There’s an old saying in business:
A happy customer will tell one or two people; an unhappy one will tell 10! So it pays to keep your customers happy–especially when doing business online.
While the fear may be justified that companies that respond online to disgruntled customers may encourage customers in future to take their complaints online (i.e. via twitter, facebook, and other social media networks) before calling customer support ; the fact is, ignoring customers leads companies down a very steep slope.
When facing this ‘risk’ of customers taking their dissatification to online mediums which may lead to more negative online chatter and potential for others to chime in with their similar experiences and complaints, it is important to note that when more customers agree on a complaint, it’s probably a very plausible flaw in your service/product and should be fixed – or at least acknowledged – ASAP.
Good customer service requires engaging and connecting with customers on all mediums. It is therefore important that companies adjust to the needs of their customers otherwise their customers will adjust by taking their business elsewhere along with sharing with others about their experience with your company.
Citation and Further reading:-
With the worldwide recession having its effect upon marketing budgets and advertising, it is now common to see companies making substantial cuts in spending as they try to become more economically viable in the current economic climate.
This means that companies have to get smarter with there marketing budget. The traditional types of advertising known as outbound marketing which includes T V and Print advertising is very expensive and the Return on Investment ROI is difficult to measure. On the other hand inbound marketing which includes Social Networks, Search Engine Optimization and web analytics is less expensive and you can measure in real time the ROI.
Interestingly, Inbound marketing is still very much in its infancy, and as such, there are a lot of misconceptions. These misconceptions along with the fact that many persons do not know where to begin and even the most open-mined of marketers get nervous in broadening their strategy to encompass social media marketing.
The opportunities that are available to a marketer are endless when using social media as a marketing tool. A number of social media platforms allows us to interact with people in a more communicative way and ensure our ability to manage areas of business more effectively, these include customer relationships, market and product research, PR and campaigns.
This shows the powerful opportunities created by online social media because of the multitude of things that can be done, and the ways in which these things can be accomplished. Traditional marketers could get more for their money by using social media and also achieve things that are incomparable to traditional advertising.
ARTICLE(S) CITED :
- In the Recession, how is online social marketing going to help you? click here to view
Usually when you ask the question “How much does a website cost?” You often hear an answer, along the lines of, “Well, that depends…” The truth is various factors influence the cost of developing a website.
It is important to note that budgeting for a website is not difficult, once you keep into consideration that your website is an investment which should deliver an anticipated return.
At ZipTechnologies we encourage our clients to budget for your website by asking yourself these two questions:-
- What do I want my website to do?
Your response is important and will help us understand the purpose and goals for your website which actually help us find out what it will cost to meet those objectives. Do you want your site to Generate online sales ; Inform new client about products and services; Provide customer service, feedback, and assist existing clients?
- What is it worth to have a website achieve this goal?
Once you have decided what you want your website to do, you now need to attach a monetary value to that goal. That value will also act as your budget, so be honest! For example, if one your website goals is to increase sales by 20%. How much is a 20% increase in sales? And … How much are you willing to invest to achieve this result?
Define each goal (in the event that your website has a number of different goals) and assign a value to each. The sum of the value of each goal is your expected return on investment (ROI).
Images are powerful tools and can be used to tell a story and create a mood with your website. Statistics prove pictures of people with smiling faces help websites increase conversion rates. The most valuable imagery is of a smiling woman, followed closely by a smiling man, then smiling children.You’ll be smiling about the results once you ensure to include a few smiling people images to your website design.
Contact ZipTechnologies.com for all your web design needs.
Hey! before you go checkout a sample …see the banner on our Contact Us page.
Citation
More Smiling Faces Equal More Sales When It Comes To Web Design view article
Tweaking your website theme (look and feel) to commemorate holidays & events can have amazing effects on your hits and online success. Ever noticed how Google’s logo changes slightly to commemorate holidays and events around the world? … click here to see Holiday Logos and Events – Google style!
There are alot of interesting things you can do to create a buzz around your site, one of which is to periodically change your site’s theme or logo to reflect current events. In the past 10 years we have had the pleasure of seeing quite a few fascinating and delightful logo designs from Google. Like Google you too can create imaginative logos or themes around holidays, including Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Heroe’s Day, Black History month and other popular holidays and events.
At ZipTechnologies we offer this service to our clients for a minimal charge. Subtle changes to your site design theme and/or minor tweaks to your logo that commemorates each holiday and/or special events.
Contact us Today for a quote!
Here are a few ZipTechnologies Holiday themed Logos :-
VALENTINE’S DAY - FEB 14, 2010
ASH WEDNESDAY - FEB 17 2010
At ZIPTechnologies.com, we understand that even with very reliable web hosting boasting 99% of uptime, website downtime is a fact of life. Site downtime may lead to revenue losses, both directly and indirectly, and it could adversely affect your company’s reputation as well. Therefore, it is important that your website is monitored so that you are the first to know when your website is down. Here is a list of website uptime monitoring services:-
- Free Website Monitoring Service - Receive error notifications both to your Email, ICQ, GTalk or cell-phone via SMS; Monitoring period – every 1/5/15/30/60 minutes;; www.host-tracker.com
- Monitor Website Uptime - Get instant alerts when your site goes down. Sign up Now! www.site24×7.com
- Web Monitoring Tools - Measure & Monitor Your Web Server. 24/7 Instant Alerts. Free Trial;; www.webmetrics.com
- Website Monitoring - Alertra notifies instantly when your server goes down. Free trial. www.alertra.com
- Top 10 free website uptime monitoring services www.garmahis.com
”An organisation that involves employees in the decision-making process can become much more successful”
– I’m sure some1 famous said this..so I won’t take the credit.
I got a chance to see a long lost friend this morning. I’ve known Andrew for many years and the last I heard of him, was that he got promoted as the IT manager at a large company in the financial sector. My curiosity aroused, so I congratulated him and asked how he felt about his new job. After some prodding, Andrew told me that he was loosing interest in his work, although he was satisfied with his colleagues, salary and working conditions, if he could find an excuse, he would avoid going.
When asked why, he revealed that he felt like a robot, his company was launching a new website and despite his new position the Board ignores his inputs. The board was simply passing orders down the line, no questions asked. Andrew added he sometimes had to ask his collegues “Are you plugged-in?”
Andrew’s situation gravely concerns me…. Is it that rank-and-file technical staff are hired only to do techy stuff but have no say in business decisions? Or do we have a say but need to be more assertive?
Business execs, sales staff and marketers tend by nature to be more assertive and strong negotiators. But I think where execs have no technical background it calls for the technically savvy to be similarly assertive and convincing when vocalizing their suggestions, ideas and/or solutions. However, assertion doesn’t mean being loudmouth and obnoxious, no matter how strongly we believe our position is, all we can do is advise them of our best estimates and solutions and then do exactly what they tell us to do. After all we’re not trying to loose our job!
Open Source is defined as a software source code that is available to the general public and does not have licensing restrictions that limit use, modification, or redistribution.
So if the open source technology allows for the free use of softwares to install, update or alter without being liable for any copyright infringement. Why is a certain island’s companies so hesitant to make the transition to open source software?
One of the most trusted open source software is the operating system, Linux, which is the main rival to the Windows operating system. Apart from the obvious cost savings,Linux is said to be stable and generally immune to all forms of viruses and does not crash.
Ok, let me give you a scenario… You own a small office and your running Windows XP Professional on decently powerful machines. The question you face is, with a minimal budget for an upgrade what do you do. Do you put on Vista or a Linux that comes with business support like SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) ?
Applications are, of course, another matter. In recent years, open-source alternatives to proprietary softwares have matured to the point where switching to these license-free alternatives have become more viable. With OpenOffice.org 2.0 right out of the box, it can handle basic Microsoft Office documents and spreadsheets without any fuss or muss. Similarly for years, Microsoft Internet Explorer has enjoyed near dominance of the Web browser space–but not any more. Since the release of Firefox an Open Source web browse created by Mozilla, Internet Explorer’s claim of superiority has been steadily eroding. Firefox has several advantages over IE which includes anti-spyware & mal-ware security, pop-up blocking, useful extensions & plugins, 100% CSS compliant (rejoice!! web designers rejoice!!) and it’s Free!
So what are your views? Do you think there are more takers for open source technology…Is the loyalty which this island’s companies seem to unconsciously have with Microsoft, diminishing?
