Title:

How to Run a Successful Conference Call

Word Count:

1194

Summary:

These days with more and more of us working from home, working on the road, and generally dealing with multiple suppliers, contractors and business partners in locations all over the world, the conference call is supplanting the face-to-face meeting. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your conference call...

Keywords:

conference calls meetings business agenda notes effective

Article Body:

These days with more and more of us working from home, working on the road, and generally dealing with multiple suppliers, contractors and business partners in locations all over the world, the conference call is supplanting the face-to-face meeting. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your conference call...

Tip One: Send Out an Agenda

The key to an effective meeting is an agenda - this applies to any kind of meeting, not just a conference call. With a conference call, always make sure you have the instructions on how to access the conference call at the top of the agenda, preferably in a box or with some other text decoration to make it stand out.

Another option is to send a meeting request from within your calendar application, whether it be Microsoft Outlook or Apple's iCal, or some other scheduling tool. The meeting request is sent as a specially formatted email, so you can add attachments just like with a regular email. Attach the agenda, and repeat the instructions on how to connect to the conference call in the body of the email.

Most conference service providers require participants to dial a special number (which may be different depending on where the user is, or it may be a national number), then enter a conference "room" number, followed by a security code or PIN. Make sure all the necessary details are included on the agenda and the meeting request.

If the conference call is a regular status update, ensure you also send out the meeting notes from the previous call, since the first item on the agenda should be chasing people up for the actions they've agreed to be responsible for.

Tip Two: Take Care of Housekeeping

At the beginning of the call, call off the roll and ensure everyone is on the call. Introduce any newcomers to the rest of the group and invite them to spend a couple of minutes describing themselves and their role on the call. If anyone is missing from the participants list, immediately call them (preferably on their mobile) to get them onto the call as soon as possible. If they can't get on the call within a couple of minutes, proceed without them. Nothing detracts from a good conference call more than making everyone wait at the beginning.

Next, ensure everyone has a copy of the agenda, and that they can all hear one another OK. If you are not going to be the one taking notes, make sure everyone is clear who is. This serves two benefits: firstly, the person taking notes is going to be careful and accountable, and secondly, a single set of meeting notes will be distributed after the call. If this is not made clear, you may end up with several versions, which is both redundant and confusing.

Finally, lay out the rules for interaction on the call. Because it's audio-only, the usual cues we use to indicate that we wish to take a turn at speaking are not present. Therefore it's worth stating at the outset what the rules will be. These can be as simple as "Please make a note of any questions and we'll deal with them in turn after each agenda point", or as sophisticated as listing the order of speaking of the participants, and asking each participant only to speak at their particular time. This last is called "round table" conferencing, and is particularly effective once people are used to it. It has the dual effect of keeping all participants engaged, and speeding up the time it takes to get through each point.

Clearly it's unrealistic to expect people to stick to the interaction rules for the duration of the call, but laying them out at the outset will help ensure things run quickly and smoothly.

Tip Three: Turn Off Speakerphone

Unless you have a majority of participants all in one room together, you should turn off speakerphone. Speakerphone and conference calls are a bad combination, unless you have a high-quality dedicated speakerphone. In order to prevent audio feedback, speakerphones automatically mute the speaker when a sufficiently loud sound is heard at the microphone. Unfortunately, few speakerphones do this particularly well, and often the speaker will mute because of its own output feeding back into the microphone. This means annoying dropouts and missed words and sentences.

Because it's a conference call, often these dropouts can go on for some minutes before someone has the opportunity to pipe up with "We missed all that!" Needless to say, having to constantly repeat yourself can be very time consuming and irritating for all the non-speakerphone participants.

Even if you're in the same room as someone else, it can sometimes be an improvement to use two handsets rather than use speakerphone.

Tip Four: Send Out Meeting Notes

You should ensure everyone on the conference call gets a copy of the meeting notes no later than the following morning, while the call is still fresh in everyone's minds.

There are many helpful guides on the web for effective note-taking, but in essence:

• Don't try to write down absolutely everything; just the items where an action needs to be taken
• Keep track of who has agreed to be responsible for each action
• Keep track of the deadlines for each action item
• Don't forget to note the time and date of the meeting and who was present

If the conference call is a regular status update, ensure you note in the meeting notes the time and date of the next meeting. If possible, deadlines for action items should correspond to the dates of status meetings so that the notes can be quickly scanned (or even sorted) for items that need to be chased up in a given meeting.

Tip Five: Keep it Brief

Studies have shown that people start to suffer a number of unpleasant side-effects after holding a telephone receiver to their ear for longer than about an hour. In any event, forty minutes is about the limit of most people's concentration span.

If you find the call is starting to drag on beyond an hour, it's a good idea to wrap things up and continue either later that day, or preferably the following day. If you find this is a regular occurrence, it may be an indicator that you need to revisit the agenda, or possibly split the group up into separate, more focussed groups. A particular time-waster is having engineers and businesspeople on the same conference call. A better way to handle this is to have three shorter meetings - one with just the engineers, one with the businesspeople, and one with single representatives from each group to present the results and take any feedback to the next department meeting. With practice, you can keep the length of each meeting down to around twenty minutes.

Title:

Call Centers - A Backgrounder

Word Count:

521

Summary:

The call center business has become one of the fastest booming industries today. In the era of customer-oriented services, the provision for accessible support is now a priority. With many companies trying to cope up with their customers’ needs and demands, the concept of the call center was born.

A call center normally operates with all its agents (or customer service representatives) in one central location. It is equipped to handle a large amount of transactions between...

Keywords:

business, call centers, internet, online business

Article Body:

The call center business has become one of the fastest booming industries today. In the era of customer-oriented services, the provision for accessible support is now a priority. With many companies trying to cope up with their customers’ needs and demands, the concept of the call center was born.

A call center normally operates with all its agents (or customer service representatives) in one central location. It is equipped to handle a large amount of transactions between customers and the call center agents. Transactions may be carried out through a variety of media. The telephone is the foremost form of communication in call centers today. However, transactions are also carried out via email and the live chat through the Internet.

Call centers offer a wide range of services. The first thought that comes to mind for many is support - product information, technical support, and all sorts of after sales services. However, call centers can offer more than that. They also deal with marketing and sales. Telemarketing is an aggressive form of selling your product and can yield very good results. Call centers cater to businesses which aim to increase their sales as well as provide customer services. One example would be credit card companies.

While aiming to provide information and assistance to customers, they can also increase their revenue through sales spiels given by their agents. Another service that can be dealt with by a call center is debt collection. Credit bureaus also make use of call centers to provide information on a person’s credit rating. In effect, basically anything that has to do with your customers can be done through call centers.

What is the typical set up in a call center? The term call center brings up images of wide open work spaces, with small workstations containing a computer, headset, and telephone dialer. The practice is increasingly turning to the linking of data and voice in one pathway. This integration makes for more efficient work practices and is called Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Individual agents are normally managed by a floor supervisor who also takes calls when the need arises.

Setting up a call center requires certain technology to be applied. There is a wide range of available technologies for call centers today. More often than not, different types of technologies are combined in order to achieve the most effective and efficient set up. The Computer Telephony Integration has already been mentioned is one of the trends in the business today. In fact, CTI is used to combine most applications used in call centers - voice, email, fax, and web. CTI provides many functions such as caller ID, on screen dialing, on screen phone controls (conference calls, hang up, hold, etc.), and agent status control (whether agent is available for calls or not).

With all these advances in technology and developments in consumer-oriented practices, the call center has emerged as an ideal solution for many companies. The call center provides standardized service to customers and helps cut the cost. In addition to that, the separate entity of the call center subtracts from the actual operational considerations of the company.

Title:

Who was it that Invented Electricity

Word Count:

311

Summary:

Electricity is a naturally occurring form of energy found in nature, and human beings did not invent it. Natural forms of electricity are found in lightning and in all electro-chemical impulses within living beings. For instance, the heartbeat is controlled by a micro-impulse of electricity. All forms of thought are electro-chemical impulses traveling within the neural network in the brain.

Keywords:

Invented Electricity

Article Body:

Electricity is a naturally occurring form of energy found in nature, and human beings did not invent it. Natural forms of electricity are found in lightning and in all electro-chemical impulses within living beings. For instance, the heartbeat is controlled by a micro-impulse of electricity. All forms of thought are electro-chemical impulses traveling within the neural network in the brain.

Human beings only ‘discovered’ the existence of electricity and found ways and means of using it for constructive purposes. Westerners seemed to know around 600 B.C that amber can be charged with static electricity by rubbing it. But it was not until William Gilbert, the father of modern electricity appeared on the scene in 1600 A.D that much progress was made. He discovered the electrical properties of many substances, and it was he who coined the term ‘electricity’ from the Greek word for amber.

While advances by early pioneers were mainly experimental in nature, Henry Cavendish and Charles Coulomb began quantifying the results through mathematical equations. By the mid 1700’s a crude form of battery was invented. This enabled to standardize all forms of electrical experiments. Later Ohm and Kirchhoff used batteries to power various electric circuits and discovered the Ohm’s Law and Kirchhoff’s Law of electric currents respectively.

It was Hans Christian Oersted who discovered that a wire carrying an electric current was surrounded by a magnetic field. D.F. Arago developed on it and invented the electro-magnet. André Marie Ampère developed mathematical equations for electromagnetic laws. Michael Faraday invented the electric motor as well as the generator. Within half a century, engineers were able to construct power plants that could supply electricity to the consumer. All of these inventors and other unnamed ones contributed towards the discovery of the laws of electricity and electromagnetism and invented ingenious means of using it for the benefit of mankind.

Title:

Better Online Communication Makes Business Sense

Word Count:

561

Summary:

How you communicate with your online customers will make or break your company. What are you doing to improve your customer relations?

Keywords:

customer, relations, communication, online, email, tech support, business

Article Body:

Many companies are now doing the majority or even all their business online and foregoing the “Brick and Mortar” storefront. It is easy to see why that trend has happened. For one thing, the cost of setting up such a business is relatively inexpensive and easy. There is no need to pay for the overhead of a physical building. Also, the cost of maintaining a Web site is minimal. Moreover, the Internet provides a convenient and efficient way of marketing products. As more and more people are spending time on the Internet, the market of online customers continues to grow.

But when businesses shift from face-to-face customers to anonymous online customers, there is a loss of personal connection and trust. All the online spamming and scamming hasn’t helped the matter at all. That has eroded the trust in E-commerce and the credibility of many companies. How are you gaining and maintaining customer trust? What are you doing as an online vendor to communicate to your customers?

In an online world, business just doesn’t stop after hours and on weekends. What are you doing to answer your customer’s questions? Here are a few things that you can do to improve communication with your customers:

1. Offer a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and online product support information. This is an excellent way of answering basic questions that may otherwise flood your support email. For example, our voice-changing product, MorphVOX, has a FAQ on the common issues that customers may come across. We also have provided detailed online documentation on topics that users may want to explore more. This takes care of roughly 95% of the questions people may have.

2. Add a support email link on your Web site for issues that can’t be resolved by the Web support. At Screaming Bee, we try to answer our customer questions within one business day. More often, we’ll answer questions within an hour of receiving the email. I believe that we have gained many loyal customers because of our aggressive efforts to meet needs in a timely manner.

3. Provide a message board or forum for customers to voice their opinions, add comments, and interact with each other. Remember that people are social creatures and like to be heard. This also helps to build up a community of users that are empowered and have a say in the products and services that you provide.

4. Write a personal email to each customer. Have you followed up on your customers after they have made a purchase of your products or services? This is essential, not only from the perspective of getting feedback on how to improve your offerings, but more importantly, maintaining the trusting, long-term relationship with your customer. Send them an email within 3-4 weeks of the first purchase. In this way their experience with your products and services is fresh in their mind. Remember, a customer who is ignored is a customer who is lost.

Spending time and effort on better communication with your customers will pay off. Your company will rise and fall not on the customers you gain, but on the customers that you don’t lose. Loyal customers will be the ones that give you the best testimonials. They also provide you with the richest, organic, word-of-mouth marketing. Remember that every happy customer is a testament of your company’s success.

Title:

Proxy Lists

Word Count:

181

Summary:

A proxy list is a list of all the working proxy websites. A proxy website is a website which lets you surf anonymously and it allows you to access the websites which have been blocked by a content filter.

Keywords:

Proxy Lists

Article Body:

A proxy list is a list of all the working proxy websites. A proxy website is a website which lets you surf anonymously and it allows you to access the websites which have been blocked by a content filter.

How does this work –

A proxy website allows you to enter the URL of the website which you wish to surf and once you’ve entered the URL, the proxy website displays the target website in a special window. In this way, your real IP address, location are not revealed to the website and you can access it even if it is blocked by the network administrator. You can interact with the website in real-time just like the way you would have interacted with it if it was not blocked on your network.

The only known problem associated with the proxy websites is that they’ve a small life as other websites block the proxy websites to avoid anonymous surfing. So, it’s important to maintain a regularly updated proxy list in order to get the information about the working proxy websites.

Title:

Gift Baskets - a nie way to say thankyou

Word Count:

332

Summary:

Gift baskets are a great way to say thank you, whether it’s for something personal or work-related

Keywords:

gift,basket,thankyou

Article Body:

Gift baskets are a great way to say thank you, whether it’s for something personal or work-related. You buy a basket of food, usually some kind of fresh produce, and have it sent to someone’s house with a note. It’s like sending a bunch of flowers, only less romantic and more tasty – although gift baskets can contain flowers too, if you want.

Typical things for a gift basket to contain include wines or champagne, cheeses, chocolates, fruit, and relishes or spreads such as chutney and marmalade. They can be surprisingly inexpensive at the lower end of the market, yet always make a well-appreciated and long-lasting gift.

In fact, if you’re going to get a gift basket, it is often worth going with a cheaper one. Expensive ones tend to be pretty much the same in terms of what they contain, but the presentation can be intimidating and the food can seem to many people to be ‘too nice’ for them to just eat when they want to. To avoid any awkwardness, try not to spend more on a gift basket for someone than you would on buying them flowers or chocolates – department stores sell wildly expensive baskets full of posh jams and things, but that doesn’t mean they’re good!

If you have some idea about the tastes of the person you’re sending the gift basket to, you might want to send a more specialised one. Instead of getting a mix of everything, you can get baskets that contain only a selection of wine, or a set of cheeses, or even more unusual gift baskets full of meat or fish.

As a final note, if you don’t even want to shell out for the most basic of gift baskets, don’t let that put you off. Baskets are cheap, and filling one with someone’s favourite foods is unlikely to turn out very expensive at all – but you can bet that it’ll be appreciated.

Title:

USB Headsets, the Cadillac of Headsets

Word Count:

406

Summary:

Wireless headset technology has provided us with comfort an convenience unthought of twenty years ago. Who could have predicted how utterly immersed technology would be in every facet of our lives? Our professional and personal lives are made easier by the newest technologies that come out every year.

Keywords:

wireless headsets, mobile headsets, gaming headsets, telephone accessories, blue tooth, headsets,

Article Body:

Wireless headset technology has provided us with comfort an convenience unthought of twenty years ago. Who could have predicted how utterly immersed technology would be in every facet of our lives? Our professional and personal lives are made easier by the newest technologies that come out every year.

One of the greatest improvements on wireless technology in recent years is the advent of the wireless headset. If you are looking for the most luxurious wireless headset then check out USB headsets.

USB headsets utilize the newest technologies in their models while incorporating comfort and luxury into their headset. USB headsets thinks about the extras such as plush ear pads to enhance your online experience. Let’s face it; it is easy to get lost online chatting with our friends or enjoying a game with online buddies. Plush ear pads allow you to have the most of that experience with out discomfort.

USB headsets also have the outside noise canceling function. Say goodbye to the annoyance of the person you are speaking to not being able to hear you due to outside noise on your end. These technologies will only enhance your experience whether it is listening to music, talking to your girlfriend who is overseas, or enjoying a LAN party.

USB headsets also use the latest in audio technology to give you the highest quality sound. This is great for when you are downloading your favorite tunes. The USB headsets have soft touch controls that allow you to adjust the volume and microphone quickly (this especially good for those times you need to quickly mute).

So if you are in the market for a new wireless headset and you are looking for luxury and those extras that will enhance your online experience then consider a USB headset. You can get a premium headset for about $50 with high frequency, excellent audio, plush ear pads, one year warranty, and a lot of little extras that truly make USB headsets the Cadillac of wireless headsets.

Ultimately when we are online we want to enjoy our friends, music, and relationships. We want to enjoy these things while taking a break from our life and the daily stresses we encounter. Those around us don’t always respect our down time and see our computer time as a time they can engage us in unwanted conversations and requests. A USB wireless headset will improve this annoyance while giving us cutting edge technology.