Power Ideaz

By Chitralekha Chakraborty

I want to share a little known secret about the value of delivering good service to customers. Yes, it’s good for business and the organization. Yes, you may derive a lot of satisfaction by doing a customer service job well. No question. But what’s the most compelling reason to learn about, and deliver good customer service? It’s this. When you deliver good customer service to your customers, you experience less stress, and less hassle and grief from customers. They argue less. They’re much less likely to insult, and they’re less demanding. They don’t threaten you when they get upset (I’ll have your job!”).

You can save huge amounts of time. One disappointed customer may take up to ten or twenty times more of your time than a satisfied one. And the time spent with the displeased customer is usually not all that much fun. Customer service skills help you keep your happy customers happy, help prevent customers from becoming unhappy and taking out their frustrations on you, and help you deal effectively and quickly with customers who are upset and unhappy.

Every Tuesday I will write about the tools to interact with customers more effectively, so that the company, the customer, and you, the person dealing with the customer, all benefit. PowerIdeaz.com will provide us the space to discuss all those; and here will continue worlds first “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” Blog. Hence, we will not restrict our discussion only on the principles or platitudes, or handy customer service slogans; rather our focus will also be on ‘doing’.
• What should you do with a customer who is swearing at you?
• What do you do to prevent customers who have waited a long time from getting really angry?
• What do you do to provide advice to customers so it will be heard and appreciated?
We’ll deal with these questions along with solutions.

Next week I’ll cover some basics of customer service; so customer service newbies can increase their understanding of what customers want, and the things that cause customers to hit the roof. We’ll also talk about various types of customers (internal, external, paying and non-paying), and we’ll explain how you can best use customer service techniques.

Far too much customer service training and far too many customer service books tell you only what you already know. Do you really need to be told again that you should smile? Or shake hands? No. But you might find it useful to know when it’s a bad idea to smile at a customer.

So, here’s the bottom line about this “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” blog: you may come across a few things you already know. But you’ll also come across a number of techniques you probably haven’t thought about. Please do leave comments here with any unique, off the wall, follow-up tactics that have worked for you; and along the way, save yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of grief.

By Konica Paul Chakraborty

Women….

The fragrance of full bloomed jasmine at night,
The colours of ecstasy showing bright,
The vibrating pulses in mens’ wild heart,
The concoction of wit, mirth and art.

Women…

The strong history bonding mankind with earth,
The mother bearing the forthcoming childbirth,
The teacher teaching qualities humane,
The stoic who frees life of love, joy or pain.

Women…

The Gayatri of Hindu, Mary of Bethlehem,
The Teresa caring for each all the same,
The nightingale nursing the rich and the poor,
The spirit from heaven barring the locked door.

Women…

The future mistress of the universe,
The entrepreneur of the day, spirited and terse,
The leader of the nation battering the odd,
The sculptor of a beautiful world, where there’s just concord.

Women….

The ship that sails against powerful winds,
The mermaid igniting idle thoughts in the minds,
The navigators who navigate through the vast ocean of life,
The pioneers with powered ideas that end all strife.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Do you own an ecommerce site, or plan to start one? In that case, gear up and do your homework of understanding the 7 magic strategies to increase your profits from your online business. The strategies are time tested and proven.

1. Solid product description
If you are selling online, make sure you have excellent product descriptions that are brief, description of your products (if you are selling 50 or more articles) should be 125 – 150 words in length, and preferably written by a professional copywriter. You can get professional copywriters from sites like www.pegr.com, www.123writer.com, or www.thewritersforhire.com who can write sizzling sales copies that will sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. If you are selling only 1 article, like an ebook or a course, the sales copy should be 3000 – 5000 words in length, and accompanied by testimonials of satisfied customers.

2. Accompanied by picture
A picture is worth a thousand words. Be rest assured that things don’t sell on the internet if they are not accompanied by pictures, since customers would like to ‘see’ what they are buying, says marketing guru Mark Luetke. Shabby pictures are worse than no pictures. Small products should be shot with a satin background or the background should be cropped and replaced with a plain color background. Large products (cars, bikes) should be shot outdoor. Ebooks should be accompanied by high quality ebook covers ($30 upwards).

3. Cross selling
Highlight your other related items just below the product description of each item so that buyers who came for specific products can also see the other related products and get interested about them. It is said that this strategy can increase sales up to 30%.

4. Free gifts to visitors to get their email address
Give out free gifts like ebooks of general interest like travel and cooking recipes to any visitor who gives his/her email address. This will create a database of email addresses of shoppers, whom you can send newsletters.

5. Newsletters
Newsletters are slightly different from spam mails. Spam mails are only advertisements, which are not liked by anyone; and thus goes to the spam mail folder of any email account. Newsletters try achieving the same purpose by in a roundabout way. They give out useful and interesting information to potential customers, and are often marked as ‘not spam’ by many who receive them. They can be used as a powerful tool to inform about new products or schemes.

6. Discount
Keep giving various discounts with the names of various schemes like ‘Winter Bonanza, 25% off’ or ‘Spring Festival-up to 50% discount’ throughout the year to boost sales. Identify your loyal customers who keep coming back. Give them an additional loyalty discount.

7. Show professionalism with your affiliates
If you are running an affiliate program, act professionally. Provide your affiliates codes for your banners, and which is most important; pay them timely. Do not make your affiliates wait for weeks to get their commission.

Additionally, you can increase your sources of earning by becoming an affiliate of other merchants (and get commission from them) and Google AdSense (contextual pay per click ads). These can give an additional earning of several hundred to several thousand dollars every month.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Though you can never sell your second hand car at first hand price, you can however do that with ebooks by selling them on eBay. The best thing about ebooks is that they are resalable at first hand price, and still no one will sue you for breaking copyright laws.
You just have to customize them by changing certain information like the name of the publisher, writer, etc. Many ebooks come with master resell rights, which means, you are
given permission to resell them and keep the full profits for yourself. No royalty to share
with anyone. Or, you can get a tailor-made ebook written by an economical ghostwriter. For $300 - $ 1000 (depending on the number of pages) you can have an ebook ghostwritten. You can try services like www.123writer.com.

Ebooks on business, success, stress-management, travel and leisure, understanding
human psychology, relationship development sell extremely well on eBay. Prices of
books range from $1.95 to $79.95 (real good books on making huge money). The prices of most ebooks are around $29.95 (travel, success formula, stress management, relationship-development, understanding human psychology and technical). Let’ s find out how you can make real profits by selling ebooks on eBay.

1. Do your research before you start selling
Before you actually dive as an eBay seller, do some amount of research about eBay,
and how things work on eBay. In a matter of days you will come to identify your
potential competitors and at what price they are offering their ebooks. There are 2
ways to sell: (a) selling to the highest bidder (b) fixed price selling (advisable for
selling ebooks).

2. Write a strong sales copy

Step two is writing a strong, creative sales copy to be used for eBay listings that really works. If you are not good at copywriting, hire a copywriter for this purpose, because, you will constantly need the help of this person for your various ebooks. A convincing copy will attract your potential buyers’ attention towards your product. Not only should the sales copy be attractive, but it should be SEO friendly; which means, keyword rich. That will make your product search-engine-friendly.

3. Invest on a good ebook cover
If you want to do business, do not save on the ebook cover. Experts like Brent Turner
(CEO of eCover Frog, http://ecoverfrog.com) say that 40% buyers are attracted
towards ebooks by the image (ebook cover). Place an order with a professional
designer to get a first grade ebook cover design. Rates start from $30 upwards. Use
this image (or images) in the eBay listings of your ebook.

4. Offer multiple payment options
Offer your buyers / bidders multiple options for paying. In fact, offer them as many
options as possible. This will increase your chances of selling more.
5. Add shipping costs
Shipping costs do not come into consideration if you offer an option of direct
download on payment, but if you opt to send your ebooks in compact discs by snail
mail; you must calculate and include the shipping cost.

6. Maintain professionalism
Maintain a professionalism right from the beginning, and be 100% businesslike, if
you want to stay in the long run. Be very prompt, and give the best possible customer
service, charge necessary taxes, and preferably, register your business with the
government.

7. Feedback
There is a system of feedback exchange with your buyer on eBay. The feedback
speaks of the trustworthiness of the buyer and the seller. It is like complimenting each
other. Other buyers will see the feedback about you before they buy. The 3 types of
feedback that can be given are: (a) positive (b) neutral, and (c) negative. You should
leave a positive feedback for a good buyer. Don’ t hesitate to leave a negative
feedback for a buyer who was nasty or crafty. It is advisable sometimes not to leave a
feedback at all, rather than leave a neutral feedback for your buyer, as that can attract
a negative for you.

Initially, how good is business on eBay? Effortless and slow in the beginning, picks up
gradually and finally shoots up like a rocket. In a matter of days or weeks you can
recover the money you invested on the ebook and for selling on eBay.

By Pinaki Ghosh

If your job sucks, you have faith in yourself, and have the mindset that champions have, simply kick-off your very own internet-marketing business from home. All you need is a few hundred dollars to invest, a couple of freelance-coders to hire (your own technical knowledge would be an added advantage) and you are ready to start with your internet based business from home. You may start with a site to sell ebooks, or auction online, or simply give unique, good content and earn from advertisements. It is absolutely free to start accepting payments using PayPal. Remember, most of the internet-based giants of today started from their garages in a very small way just like you. Here are 7 rock-solid reasons why you should give home-based-internet-business from home a serious thought.

1. Freedom of work hours: No more rushing out at 8:30AM like crazy while being halfway through your breakfast. No more giving excuses to the boss for being late. Fix your own convenient work-hours. If you wish to work for 3 hours from home (suppose if you choose to continue you job and business at the same time) no one will force to work extra time. You can yourself conveniently fix your work days and work-hours and manipulate them.

2. No fixed work-place: Be free to work from anywhere. Most of the work of internet marketing business is PC based and it can be carried to almost anywhere in the world. You will never be glued to one place and can freely move anywhere. You can also take vacations and still not hamper your work at all.

3. Cheapest way to start a business: You will never have to invest thousands of dollars like other traditional businesses to start a home-based-internet-business. You do not need a posh office at an expensive locality and decorate it with furnishings. To run a website, all it costs is as low as $1.99 to $9 /year for domain name registration, and anything between $3 to $12 /month as web-hosting charges. Working as a freelancer or blogger is even cheaper and costs almost nothing.

4. Students can work and study at the same time: It is one of the most convenient businesses for students who can conveniently divide and manipulate their study and work time.

5. Market is international: Could you ever imagine of getting an international market if you would have opened a ‘brick-and-mortar’ confectionary store? While most traditional businesses offer only a small local market, an internet-marketing business offers you a much larger market which is international. You will find visitors and buyers from various countries.

6. Suitable for all ages: While jobs have lots of restrictions with ages and hierarchy, an internet-based business can be successfully carried out by adults of all ages; whether you are a student, or in mid-life, or have retired.

7. Six figure earning: Answers dot com clears the misconception of some skeptics who believe that it is not possible to earn large figures from home-based-internet-marketing business.

www.Answers.com says that many people, who have the capacity to stick to their business, are likely to achieve 6 figure incomes, and majority of the people will quite easily achieve higher 5 figure incomes. Another great advantage of this business is that help and guidelines are always at hand. Anyone who knows to use the internet knows how to gather helpful information within minutes when you are stuck. Sites like Wikipedia.org are great storehouses of almost all types of information, while sites like Yahoo Answers are where you can ask specific questions and get tailor-made answers from real people (read, experts) from the industry.

Some useful resurces:

1. Web hosting and domain name registration: Hostmonster.com.

2. Web development: Designer-India.com

3. Ebook Marketplace: Power-Publishers.com, Ebay.com, Amazon.com, Lulu.com.