iPC Business Blog

3 Essential Ways You Need to Allow Customers to Contact Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Achi Parunovi) — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 15:14:00 +0000

When you provide a service or sell products to the general public, gaining your customers’ trust is incredibly important. This can be even more integral to your business’ brand identity and reputation when you generally sell to your customers online, because they have not had the personal interaction with a representative of your business when ordering from you that they would if you won their business in a physical shop or through face to face marketing. This means that you need to make sure your customers feel like there is always the facility to talk to a real person from your company should they have any issues. It makes them less nervous about buying, and gives a sense that they are dealing with a business comprised of helpful people rather than a faceless website.

Not all of your customers will ever need to contact you, but showing clearly that they can and giving great service if they choose to goes a long way towards giving your company credibility in their minds. There are lots of ways people can contact businesses these days, and as a small company, chances are you won’t want to have to support them all, so here are three methods of communication you should prioritise:

1. Phone

You may not have the budget or demand to set up a proper contact centre complete with Code Software call logging systems and highly trained agents, but that shouldn’t stop you giving people a number they can call. Many customers use the phone as their first line for getting in touch with businesses as they perceive it to lead to a fast answer and the opportunity to talk person to person. So if you don’t give out a number to customers this can often seem like a red flag.

2. Twitter

A well managed Twitter account that customers can use to get fast answers to basic questions is a great thing to have, because it is not only a popular way for customers to contact businesses but also means your interactions with them are visible to other people. When you respond quickly and give good service, this is great for your wider reputation as well as your reputation with the individual customer who got in touch.

3. Web Chat

Some people feel like making a phone call is too time consuming and would rather raise customer service issues or queries online. However, submitting such a thing through a contact form or via email can feel like sending it off into a void, with no idea of when or even if an answer will be forthcoming. Web chat gives them the same responsiveness as a phone call but can feel more convenient, and is becoming a more and more widely used way to offer support.

These are the three most important ways to offer service, but of course, you can also supplement them with other methods should you want to, like email, SMS, and other social media channels.

5 Ways Micro Loan Can Benefit Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (Achi Parunovi) — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 15:16:00 +0000

Small business owners need working capital to deal with ups and downs of cash flow, pay for operating expenses, and invest in growth – but they usually don’t need the same large amounts of capital that big companies require. Instead, many small businesses can get by with smaller “micro loans” in amounts of $50,000 or less. Even a small amount of money is often enough to make a big difference for a small business.

Here are a few ways that small business owners can use micro loans to help their businesses succeed:

Pay for Marketing Costs

Getting a micro loan is often a good source of funds to help pay for new marketing expenses – whether it’s a new marketing campaign, a revamped website, Pay Per Click ads, sponsored posts on social media, or more. If you want to try some new marketing techniques, it’s often good to have a fresh influx of cash to help pay for your marketing work – after all, “you have to spend money to make money.” Ideally, your marketing will pay for itself!

Buy New Equipment

Do you need to buy new business equipment? Whether it’s new machinery, new office furniture, a company car, or new business laptops or mobile devices, your business will be more productive if you have the latest equipment to help you do your work. Depending on your needs, getting a micro loan can often give you the necessary funds to buy (or lease) new business equipment.

Purchase Inventory

New inventory is the lifeblood of any small retail business. Small retailers are often experts at finding just the right inventory at just the right time – but what if you spot a great deal on inventory, and you don’t have enough cash on hand to buy it from the wholesaler? This is where a micro loan can benefit your business – micro loans give you a fresh influx of cash that you can use to buy inventory to sell to your customers. Whether you’re getting ready for a busy season of sales, or just trying to capitalize on a one-time offer or a can’t-miss price, micro loans give you flexibility to buy more inventory at a time of your choosing.

Upgrade Technology

Micro loans also make it possible for you to boost your business’s productivity and reduce operating costs my making use of the latest technology. For example, there are many great online tools and small business software packages available to help your company operate more efficiently. With a relatively small investment from your micro loan cash, you can improve your business’s accounting, inventory management, marketing, customer retention, and many other specific business goals.

Expand Operations to a New Location

Is your retail business outgrowing its current space? Would you like to rent a bigger office for your fast-growing consulting firm? Whatever the reason, finding the right workspace or retail location is often a significant investment for your business – and this is another area where micro loans can help. By giving you a sudden influx of cash, micro loans can help you make a big move to strengthen your business’s future.

Getting a micro loan for your small business can give you some added flexibility and financial cushion. Whether you need to manage ongoing expenses, make up for slow-paying customers, or make a big business move into a totally new direction, getting micro loans is often an effective way to get the cash you need when you need it most.

5 Practical Tips to Succeed in Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (Achi Parunovi) — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 16:17:00 +0000

Running a business can be both fulfilling and nerve-wracking especially when you are just starting. You must make sure that every decision you make is wise and practical. The future of your business depends on the decisions that you will be making today. Therefore, you must make a conscious effort to ensure that everything you do is for the long-term success and growth of the company. However, there is also the part wherein you need to be practical especially to cut production cost or to use your budget wisely.

As a start-up business, you probably have limited resources or conservative budget to work with. It is understandable because you are just well, starting.

In this article, we will discuss some practical tips for small business owners to consider. This will help them build a stronger business. At the end of the day, small business’s goal is to become established and big.

Hire handful but reliable people – manpower is indeed an integral part of the success of your business. You should hire competent employees that can help you build your company and your business. You do not necessarily need to hire hundreds of employees – just a few that you can trust and rely would do.

Rent a small office that can serve its function – it is also best to rent a small office so you can do your work more efficiently. However, if you have a space at home and you have like 1 or 2 business partners, aka best friends then you could use your home as your office. Then you could start making your way from there.
Consider outsourcing some services – you do not need to employ so many people especially when you do not see the need to use such services on a regular basis. For example, you can hire Konica printing services to help you manage your print hardware rather than hiring people internally to do the job. It is also the same with some equipment or tools that you do not need to buy earlier. Outsourcing some services for your business is a very practical decision that you should consider.
Assess the competitors – do not be afraid to look at your competitors. You should in fact assess them to see the things that they are doing right and the things that you need to improve for your own business. It will help you a lot in gaining information and knowledge about the field and about the competition in your market.
Analyse your growth and learn from it – also, you need to make regular analysis of your growth. You should analyse your marketing efforts, techniques and basically how you handle your business and the results that you achieved from it. You should do this to know your next moves to improve your current efforts. It is not enough to see growth. You must continuously seek strategies and plans that will improve your business.

Since you are just starting, there will be curves along the way. That’s normal and you should not lose hope or be disheartened. You just need to find ways on how to make it work. Hopefully the practical tips that we shared here could guide you.