If one of your customers has a problem, how long does it take you to respond? I’ve had a number of opportunities to interact with companies here in Europe and the usual experience is as follows: Send an email to the company Get an automated email saying that you’ll be contacted within the next 48 hours Wait 2 days Get a customer service representative emailing back Reply saying that I’ve solved the problem in the meantime or switched to a…
Image via CrunchBase There’s an interesting movement happening in the journalism world at the moment. You could sum it up as a battle of wills between Murdoch and Google, but it’s more than that. There’s a cost involves in collecting news and someone has to pay for that in the end. Here are some costs The Times faces: Indicating the costs of quality journalism, he said it had cost the Times £1.5m to run a Baghdad bureau for the duration…
Image via Wikipedia Do you have what it takes to grow an idea into a successful business? So you know what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Well, I came across an interesting post called 12 Facts about Entrepreneurs That Will Likely Surprise You that outlines some interesting facts about successful startups. Here are some interesting facts to get you started: The average and median age of company founders when they started their current companies was 40. 95.1 percent of…
What’s the worst thing that can happen to your business? Well, for some organisations, the loss of data can be critical. If strategic information gets into the hands of your competitors, it could spell a fatal blow for your business. And if you have consultants in the field, you can be particularly exposed to this risk. So, how do you mitigate against this? Well, there are a number of companies that deal in computer protection like Alertsec who produce a…
Interesting experience a couple of days ago when we placed an online order on Marks and Spencer‘s website. We ran into a problem where we had a couple of coupons to use and the website would accept only one. We sent an email to customer services and they took care of the problem for us. The really interesting thing was one line that they added to the email response they sent: Thanks for getting in touch and I must compliment…
Image by norwichnuts via Flickr Have you ever considered that your clients may get the wrong idea of what your business is all about? Perception is pretty important and the impression that clients get of you can be tantamount to getting new business. Whether you’re talking about your store front, or even something as simple as your office supplies, all aspects that your clients meet should have a consistent image that reinforces your brand. Can you think of any good…