5 Reasons Your Customers Will Accept a Higher Price

One of the most unfortunate mistakes that business owners make is setting their price point too low, even when they know that their product is worth more. They do this because they don’t believe people are willing to pay more than standard market value for something; however, there are a few things that actually will make them comfortable paying a little extra because these qualities make it worthwhile to them. 1. Great Customer Service It doesn’t matter what your business sells; people are always going to choose the company that gives them great customer support over the one that doesn’t put much emphasis on taking care of its customers. Many times, customers will even settle for a product that isn’t quite as good as the other, if they can get excellent customer service with the lesser-quality product. And if it comes down to a choice between two products which are …

The 5 Most Commonly Misused Phone System Terms

  The first step in any kind of communication is the definition of terms. Not only is it invaluable to effective communication, but in the same way, understanding industry terms such as phone system jargon and even just the names of the hardware, functions, and other elements is essential to choosing the right virtual phone system, as well as setting it up and using it. All of the terms you’ll find in this post will clarify what it all means, once and for all.   1. Port You probably have an idea in your mind of what this word means, and what you think is very likely completely wrong. This word marks one of the most pervasive misunderstandings among telecom users. Once more from the cheap seats… Port: A full and complete transfer of phone service for a phone number from one carrier, to a different carrier. After the porting …

Email Reputation: What It is, and Why It Matters

  Email reputation is kind of a buzzword recently, and it’s a good thing because this is something that all professionals and business owners should give some thought to. Email is a form of communication that we all thought would go away as text messaging and social media platforms became ubiquitous for both casual and professional communication. To our surprise, email continued to survive and to be consistently used today, still, especially for work of course. That’s why even today, we need to consider our email reputation, and here is what that entails.   What is Email Reputation? You can probably guess what this means if you don’t already know, and you would probably be right. Your email reputation is the sum of various elements of your conduct when using email, such as the length of time you take to reply to someone, the quality of your writing, your professionalism, …

Why a Talkroute Phone System Doesn’t Require a Mobile App

When you start your search for a new virtual phone system, you’ll quickly discover that there are numerous options to choose from. What you have to carefully consider is what type of virtual phone system you want because there are a few categories, and the needs of your particular business will determine which type will work best for you. Some of these services are based entirely in an app you install on your smartphone; but others like Talkroute are not tied down to an app. Here’s a bit of a deeper explanation. Types of Phone Services Many people, when they begin to do some research to find out what kinds of phone service providers are out there, they might go in thinking that there are simply regular phone services and virtual services. They come away realizing that there are many iterations of virtual providers. Here are three basic types of …

Turn Disgruntled Customer Loyal

4 Simple Steps to Turn a Disgruntled Customer into a Loyal One

  To pull a one-eighty with a customer who is already upset for one reason or another takes a measure of skill and a great deal of patience, but this is the epitome of truly taking care of a customer. We could break down the process into a semantic, long-winded sequence of steps, but to be effective, these 4 basic steps are really all you need.   1. Forget About Winning The first idea you have to expel from your mind, when you have a conflict with a customer, is winning. Every business owner understands this intellectually, but in that moment when someone is filling your ear with all the reasons that they’ve been wronged by the business, it can quickly become a useless battle of opposing arguments on either side. Those of us with strong personalities have a switch that gets flipped as soon as someone, even a customer, …

Managing Forwarding Phones

5 Steps for Managing Your Forwarding Phones

  The phones that you use to answer business calls are the most essential element and most valuable point-of-contact you have with your customers. Most of the time, you can pretty much set it and forget it, but then there are also those times when changes need to be made. That’s when you need a system that makes it easy to change up the configuration while keeping the calls coming in without interruption. These steps will give you a simple roadmap for managing your forwarding phones as part of a virtual phone system.   1. Make sure your phones are in excellent working order. Find out every person, or every phone that will be taking calls, and then do some testing. Go through each phone that will be on the forwarding list with your virtual system; then, do a series of tests to make sure there will be no conflicts …

4 Tips for Emergency Preparedness in Your Office

  The motto, “Be prepared for anything,” extends beyond writing everything you can think of into your bylaws. As a business owner, you also need to be ready for practical emergencies which have the potential to cause massive problems for your business if you’re not ready for them, not to mention the harm to your employees. Increase your emergency readiness with these practical suggestions.   1. First Aid Any office has to have a first aid kit somewhere in the facility, but it’s good to go even a step further and provide a first aid kit for each employee because you never know when mishaps will occur. It’s not just an act of goodwill for your staff; keeping sufficient first aid materials around for everybody might prevent the need for a trip to the ER or a Workman’s Comp claim.   2. Post Emergency Procedures & Contacts Of course this …

User Interface of Virtual Phone System

Is the User Interface of a Virtual Phone System Important?

The criteria you use to judge virtual phone systems may not include the user interface, or control panel—but it should. Your control panel, otherwise known as your “dashboard”, is how you interact with your business’ phone system and needs to be effective and easy to use. A Component that is Usually Overlooked When shopping around for a new phone system, you’re paying close attention to things like cost vs. value; included features; compatibility with your existing phones, which points are all important, but how easy will the whole thing actually be to setup, adjust as needed, and maintain? You can seek support from the company staff if you need it, but it’s far more painless if you can make changes to your system with a couple of quick clicks. That’s why the user interface has to be accessible to make immediate changes anytime, from an easy-to-use online dashboard. Managing Your …

Essential Strategies for Maximizing Your Workspace

  The physical space that you use daily to get all of your work done honestly cannot be overemphasized. This is where you spend most of your time, and it has to be conducive to comfort and productivity, among other things. It might be your desk at home or the office, your car, your work bench in a shop, or some other place, but that space is sacred no matter where it is because it’s where all the magic happens.   What Do You Need While You Work? There’s no standard architecture for setting up your workspace, except for the fact that it needs to have all the elements that put you in the “zone”. It should be a little microcosm where you are the king and the whole environment and everything in it are designed to serve you. You might need it to be ultra-minimal like an empty table; …

How to Get Employees to Do What You Want Them to Do

While it is paramount to let your employees be independent to get their best work out of them, you can also use conscientious strategy to encourage the results that you need. Take these suggestions under advisement. There is absolutely no reason to coax your staff into changing their work habits if they are producing great work. The following strategies can be used if you see a need to optimize your team’s use of time. Offer an Incentive It doesn’t have to be something as big as stock options; it can be as simple as a bonus for an individual when they hit a certain number of sales. And incentives don’t have to be monetary; in fact, the best incentives aren’t even tangible. You can suggest to your team members that when they fulfill their responsibilities early and fully, then you can fully rely on them. Earn Their Respect Quite honestly, …