Showing posts with label Customer Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Customer Service. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2015
Suspension How It Works
LS Engine Swap Chuck Garage Step By Step
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Food And Beverages Business
Over the last few days, media has been abuzz with the news of Sun Pharma’s $4-billion acquisition of Ranbaxy.
Given the fact that it is the second largest acquisition in the Indian pharmaceutical sector till date, it is not surprising that everybody is fixated on the sheer size of the deal.
But if you look beyond the fancy valuation, this courageous move by Sun Pharma founder Diliip Shanghvi to buy out the beleaguered Ranbaxy from Daiichi Sankyo has some important lessons for everybody.
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It is a version of our famous cinnamon roll made for that environment – definitely not intended to be the same as our hand rolled classic Cinnabon Cinnamon rolls you get in our bakeries in malls. They are different – it takes a lot of labor and square footage to make the classic rolls we are famous for, but we do have versions of baked goods (like the MiniBon Roll at Burger King or the Delights at Taco Bell that are inspired by our famous products in our hand-rolling bakeries, but different as they are made for a fast-food environment).
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If you focus on how your brands are performing at the retail level and work with your distributor and import partners in your launch months, it will help you build your brand more effectively. The market feedback that you will gather will help you educate your own team and prepare you for your next distributor call when you can show them “why your brand works”.
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Traditional grocery stores were built for their parents’ (or grandparents’) generation, when almost all meals were prepared at home and people needed to buy a lot more ingredients. My mom used to love going to the grocery store and walking the store aisles. She went every day at 4pm. Part of that may have been that she had to have enough food to feed five kids, but part of it was that it was her hour to be out of the house and socialize. Nida was her favorite checkout woman and would ask how the soccer game went the night before or if my mom liked the recipe she gave her. Going to the grocery store was a fun part of the day.
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But teff is also similar to quinoa in another, more problematic respect, which has complicated the grain’s growth. Quinoa was once as unknown to the North American diet as teff is today. Positioning it as a miracle food—packed with protein but not gluten, full of nutrients but not calories—helped international sales soar. That has been a mixed blessing for the leading exporters of quinoa. In Bolivia, quinoa prices skyrocketed by 900% between 2000 and 2013, making it hard for Bolivians to enjoy the crop themselves.
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Environmental Working Group, the nonprofit that released the report, is trying to persuade food manufacturers to stop using azodicarbonamide, or ADA, which acts as a kind of baking powder in the making of rubber, plastics, and ceramics, making them lighter and more elastic. Food producers took to using the same chemical to soften the texture of baked goods.
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Blue Print Of GVO and PURELEVERAGE Business
Monday, April 21, 2014
5 Key Words of Advice from the World’s Most Famous Customer Service Representative
Dos Equis may lay claim to The Most Interesting Man in the World, but it’s another brand that boasts the world’s most interesting and famous customer service representative: Virgin Group Founder, Richard Branson.
While the billionaire son of a barrister and flight attendant could easily take a break from the business spotlight, he chooses to continually shine it toward what he believes is a key differentiator for all brands including his own, and that’s customer service. In Forbes, Entrepreneur magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and on his own blog and Twitter (when Richard Branson tweets, it’s him, not an assistant or a PR firm), Branson consistently credits customer service as a key to his companies’ and other companies’ success. And if Sir Richard Branson is willing to dress up as a female flight attendant and serve drinks in front of the cameras (even if it was the result a bet), you better believe he is willing to do whatever it takes to promote his brand’s service.
Here are five key words of advice for any customer-focused organization from The World’s Most Famous Customer Service Representative:
1. On setting realistic customer expectations from Entrepreneur magazine: “The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.
“If you are seizing on a new business opportunity, deliberately move your customers’ expectations up a few notches and consistently over-deliver on your promises — you will leave your competitors struggling to catch up.”
2. On hiring the right people and empowering them to do the right thing from Entrepreneur magazine : “Doing things better doesn’t have to cost more — all it takes is a little creativity and attention to hiring, training and management.
“To achieve consistently terrific customer service, you must hire wonderful people who believe in your company’s goals, habitually do better than the norm and who will love their jobs; make sure that their ideas and opinions are heard and respected; then give them the freedom to help and solve problems for your customers. Rather than providing rules or scripts, you should ask them to treat the customer as they themselves would like to be treated — which is surely the highest standard.”
3. On responsiveness to customers from Live Mint and The Wall Street Journal: “A successful business must never lose its focus on its customers and its standards. Managers and executives need to be constantly on their guard and respond quickly to problems. Thanks to the Internet, the fallout from a badly handled complaint in London can reach the other side of the globe within seconds. When an issue turns up, a company’s response can have a big impact on its reputation and its long-term success.”
4. On making a good first, and even better second, impression from the American Express Open Forum: “In business, creating a favorable impression at the first point of customer contact is an absolute imperative. Though everyone knows this, many companies still only manage to do a mediocre job at best.
“But what isn’t widely understood is… the customer’s second impression of the brand can be even more important than his first. The second interaction a customer has with your business usually involves something that has gone wrong — they’re having trouble using the product or service. Handled correctly, this is a situation in which a company can create a very positive impression. Sadly, it’s where things often go terribly wrong.”
5. On customer service as a business differentiator from Forbes: “Look, I think that when we started Virgin Atlantic 30 years ago, we had one 747 competing with the airlines that had an average of 300 planes each. Every single one of those have gone bankrupt because they didn’t have customer service. They had might, but they didn’t have customer service, so customer service is everything in the end.”
(Photo: Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson serves travelers aboard a Virgin America flight New York to San Francisco in a handout photo from Virgin America.)
Simple Tricks to Immediately Boost Your Confidence
Skill takes time to build. Talent takes time to nurture. So if you want to perform better right now, there's only one way: Feel more confident. Everyone's been there. We don't need research to confirm the more confident we feel the better we perform.
Of course actually finding that dose of confidence, especially when we need it most, is the real trick.
I've written about the best way to be more confident and ways to get a quick jolt of confidence. (As well as some ways to use body positions and gestures to improve performance.)
And that's why I love this guest post from Christina DesMarais, a writer for Inc.com, Forbes, PCWorld, and the Minneapolis Tribune.
Here's Christina:
Whether you have to give a speech, need to negotiate with someone, want to find a mate, or simply get ahead in life, confidence is your best friend. If you're lacking in that regard, here's how to change your thinking or in the very least make it appear as if you're comfortable in your own skin.
1. Don't slouch.
Regardless of your confidence level, slouching communicates you lack faith in yourself.
Try posting a note on the edge of your computer display with a reminder such as an up arrow in thick red marker or the words "SIT UP STRAIGHT". To correct yourself, roll your shoulders back and imagine someone just pulled a string from the top of your head, elongating your spine and raising your chin so it's in a neutral, forward-facing position.
If you're really serious about improving your posture you could try LumoBack. It's a $150 sensor you strap around your lower back under your clothes. Every time you slouch it vibrates to remind you to straighten up. The LumoBack app, which works on newer iOS devices, reports on how well you're doing, as well as other activities, such as steps taken, how much time you spend sitting and how many times you stood up in a day.
2. Understand that most people aren't thinking about you.
Self-conscious people worry too much about what others think about them. The thing is, usually other people aren't thinking about them--at all.
Imagine you had the magical power to read the thoughts of the people around you. You know what you'd hear a lot of? Stuff like this:
Crap, I forgot to stop by the bank... I shouldn't have eaten that cake Susan brought to work, now I feel fat... I hope Sara flirts with me again tonight at volleyball like she did last week... Why should I have to clean the downstairs bathroom when Bill is the only one in the house who uses it?
Notice how many times "I" might pop up? Humans are remarkably self-absorbed.
3. Nix negative self-talk.
If "diffident" describes you well, there's a good chance you're an over-thinker with a lot of negative self-talk rolling around in your head.
Pay attention to what you're saying to yourself. Every time you think something like "I can't do this" replace it with something positive such as "I'm going to give it my best shot." The key is to step out of yourself and look at your self-talk as an outsider. How would it make you feel to hear someone sitting next to you say "I'm so [fat, dumb, ugly, slow, etc.]?" Pretty harsh, right?
Nurture yourself within your thought life, just as you might with someone else.
4. Lighten up.
Some people are naturally more serious than others. If this is you, learn to smile and laugh more. Even a simple grin will suffice to entice others to want to be around you.
To make smiling a habit, set a time when you'll practice doing it for several minutes straight--maybe in the car on your way to work. It will seem weird, but after a while smiling will come more naturally. Studies have also shown that forcing yourself to smile is good for your health, as well.
Need help laughing? America's Funniest Home videos work wonders for me, and can easily be streamed online for free. Or why not plug some headphones into your computer and get happy during your lunch break with a comedy channel on YouTube? Or use the "funny" filter at Ted.com to watch TED Talks that will get you giggling.
5. Handle mistakes with grace.
How you handle slip-ups is also important. Confident people understand no one is perfectand however you just screwed up, it's probably not the end of the world.
Ask yourself: How important will this mistake seem in three months?
If whatever you did involves your work output, acknowledge your flub and vow to do better next time. If your "mistake" is only that you said something stupid or tripped over a box in the storage room landing in a mess on the floor, try laughing it off. It's the most gracious way to handle a blunder.
6. Get feedback.
Toastmasters Internationalis the classic confidence builder. It's a speaking club to which nearly 300,000 people since 1924 have turned to develop their skills, get great feedback, and learn how to be more comfortable in front of an audience.
Membership is only around $36 every six months and there are approximately 14,500 clubs across the United States.
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