Business Info Help

Keeping your customers happy is obviously great for business. Without them, your business would not be able to stay afloat.  Because of both of these reasons, it is important to make sure they are satisfied and wanting to come back for more. And here are some ways to do just that.

• Train your employees to provide great customer service. The only thing that makes customers more happy than great customer service is great deals. And when your business has great customer service, word of mouth will spread that piece of information around and everyone will want to shop at your store.
• Find out how you are doing. The best and least intrusive way to do this is through customer satisfaction surveys.  These can be completed online and at the customer’s convenience.
• Offer discounts and special sales for loyal customers. This is a great way to motivate customers to come to your store and shop.

If you have an e-commerce website, you should (if you aren’t already) accept all major credit cards as a method of payment.  Doing so allows you to cater to a wide variety of customers, including impulse buyers and international customers – offering credit cards and other methods as forms of global payments allows you to expand your customer base internationally.

There are two ways you can accept credit cards – using your own merchant account or through a third party merchant. 

In order to use your own merchant account, you need a bank that will allow you to do so – check with your local bank to see what the requirements entail.  The initial costs of using your own account are typically higher than using a third party merchant; however, the transaction fee associated with every sale is much lower with your own account. 

A third party merchant account is ideal if you are testing the water with a certain product, since the merchant takes care of everything for you and accepts credit cards on your behalf.  You will be required to pay various fees and percentages but using a third party merchant account is often seen as much lower risk.

As they say, the business world is a dog eat dog world. You always have to be one step ahead of your competitor or they will get the customer and the profit. One way to step it up is through your website. This is where SEO and internet marketing come into play. Making sure your website is optimized is crucial to ranking on the search engines so that potential customers can find your site easily. So here are a few benefits of search engine optimization:

• More traffic to your website.
• Easier to find on search engines.
• Higher ranking on search engines.
• Those potential customers will be narrowed down to those who are actually interested in your business, services, or products.
• More profits.
• New customers.
• When your site is optimized, it works for you 24 hours a day.
• increases usability.
• Continues to find new customers.
• Gives you a reason to maintain unique and relevant content on your site.

Nowadays, it is common for businesses to have international credit cards—especially larger corporations who travel overseas frequently. One thing that may not be in the forefront of the business’s mind is the transaction fee for using that international credit card. There will also be about two fees per transaction—due to the fee from Visa or MasterCard and the fee from the actual bank or financial institution. IndexCreditCards.com recently (May, 2008) conducted a survey about various fees for an international credit card. Surprisingly enough, the fees aren’t as close on the spectrum as they probably should be. Here are their findings:

·         Capital One has a 0% transaction fee. They do not have their own fee and they pretty much just eat the 1% fee that Visa or MasterCard impose.

·         Discover also has a 0% transaction fee, but, unfortunately very few places outside of North  America accept this card.

·         Washington Mutual imposes a 1% transaction fee.

·         American Express is up to 2%.

·         Bank of America makes the jump to 3%.

·         Chase: 3%

·         Citibank: 3%

·         GE Money: 3%

·         HSBC ranges anywhere from 1-3%, all depending on the type of card you have.

·         U.S. Bank: 3%

·         Wells Fargo: 3%

Just like with businesses with actual storefronts, it is hard to compete because of the volume of other businesses out there–especially online. Because of this online businesses everywhere need to step it up a notch and blow the competition out of the water. Here are just a few tips to help improve your online business and get your profits sky-rocketing:

• Constantly update your virtual storefront.  New information will encourage potential customers to take a look at your new products and information. Updating your storefront will show customers that you put time and energy into maintaining your website and business. It definitely helps your ethos.
• Make it easy to contact you for questions or comments. It can be a little intimidating buying online because you don’t get to interact with the owner in person and you don’t see the product in person. In order to reduce the anxious feelings, you need to make sure to respond quickly and completely to their questions or concerns. Make yourself readily available to be of service–even though you can’t be there physically.
• Make your payment options convenient. Nothing annoys a customer more than having to use a strange form of payment. Give your customers options and make sure you accept online payments, and a large variety at that rate (debit, credit, bank routing, paypal).
• Offer discounts for returning customers. Encourage those that have bought from you in the past to come back and purchase from you again. People loves sales, discounts, and coupons. So use them!
• Free shipping over certain total amounts. Self-explanatory.
• Get and post real feedback and consumer reviews. Nothing speaks louder than those who are willing to leave feedback for others to read–whether that is positive or negative is up to how you run your online business

Live Wire Test Labs, Inc.  was founded in 2003 and specializes is locating intermittent faults in electrical and high noise environments—airplanes, for example. Developed by Cynthia Furse and Dr. Paul Smith, this technology attends those faults through arc fault breakers and an electrical circuit test with the assurance of lower maintenance costs.

Some of Live Wire’s customers include:

·         The Federal Aviation Administration

·         Boeing Corporation

·         U.S. Air Force

·         U.S. Navy

·         NASA

·         Sandia National Labs

Online businesses are dramatically increasing  each day.  They seem to be more common than businesses with actual store fronts. Because of this, a new, secure way of payment processing needed to be created and perfected.  The way online payment has morphed and progressed is nothing short of amazing. Now, global payments are common and widely accepted as a trusted way to make payments.

With the ease of paying for merchandise from anywhere in the world, the online business has flourished and will continue to do so as online payments expand and improve.

It doesn’t matter if your business is large or small, booming or needing a little help, there is one thing that every business should have. 360 degree feedback is essential to a growing business because you can gather feedback from customers, general consumers, employees, management, and whoever else you would like to hear from.

• Customers: Through online survey software, you can find out what your customers think of your service. Are they loyal to your company or brand? What makes them purchase from you over and over again? What could you do differently to earn their loyalty?
• Consumers: With research surveys, you will know what your brand name means to a consumer. Is your advertising and marketing strategies effective? Which color logo draws the eye more effectively. What could you do differently to get potential customers to commit to your brand?
• Employees: Are your employees happy with their work environment? Are there issues between co-workers? Management? Through this type of survey, you will be able to find and solve little issues in the workplace before they turn into gigantic problems.

When you work from home it is important to set up an office for yourself. You need have your own space in order to be more productive. Many people that work from home usually opt out of having an actual office. But here are some things every at-home-office should have:

• A Nice Chair: You don’t want to be worrying about how uncomfortable you are; you want to be worrying about the work you need to get done. Plus, who doesn’t like to sit in a nice leather executive-type chair?

• Adequate Computer: I guess this depends on your type of business, but most businesses will use the computer. Make sure your computer does everything that you need it to do.

• A Window: This will help you relax a little bit. Plus, it won’t make you feel like you are in a cubicle or jail cell–which pretty much amounts to the same thing.

• Internet Backup: Make sure to keep your data safe and secure from things like theft, natural disaster, and computer crashes.