:
"ABC Cleaning Company is committed to delivering the exact services our commercial cleaning customers want, listening closely to their expectations, taking a pro-active approach in defining their needs, and building the best partnering relationship possible. We are also committed to acting with honesty and integrity at all times in all aspects of our business, to being professional in doing our job, and to delivering a consistent, high level quality of work."
A well thought out mission statement will take more than just a few minutes to develop - it takes careful thought and planning. Spending time developing those few sentences that define your business can be just as valuable as the final statement. Going through the process of evaluating your cleaning business, and then defining your customers and your services will help you to look at your cleaning business from your customers' perspective. Don't get bogged down with technical jargon. Focus on defining your company's strengths and why those strengths benefit your customers.
When you are ready to begin, sit down in an area with no distractions. To come up with the statements that will sum up what your cleaning business is all about, consider the following:
- What specific need does your business satisfy?
- What are the principles and values that guide you in the everyday operation of your business?
- Who are your customers?
- What level of service will you provide?
- What image would you like your business to portray to your customers?
To write an effective mission statement, sit down with those who are closest to your business and jot down notes to answer the above questions. Look at mission statements from other businesses and start brainstorming. Once you have a couple of key ideas draft those thoughts into complete sentences.
Once you have formalized your mission statement use it in your promotional materials. The statement will be a quick and easy way for your customers and potential customers to learn about your cleaning business. Keep your mission statement visible and live up to it everyday. This will show your employees and customers that you practice what you preach.

________________________________

By Steve Hanson
Copyright 2006 The Janitorial Store
Steve Hanson is co-founder of TheJanitorialStore.com, an online community for owners of cleaning companies. Sign up for Trash Talk:Tip of the Week at http://www.TheJanitorialStore.com Read success stories at http://www.cleaning-success.com

____________________________________

By Tino Buntic
Tino Buntic created TradePals to provide free advertising to business professionals and entrepreneurs across North America. Tino also enjoys reading blogs and two of his favorite blogs include AdJab and Jaffe Juice.

This is your first time to attend a corporate or business convention. You are quite amazed at how everything goes so smoothly and efficiently. You just cannot imagine how many people come and go about the place, and yet everything appears to be in order without anything out of place. You notice that there are no people running back and forth to make sure that the guests in this part of the hall are okay while trying to oversee if the group at the other end is having a good time.
One good thing about business and corporate conventions is that these companies and business groups have the resources to plan conventions with hired help. And who are these hired helpers? For sure, they are not people who are also from the same company that is holding that convention. Don’t you dare imagine these corporate people trying to plan and prepare for a convention in advance while at the same time trying to run their huge companies and firms!
Convention and event planning services are offered by several companies for those people who are too busy or too wracked up to plan and prepare for a huge event. These services employ a relatively huge amount of manpower so as to guarantee an orderly yet remarkable event, such as a convention or meeting.
Companies offering convention event planning services take care of all the important details entailed by their clients for their events. The responsibility for many things and details are left in their hands: venue, decorations, invitations, publicity, food and drinks, reception, giveaways, souvenirs, music, and a whole lot more. And even during the day of the event itself, these convention event planning service people are in place so as to oversee that everything is working smoothly and as planned.

________________________________

By Eddie Tobey
Event Planning provides detailed information on Event Planning, Convention Event Planning Services, Corporate Event Planning, Event Planning and Production and more. Event Planning is affiliated with Corporate Event Management.

____________________________

By Larry Galler
Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" For a free coaching session, email Larry for an appointment - Larry@larrygaller.com. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com