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A Complete Guide to Business Voice Redundancy

A complete guide to incoming business voice redundancy.

Customer service expectations have increased in the past decade, with more and more businesses being “forever accessible.” Many companies offer 24/7 support, while others are reachable via multiple communication channels. …Read More »

UCaaS vs CPaaS: What’s the Difference?

Explaining the difference between UCaaS and CPaaS.

The evolution of communication software has brought us countless cloud-based business communication tools — such as UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, and the list goes on. While they differ in purpose and …Read More »

The Japan Phone Number Code Explained

The Japan phone number code explained.

Looking to expand your business to the broad APAC and Japanese market or establish a local presence quickly? With the right Japan phone number and service provider, you can easily …Read More »

A Guide to Remote Working for Businesses

Remote working guide for business in 2022.

Work-from-home business models are on the rise now more than ever. While this is mainly due to the pandemic, it is not the only motive. Even before 2020, remote working …Read More »

What is a Call Group? (Benefits, Strategies, Use Cases)

What is a call group?

An effective call flow creates a domino effect for your business. Your caller’s experience and satisfaction, first call resolution rates, and distribution methods all improve. Meanwhile, your hold times, abandonment …Read More »

18 Tips to Increase Call Center Sales

An image of sales call handling with tips for your call center.

Do you manage a call center that specializes in selling products? This blog was written for you! No matter what you’re selling and whether it’s inbound or outbound, this post …Read More »

Ways To Make Your Customer Service Better

The best way to improve your relationship with your customers is to improve the way you provide customer service. Even if you have the best product on the market, people will remember if they were not treated well by your staff. If customer service is the face of your company, then you always want to make a good first impression. Companies that have been in business for a long time know the importance of having good customer relationships, and they constantly ask themselves how they can be making better customer service choices. Any good company knows the best way to grow a business is to consistently lookout for ways to improve customer service. After all, it’s much easier to keep an existing customer than to gain a new one, and loyal customers help their favorite businesses by marketing through word-of-mouth.

Read on to learn some tips on improving your customer service.

Listen to the customer’s wants and needs.

It might seem simple, but when you truly listen to someone, it not only helps you to understand their issues, it also shows great respect for the other individual. When a customer feels like they are being heard they will remember that feeling and how well they were treated. Your employees should not be going down a list of questions to get to the bottom of an issue, simply listen to the customer and what they have to say. Once you have fully heard them, you will be able to respond to them with the best solution for their issue.

Respond quickly to problems.

Customers don’t want to wait for anything, especially when they’re already not satisfied with something. If you are unable to provide the customer with exactly the response they need that day, at least acknowledge that you’ve heard their inquiry. If someone sends your company an email and you can’t resolve their problem without looking further into the issue, at least make initial contact with them to let them know that you are working towards a solution.

clients with manager
Source: Stockphoto.com O#1202 – ID#4910767

Provide support.

Never get angry with a customer because they do not have all the information that you need to help them out. Instead, provide them with as much assistance and support as you can until they can obtain all the necessary information. Treat every customer as if they are your next top brand ambassador. Staying calm with an irate customer is extremely important, too. Every time you interact with a customer you are establishing a relationship and creating a potential selling point.

Establish trust.

Customer and company relationships begin professionally, but once you have spent time on the relationship with them and have built loyalty you can go the extra mile for them. Showing that you care for your customer, like remembering his or her birthday, are small things that help to establish trust in your customer/ business relationship.

Train your employees.

It is important that all of your employees are trained in how to properly interact with customers. You should provide training for all possible situations, including how to deal with angry customers, and how to go above and beyond for loyal customers. Each time a customer comes to your store or calls your customer service line, they should know what to expect, and they should expect a pleasant experience.

Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

Yes, you want your company to grow and be successful, but if it happens too quickly, you might be headed towards a swift downturn. Some companies can survive a quick growth, but others are better off winning at a slow and steady pace. Organic word-of-mouth referrals can eventually be your best marketing strategy. And the best part is that word-of-mouth marketing is free! Slowly establish loyalty with the customers that you have and then sit back and watch your company expand into the company you’ve always wanted it to be. Good customer service is a powerful tool to not only get new customers but to keep them coming back.

How Do You Provide Excellent Customer Service?

Customer Service is Paramount

When your business provides excellent customer service, your customers will often become loyal for life. When your customers become loyal to your business they will talk about your business to their friends, family, and coworkers; perhaps anyone who will listen – and they will do all of this marketing for free. Businesses shouldn’t require money to provide excellent customer service in hopes of gaining a better reputation, they should genuinely be interested in making customers happy as part of their game plan. After all, customers are the lifeblood of your company and your livelihood.

It’s All About the Experience

There are several steps that you can take to create the best experience for customers, both existing and new. This is about more than just providing a great product or service; the customer needs to enjoy everything about your company, from your website, to your store, to how your team speaks with customers over the phone.

Customer Service Techniques

Check out these techniques for building excellent customer service for your business.

1. Know What You’re Selling
There is nothing more annoying than an employee who can’t answer a question about a product. You and your staff should be informed on how everything you sell works and why a customer would need it. You will make a lot more sales if your employees know the way to sell an item. Be sure that your staff is aware of common questions that may be asked.

2. Treat Everyone With Kindness
Every customer that walks into your store should be welcomed with a friendly greeting and a warm smile. If someone asks you for help, you should be genuinely interested in helping them out. When speaking over the phone, it helps to talk with a smile because it changes your tone of voice. People can easily detect over the phone if a person is happy or not.

3. Express Your Gratitude
Always tell your customers “thank you” whether they have purchased something or not. If someone walks in and browses through the store, let them know that you’re thankful that they stopped in. They may come back later with friends if they had a nice experience and simply weren’t interested in buying at the time. Never forget to thank the customers who do make a purchase, and you can send them off with a farewell greeting as well.

4. Provide Employee Training
Not only must employees be literate in what products and services the company is selling, it is also important that they understand how to handle issues if they come up. A properly trained employee will rarely need to refer to a manager.

what makes a good customer service agent?
Source: Stockphoto.com – O#:100036645213 ID#100186088462

5. Be Respectful
If a customer is unhappy with a product, try not to mirror their energy. Use a relaxing and kind tone of voice and remember to apologize even if you think you shouldn’t have to. Customers can get very emotional and it is important that you and your staff keep your cool in heightened situations. It can make the difference between getting a customer for life or losing one and risk them bad mouthing your company.

6. Listen Intently
Listening is an important part of communication, especially in the customer service sector. Customers will feel respected when they can tell that you have genuine interest in what they have to say. It will also help you to solve their problem faster and more effectively when you’ve really understood what they meant.

7. Respond in a Timely Manner
Customers do not like to wait. Whether that means offering to call them back so they don’t have to wait for an available agent or responding to an email, it means a lot when you can say you’ve received their request and are working on the solution. Just because you cannot solve their problem right way doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Communicate to all of your customers that you have heard them and will begin working on helping them with their issue right away. In a busy store setting, you might be helping out one customer and see another hover around waiting their turn with their question. Just by simply acknowledging their presence, you will be able to watch their demeanor change to a more relaxed state as they wait patiently while you finish up with your first customer.

8. Request Feedback
A successful business is always eager to learn ways to improve their products and customer service. You can gain feedback in several different ways. Questionnaires and customer surveys are popular techniques businesses use to get information from their customers. You can send these via email, by calling a phone number they provided, or some businesses will provide a website to visit printed at the bottom of a store receipt. As a customer completes an order in store, you can also ask them personally what they thought of the experience, or after completing a purchase online you can add a pop-up that will bring them to a page for feedback.

9. Meet the Customer’s Needs
Once you have received feedback on your products, services, and practices, you can incorporate what you’ve learned to improve your business. Perhaps people don’t like the way your website is setup, or the dreary colors on the walls in your store; take their input into consideration and keep on improving.

If you follow all of these techniques you can build customer confidence and your business will be on the fast-track to greater success.

What is an LLC?

Corporation, sole proprietor, and partnership are terms that you’ve most likely heard before and understand the concept behind. But what is an LLC?

LLC stands for “limited liability company” and it combines aspects of corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. It has become a very popular business model for small, new businesses. The LLC model works because it is similar to the way a corporation operates, yet the model is more straightforward and adjustable.

An LLC combines the limited liability of a corporation with the pass-through taxation of a sole proprietorship, which is very appealing to many small business owners. This combination means that the business is its own legal entity and separates debts, yet you can still tie them to your own personal taxes. You can either be the sole member of an LLC or you can have multiple members, like with a partnership.

If it sounds too good to be true, it might be. Though the LLC is a coveted business structure, there are certain businesses that are more well-suited to its model than others. Read on to learn about some pros and cons of the LLC.

LLC PROS:

  • No ownership regulations: If you’re starting a business from overseas, there are no restrictions to citizenship or residency. Also, if you want to have corporate entities as a part of your LLC as members, you can. However, if the corporation is the only member of the LLC, the LLC will be treated as a partnership for tax purposes.
  • Liability Protection: The members of an LLC are separate from the LLC entity itself, so any debts that the LLC incurs, the members will not be liable for. The only personal assets that are at risk with an LLC are those invested in the company by the personal members of the LLC.
  • Adjustable Profit Distribution: In a corporation, the percentage amount that is invested is the percentage amount in profit that is returned to each individual shareholder. In an LLC, the members choose how the profits of the LLC are distributed to each member. This can be differentiated by ownership percentage instead of an exact percentage share.
  • Pass Through Taxation: An LLC will not usually pay its own taxes, instead, the income would be passed through the personal income of each member of the LLC and would be taxed as personal income. In this way, the LLC is very similar to a sole proprietorship or partnership.
  • Adaptable Tax Status: An LLC is usually treated as a partnership or sole proprietorship during tax season, but the members of the LLC always have the option to treat the LLC as a C- or S-corporation for taxes.
  • Few Compliance Requirements: While a corporation is required to keep up a strict schedule of shareholder meetings, bylaws, and corporate resolutions, the LLC does not have to do any of that. Instead, the members of the LLC adhere to an “operating agreement.” Members can still call meetings whenever they want and can document meetings and resolutions, but they are not required by law to do so.

LLC CONS

  • Personal VS Public: As the owner or member of an LLC, you need to be able to separate your business and personal finances. This will require you to open separate bank accounts and keep track of different cards and spending. There are other things to think about as well, such as cashing checks in the name of the LLC and the fees that come along with the business accounts.
  • A Member’s Departure: If a member of your LLC departs the business, then your LLC immediately ceases to exist. Unlike a corporation where shareholders can come and go, the LLC members must be in for a permanent partnership.
  • Taxes: Pass through taxation can be a benefit or it can be a hindrance. Sometimes the personal income of the LLC member will have higher taxes than a company, and you will still be paying for personal tax items such as Medicare and Social Security.

If you are interested in flexible business management and taxes, then an LLC might be the best choice for your business. Even those with partnerships, sole proprietorship, or corporations may benefit from a change to an LLC. However, it is important to plan over any change with a corporate financial advisor to examine the personal pros and cons. Also, it is important to note that some companies cannot file as LLCs. These companies include insurance agencies and banks. For those wishing to establish an LLC in their state, all they have to do is research. For example, if you live in California and are seeking the best LLC service in CA, LLC services can provide expert guidance and legal support to make the LLC formation process smooth and easy.

Different Personality Types in the Workplace

When you go out into the world you meet all kinds of people with different motivations and personalities. Outside of the office, you can choose who you want to interact with, but in the office, it’s often a situation of “you get what you get.” Pinpointing your own personality type can help you steer your career trajectory in the direction you would like it to be going, as well. Along these lines, it’s important to understand how to work with different personality types as this can also help you to succeed in your career.

Some personality types will get along wonderfully and others may come into conflict more often than not. If your conflicts aren’t able to be addressed properly, you could end up becoming miserable at work or worse. Some of your coworkers may have outgoing personalities and want to talk and socialize with you at work, while others will find this behavior rude and distracting.

When conflicting personalities escalate to a problem among colleagues the issues will begin to throw off the office productivity. All problematic situations need to be managed directly in order to keep your office from becoming disjointed. The first step in keeping your office in harmonious working condition is to identify the 5 different personality types that you might find in a typical workplace environment and proceed accordingly.

1. The Solo Player

These people are multi-taskers that like to handle jobs alone. They prefer to not work with a team, but will if they are assigned to one. However, don’t expect them to grab drinks with the team after work or to volunteer to be the leader. These introverts are usually highly skilled and fast workers. In order to manage a Solo Player, try to give them as many individual work assignments as you can and keep team projects to a minimum. Also, don’t try to force the Solo Player into socializing with others; it will come naturally or it won’t, and its nothing to bother yourself about. Be sure to recognize their achievements and to give them extra time to process feedback and negative performance reviews.

2. The Slacker

Whenever work comes up, the Slacker has a reason to miss out on it. If they’re not needed, they won’t be there; and if they are needed, they’ll probably show up late. They have a list of excuses a mile long and won’t hesitate to give you any of them. How many “grandmas who got sick” does the Slacker have, anyway? Working with the Slacker means you need to be very direct in your delivery if you need something done. If they try to bring up more excuses, let them know you’re aware of the number of excuses they’ve previously given and let them know the consequences if they continue this slacker behavior. This person might need to be micromanaged because their productivity requires plenty of check-ins to get any progress.

3. Your Best Friend

Not just Your Best Friend, he or she is everyone’s best friend. This employee is constantly gossiping by the water cooler, cracking jokes in the break room, and can be found at other people’s desks more often than their own. This person is extremely extroverted and has probably gotten to know everyone in the building; let alone just your office. The problem with the Best Friend is that he might not be spending enough time on his work as he is focused on talking to everybody. To manage this person, use their skills to your advantage and get them to build company culture and organize after-work events. This person will need regular check-ups on progress – a lot like our other buddy, the Slacker.

4. The Angry Guy

Or girl, this person is a ticking time bomb ready to go off on a moment’s notice. You have already pinpointed this person because you’ve previously seen him/her get angry a few times since you started working together. These people can be very bad for company morale and they need to be dealt with immediately. The Angry Guy might be affecting your brand if they interact with customers or clients, and they can do a lot of irreparable damage. Try to find out what is making the Angry Guy so angry. Once those emotions are released, a healing process can occur.

5. Debbie Downer

Nothing can go right in Debbie Downer’s life. Whether it’s their awful in-laws, a mean landlord, or a “lazy” coworker, Debbie just can’t catch a break. The one thing you know about Debbie Downer is that none of this is his/ her fault and everything just seems to happen to his/ her. To manage the Debbie Downer in the office, you need to be objective when they lament about how hard their life is. Try offering constructive feedback instead of pity.

6. The Narcissist

The Narcissist loves to take credit and blame others. The Narcissist does not have loyalty to any coworkers, just himself/ herself. To manage the Narcissist, you need to work closely with them and point out where they could be doing a better job. Watch and see if their team interactions and work are tolerable; if not it might be easier to cut your losses and let him/ her go if they really are too much of a liability.

There are a lot more personalities than 6 in the workplace, but these might be the hardest to work with and will need the most managing. At the end of the day, it is up to you to build your team and figure out who can be let go, wherever necessary. As long as all the roads lead to a happy, productive, collaborative workplace, you’re doing the right thing.

The Importance of Customer Loyalty

Without profit, there is no business, and without customers, there is no profit. Customers are the sole provider of a business’ measure of success. Successful businesses know that their customers are their #1 priority in making a business work. Not only do you have to have new customers, it is even more important to keep the customers you already have. That is why customer loyalty is so important.

Small businesses and startups may struggle with their execution of customer service because of a lack of resources or time. So how is a small business supposed to face off against a large corporation? The answer is loyal customers. A loyal customer that has a satisfied relationship with a business and will often frequent the business, and go above and beyond for the business, too. Loyal customers often bring friends with them to their favorite stores and promote their favorite stores on social media. When you have created enough loyal customers over time, your business will be a success.

If you’re not convinced why you should be going out of your way to build relationships with the customers you already have, here’s a list of things a loyal customer can do for your business.

Loyal Customers Stick Around

Once you have a customer’s loyalty, you will find that they won’t visit your website a few times and then never come back, or stop into your shop and then you never see them again. A loyal customer truly appreciates what is at the core of your business, it resonates with them. If things are not going well in the business, your loyal customers will keep showing up and give your business the benefit of the doubt.

They Frequent Your Store More Often

A loyal customer may come to your store more often than they would need to, just because they like being there. If you own a restaurant and you have the same man come in every day with lunch, sometimes with friends and sometimes just alone, there is a reason he returns every day. He probably enjoys the food, but he also probably really enjoys being on a first-name basis with everyone who works there. He can come in and everyone says hello to him and remembers his name and his favorite order. He feels special at the restaurant because he is appreciated there. When a customer feels appreciated, then that is when you have created a loyal relationship.

lady paying with credit card
Source: Stockphoto.com O#23559 – ID#100049932483

Loyal Customers Have Your Back

Your customers probably shop other places when they have to for other things they need or when they are in a pinch. But they always have your back. Most people eat fast food at some point or another, and you probably have your favorite fast food place that you think is better than everywhere else. So if you end up at Wendy’s and you really love McDonald’s, you’re not going to run around the next day and talk about your Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger; you’ll still be lamenting about how you’re craving a Big Mac right now.

They Offer Amazing Feedback

Since you have established a good relationship with your customers, you can now ask them for favors. Returning customers make for great focus groups and usually have a lot of opinions about your products and services. You know that they are satisfied with your business, but they might have some handy suggestions you’ve never thought of before. Don’t be shy about mentioning a customer satisfaction survey – the ones most likely to take it are your loyal customers because they don’t want your business to go anywhere. Your loyal customers will always give feedback that will ensure that your business stays afloat because that’s their aim, too.

They Will Promote You

As mentioned before, loyal customers will talk about your product often, which then brings in more customers. Word-of-mouth is a powerful marketing tool because when a suggestion is made by a person that we trust, we are much more likely to go with their suggestion. An easy way to create word of mouth from your loyal customers on social media is to create a hashtag with your business name. Without fail, your loyal customers will post themselves wearing, drinking, eating, or whatever it is they do with your product, with the right hashtag in the photo.

How To Run A Business From Home

America’s small business owners create jobs, original products, and services, and these entrepreneurs make things happen for their companies – even during the rough times. What you might not know about half of small businesses, though, according to the Small Business Administration, is that they are run from home.

How to Start a Business From Home

Running a business from home can be a simple undertaking if you take the right steps to start. There is no end to the types of businesses that are run from homes, and they can range from providing financial services to selling art and antiques on Etsy or eBay. In all honesty, you are very much unlimited when it comes to the type of business you want to run from your home. In order to execute it, the most important aspects are to have the right tools to reach the right audiences, while also having the best tools to actually run the business.

Virtual Tools for Maximum Efficiency

If you are one of numerous Americans who run their small business from home or if you’re thinking about starting a small business from home, there are a few ways that Global Call Forwarding can help your business grow.

Purchasing virtual phone numbers from Global Call Forwarding can help small businesses establish a presence in places the business cannot physically be in. The numbers act as a point of contact between customers and businesses. The following includes a list of ways virtual numbers can benefit your business from home with maximum efficiency.

Keep Your Professional Life and Personal Life Separate

Having a virtual phone number attached to your home phone, cell phone, desktop, or tablet gives you the freedom to take work calls on your personal devices without having to give out your personal phone number. Now you have the choice and ability to walk away from your office phone without eliminating communications.

Set Business Hours

No one can be available 24 hours a day, but having a virtual phone number gives you access to many features. You can choose what time your business hours are, and then you can set up a voicemail message to let your customers know what time those business hours are or direct them to leave a message. Not only can you set up a personalized business voicemail, but you can also set your hours by visiting your account page and updating your settings. That way you won’t have to be bothered when you’re sitting down to dinner.

Put Them On Hold

Your customers won’t think its professional that you have a crying toddler in the background or a barking dog every time the mailman walks up to the house. If you run a business from home you may run into problems occasionally, and luckily that’s what the Hold Button is for. Once you’ve soothed your crying toddler or saw the mailman safely make his way to the next house, you can return to your call. You also have the option to transfer the call to another phone. If you run your business with another person or have someone working for you, you can simply dial their extension and forward the call over. Your small business will seem like it has all the bells and whistles of a large corporation.

Change Up Your Ringtone

Global Call Forwarding offers local ringback tones for anywhere in the country. The familiar ringing tones in each country are different from one to the next. Customers calling from other countries will prefer to hear their local ringtone, and you can customize your phone line to give them exactly that.

Call Recording

The Call Recording features will benefit your business in numerous ways. Being able to record calls and play them back will help you with your customer service skills. You will start to learn what works and doesn’t work and change your approach accordingly. It also helps when training a team of people, that way everyone can have a script of what they will say to customers. In the event of a legal situation, which is an unfortunate situation that businesses may have to deal with at some point, you can use the recorded phone call as evidence on your behalf.

Time of Day Routing

This feature allows you to route your calls to the device of your choosing when convenient. For example, if you normally work at a desk in your home, but step out to go to lunch or pick your children up from school, you can get your phone calls routed to your cell phone when you are away from your desk. You can also reroute your calls to an automatic voicemail message if you like to work within certain business hours. This automatic rerouting allows you to be present with your business as much as you would like to be, at your convenience.

Running a Business From Your Home

Running a small business from your home has never been easier than it is today. Your time is precious, and you deserve the freedom to work from wherever you want to be. Global Call Forwarding will help you on your way to expanding your business while looking professional and making the most of your time.

Creating and Applying Buyer Personas to Drive More Sales

To drive sales to your business, you need to be sure that you are marketing to the correct audience. And as your customers change and grow you will also need to make changes and adjustments to your marketing techniques. One way to do this is to create a buyer persona. Having a target audience is great, but having a buyer persona will give your team a clear focal point to help them build the best marketing campaigns for your target customers.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “buyer persona” it is merely a tool to find out more about your customer. It is a detailed representation that includes the ideal customer demographic background, hobbies, career, and personal interests. To find out about these details, you will need to do some in-depth marketing research on your existing customers. Here are some tips on finding the ideal buyer persona.

Collect Data

Find data on your buyer persona through your social media presence and website. Get the data on all of the emails they open and don’t open, which page of your site has the most clicks, and analyze the results of survey data. Each aspect of this data is a part of your customer’s digital behavior.

Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great tool that will give you information about the activity on your website. It works for social media posts as well, it will track the movement of your audience and show you how your posts are performing. There are several other social media analytics tools available that you can use to analyze your social media presence outside of Google Analytics, including Quintly, Followerwonk, and ViralWoot.

Define the Buyer Persona

After you’ve collected all the data, you can now ask yourself who the customer is. Start by asking specific questions such as, “how old is the customer?” “What is her/ his salary?” “What does she value?” Once you have covered a list of specific questions, you can ask the broader questions like “who is the ideal customer?” This should combine all the answers you have found through the previous answers. Once you have seen the specific personality of your ideal customer, you can now market to them on a personal level.

Discover The Way Your Buyer Persona Finds Your Business

Now that you are aware of your ideal buyer persona you can ask yourself what brought your buyer persona to discover your business? Did they Google your business and find it through an organic search? Were they referred to by a friend? Or did they stumble across your social media presence? These details will help you to identify the marketing channels that will best serve you.

Once you have discovered your buyer persona, you can use this persona to personalize your marketing strategy. Not every customer you receive from your target marketing will be the exact match to the buyer persona. You will find that only aspects of your buyer persona match your audience, but the audience will nonetheless feel that you are directly addressing them because they fit at least some part of the mold. You can also create multiple buying personas if your product is broad enough to reach people in different age groups, occupations, and interests.

With this information, you can create targeted ads, personalized email messages, and blog content that they will be interested in responding to. Once you have reached your customers on a personal level, they will turn into loyal consumers of your product.

Not only will you be providing content that your buyer persona will want and respond to, but you can also begin to learn more about your customer and their buying process. Once you have found what triggers their purchasing decisions, you will see an instant improvement in your inside sales. And at the end of the day, the most important thing is making a purchase and providing your customer with the items that they want and need.

5 Tools For Creating a Professional Presence Online

If you are the owner of a small business, then you have probably struggled with creating an online presence that gets noticed. In your continual attempts for growth, you may feel that you and your small team are stretched pretty thin, and you don’t have the time or the resources to spend on working on your online presence. However, having a professional appearance online in this digital age is a necessity for any growing business (especially when there are many recruitment tools like browser extensions that can show all your online presence in one file), and luckily there are many tools available to you that can help you build the online presence that will drive more customers to your site. No matter what your budget is, with these simple tools your small business will begin to look like a giant company powerhouse.

However, before we get started, first you have to create a plan for the growth of your brand. Set goals and intentions. Write down your aims and objectives. Strategize ways to achieve these goals. If your goals are broad, break them down into smaller goals that are easily achievable. For example, if you want to increase views on your blogs by 40% then break that goal down into intentional steps, such as:

  • I will write a blog post every day.
  • I will interact with other blogs under the same umbrella.
  • I will review products on my blog for free. Etc.

Each of these small steps will eventually lead back to your ultimate goal of getting more page views. This is also a great way to track small progress, so you don’t lose sight of the big picture.
Now, onto the available tools that will assist in fortifying your online presence with greater professionalism.

Time Management Tools

There are several affordable tools available that can help you manage your time and projects.
Calendly is an excellent scheduling app that you can send to your clients when trying to schedule a phone call. It will send your client time frames that work for your business, and they choose the block of time that coincides with their schedule.

Toggl tracks your work time logged on a project. Toggl can help with scheduling and precise invoicing. You can even check your work report to see when you or your employees were most productive.

Slack is the tool you should be using if you have a team of remote workers. You can keep all of your projects and pitches in one place and create a message board between workers so that you can stay on top of projects together.

CRM Software

CRM stands for customer relationship management. You can find CRM software by several software companies, including SalesForce, Microsoft Dynamics, InfusionSoft, and Insightly. This software is designed to help your small business by building trust and loyalty between the business and customers. This is done by managing your calendar and to-do lists, tracking leads, managing data, managing contacts, and assessing the value of your marketing techniques.

Intuit QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a great accounting software to track income and expenses. There are different packages that you can choose from at Intuit QuickBooks, including three different small business plans and a freelancer plan. The plans differ slightly in what they offer but even the most low-cost basic plan can help you manage tax deductions, organize your receipts, create invoices that you can track and cash from your software, and you will also be able to run necessary expense sheets.

Recruit The Right Talent

There is a way to recruit the best candidates for your small business, in the same manner, a large company recruits their talent. Plum is a tool to help enterprises to match the right employee to available positions. Plum has created application surveys to examine the workplace psychology of prospective employees and divides these people up into the areas that they would be best suited for which will help you trim down potential matches to the people best suited for the job. It will also let the prospective employees know where they stand in the hiring process so you won’t be bothered by several follow up emails.

Global Call Forwarding

Since you’re already here you may know a bit about the virtual phone company, but in case you weren’t sure how the company could help your business create a professional presence, here are a few things that Global Call Forwarding can do to make your business presence more attractive:

  • Provide virtual local or toll free numbers, including vanity numbers
  • The ability to use extension numbers so your customers will be directed to the office they need right away
  • Record calls for later analyzation
  • Call transfer services
  • An account management page where all of your phone records and data is stored in one convenient place

Any business no matter how small can have the ability to look like a substantial professional corporation. If you want your business to attract more customers and make more sales, then apply these tools to achieve a professional online presence so you can begin to see results.

Bring International Teams Closer with Virtual Phone Numbers

As your company expands its reach to international countries and different time zones it may become harder to keep your company operating as one. Many companies expand to different countries around the globe, and even smaller companies will expand their reach to other countries because of the profitability and ease thanks to the developing technology. To keep your company growing, here are a few tools that can help companies in their international expansion efforts, or to maintain greater control with employees across the world.

Virtual Phone Systems

Virtual telephone systems are the best way to stay in contact with your sister businesses overseas, as well as your consumers overseas. The virtual phone system makes it possible for international employees to work together and more efficiently. It’s also a great tool to use for customer service. Virtual telephone providers often provide a variety of features that allow employees to manage their relationships with customers with greater ease.

These features can also help with better training. At Global Call Forwarding, one feature that can be very useful is Call Recording. This feature can be used to inspect each call and analyze whether each sales team is following the same protocol. It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of each call for future reference. After successful use of this tool, it will be easier for your international teams to remain consistent. Whether they are in America, England, or India. To follow up on other details, simply look to the Account Management feature that is also featured at Global Call Forwarding.

Virtual Phone Numbers for Your International Team

Using virtual phone numbers will reduce challenges and allow your international teams to create relationships with their local customers. This should be the #1 goal of each of your international teams. Finding new customers and keeping them is the reason you expanded your business in the first place. If your customer service call center operates in India, you can still use local area codes from places all over the world using a virtual phone system. For example, your Indian customer service reps can place a call using a local area code to San Francisco in America. And that’s yet another important tip: you should always be using local area codes for your customer service calls. A customer in San Francisco is unlikely to answer a call from India, but much more likely to answer one with an area code from the San Francisco area. Not only because an India number might be foreign to them, they will probably also associate the number with extra fees.

bring international teams closer with virtual phone numbers
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Advanced IVR and PBX

When you have remote workers all over the world, an advanced IVR / PBX allows each worker to work from different parts of the world without being left out of important updates or team calls.

The IVR can be programmed to connect your teams by creating a welcome message followed by important announcements. This can all be done with your company phone system and does not require any extra hardware. Each phone system carries necessary information, such as accounts and contacts, that each international team needs to know. They can access this important information at any time, which is essential since they will all be working in different time zones.

The IVR system can be used to create a private telephone network that only you and your employees can use. They will each have their own extension that can be accessed by other employees. Using your own private system within the virtual phone system you already have will lower your operating costs, as well.

If you allow your employees to work remotely in different countries, it is likely they will be more productive than if they were to have to report to an office. Keeping your team together through a virtual phone system will create a great working experience throughout the globe. It might seem like the teams would feel disconnected, but having the ability to contact your international team’s number through an easy-to-use virtual phone system will actually help each team work together more effectively.

For your company, expanding should be a goal. However, expansion can become quite tricky if it is not handled well. Communication becomes key to the expansion of international territories.

Using a virtual call system to keep your various teams connected will allow each team to work more efficiently separately and remotely while maintaining an overall synergy for your overarching business.