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Feb10
0
IdeasUnlimited's Multilingual Transcription Services

IU’s Multilingual Transcription Services

By | Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Multilingual Customer Service, Multilingual Support, Transcription, Translation, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

IdeasUnlimited prides itself on the quality of its professional and completely confidential translation and multilingual transcription services. Projects pass through a rigorous 3-stage process, with full accountability at each stage.

Multilingual Transcription Services Offered

IdeasUnlimited provides the following multilingual transcription services:

The Types of Multilingual Transcription Services Offered at IU

Confidentiality is treated very seriously at IdeasUnlimited. Your documents, recordings etc. will only be seen by the necessary personnel and otherwise kept strictly under wraps. Our contract will be fully transparent in your favor, including a confidentiality clause. Additionally, we are compliant to the latest PCI codes.

We have consistently produced high quality transcripts with on-time delivery, which are the two most significant contributors towards our satisfied return customers. Hence, most of our current projects are long-term contracts with companies.

We can transcribe minutes of meetings or videos and serve as the go-between translator/ transcriber for mediating client-customer interactions in cases where both parties speak different languages. We can translate and transcribe market research, podcasts, sermons, conferences and interviews etc. related to academic, business, medical, insurance, legal, retail, and many other fields. We are also able to subtitle or caption documentaries and TV programs of any nature.

The Transcription Process

At IdeasUnlimited, we have a clearly delineated transcription process that constitutes these 3 broad steps:

1. Transcription/Translation

The material goes to the transcriber/ translator, who carefully listens to it multiple times before transcribing/ translating it. At this stage, any change in speakers will be noted and time stamps will be recorded as well.

2. Verification

The same transcriber goes over his/her result and performs context-specific checks for accuracy, observations of speaker’s tone and any background events which might have a significant bearing on the subject. Any noise or static will be deciphered as much as possible. The final file will conform to client requirements.

3. Feedback & Submission

The final file(s) is sent to the client. We get their feedback, incorporate it by editing the output file, and submit the new version to them.

IdeasUnlimited's Bilingual and Multilingual Transcription Process

We provide the following secondary services free of cost:

I. Note in change of speaker

II. Note in background events and information

III. Time stamps

Supported file formats include .mp3, .mp4, .wav, .mkv, .avi, .wpv etc. You can upload your file online and send it to us via drive links or file-sharing websites.  The final transcript or translated file will be in the format of your choosing e.g. .docx, .srt, .pdf etc.

We do not use any automated machines for translation/transcription. Instead, we employ professionals who are able to distinguish tones and nuances. They interpret the words to best portray the desired meaning in ambiguous cases, bringing a human aspect to the job that machines and software applications cannot accomplish. Using our translation and multilingual transcription services would ensure an output that is closest in meaning to the source file.

Our multilingual transcription services fall into these 3 categories:

Types of Multilingual Transcription at IdeasUnlimited

Each type will have different charges, due to the different number of languages involved. You can request a free quote by contacting us today. Our Business Development Manager will go over all your requirements, understand the scope and complexity of the task, and then give you a quote and estimated timeline for delivery as well. You will find our prices affordable and comparable to market rates.

Dec05
0
IdeasUnlimited's managed ecommerce customer service for PatPat

Pat-Patting to Success

By | Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Ecommerce Support Services, Holiday Season, Inbound Call Center Solution, Outbound Call Center Services, Technical Support | No Comments
The IdeasUnlimited-PatPat customer support team

PatPat has been one of IdeasUnlimited’s most valued clients for over 4 years now, and it will always have a special place in our hearts.

PatPat is an ecommerce brand committed to providing the highest quality, ultra-chic garments and accessories for children and their families. Our mission is to provide the best ecommerce customer service possible to PatPat’s customers and to elevate their shopping experience.

Keep reading to find out what gives PatPat its competitive edge, how our professional relationship began, and where we are now.

Introduction

PatPat is a flourishing ecommerce business based in California and started in 2014 by Albert Wang and Ken Gao, fast friends since their Carnegie Mellon days. When Ken was expecting his first child, he noticed the scarcity of good quality, stylish yet affordable children’s clothing. The rest is history.

PatPat’s unbeatable edge stems from their trendy designs and their extremely popular matching clothes for all ages. Their product lines majorly revolve around clothing for children of all ages and matching outfits for the family. Branching out into related paraphernalia like maternity wear, shoes, accessories, home goods, and more, PatPat soon became an international brand with satisfied customers and repeat buyers.

Their business model has been wildly successful due to a number of factors——the most significant being the fact that they collaborate directly with the product manufacturers. Affordable design has never been so hip!

Just a year in, PatPat was being recommended on the App Store homepage due to its high  ratings and reviews. In 2016, it became the Top Recommended Shopping App. And the accolades did not stop there. In 2019, it was named the ‘App of the Day’ by the UK App Store.

An innovative business model is not enough for carving out your place in the apparel industry.

So how did PatPat keep its customers satisfied and ensure that they returned? They unsuccessfully tried to find customer support agents themselves and then came to IdeasUnlimited to help manage their support tickets. PatPat partnered with IdeasUnlimited in 2015 so that we could manage their omnichannel customer experience—through customer support and ecommerce support services—while they focused on their core competency of supplying good-quality apparel. This added value created a win-win situation!

IU is responsible for the PatPat CSR team's success

PatPat initially needed one customer support agent, but the number grew exponentially as their business flourished, thanks to our unbeatable 24 hour call center support at our Philippines center. PatPat now has 40 handpicked and extensively trained IU agents ensuring an empathetic, timely, and effective customer care service.

IdeasUnlimited’s involvement with PatPat has increased over the years to keep up with its growth. Starting with a small group of moms in 2015, we now assist with customers in over 90 countries. IU’s ecommerce customer support has improved CSAT levels to 90%. This success shows how important a well-equipped customer care center is for continued growth of any ecommerce brand.

The IdeasUnlimited Philippines call center team

IdeasUnlimited's Ecommerce Customer Support

IdeasUnlimited agents are responsible for PatPat’s 24/7 customer experience management through:

  • Ecommerce Customer Service
  • Email, Chat, and Call Support
  • Order Processing Support
  • Backend Support
  • Marketing Support
  • Social Media Support
  • Online Reputation Management
  • Dispute Resolution
  • Ecommerce Website Development
  • Quality Assurance
  • Other Ecommerce Support Services

Our scalable solution easily adjusts to seasonal fluctuations, especially in the holiday season. We pride ourselves on finding satisfactory solutions to all customer problems and converting the most disgruntled customers into return buyers.

IU agents monitor and address PatPat’s bad reviews on sites like Trustpilot and resolve disputes on payment platforms like PayPal. We promptly address dissatisfied customers, resolving their concerns and providing information where necessary, all the while keeping refunds to the lowest levels possible.

Our diligent and excellent management of the omnichannel customer experience has helped expand the customer base and grow the brand.

IU's Additional Contributions to PatPat's Success

The IU team is continuously highlighting areas of improvement in PatPat’s operations and working with PatPat to rectify them.

We created templates for responses to typical cases and clearly delineated SOPs, so every customer query would be handled in a professional manner in the shortest amount of time possible. We also suggested adding Spanish and Portuguese languages to both the website and app. This dramatically enlarged the customer base.

Improving the Help Center on the website as well as overhauling its layout were also IdeasUnlimited’s suggestions, which we also helped implement. This streamlined customer queries, improving customer satisfaction, especially in the busy holiday season.

IU's contribution to PatPat's success
IU's suggestions for PatPat

PatPat had been plagued with quality issues, inaccurate item sizes, delayed shipping, etc. when it started operations. IdeasUnlimited highlighted these deficiencies and collected information with actionable insights for the PatPat team. This resulted in significant improvements in PatPat operations and fewer customer complaints.

Similarly, IdeasUnlimited’s pinpointing of products with recurring customer complaints allowed sweeping improvements in PatPat’s Product Team.

Behind the Scenes—IU Ecommerce Support Services

PatPat’s ecommerce customer support is wholly managed by IdeasUnlimited through a three-tier management structure.

IU's Managed Ecommerce Support Services Entail Three-Tier Management

PatPat is free of the hassle of recruitment, HR administration, and staffing and scheduling  since IU provides end-to-end managed ecommerce support services. We vet the most suitable candidates, test them extensively, and conduct background checks before considering them.

IdeasUnlimited solely hires based on merit, providing equal opportunities to all. This translates into a productive ecommerce customer service team that delivers results consistently. Our PatPat team was hired to incorporate the widest possible diversity. We place a special emphasis on facilitating and supporting working mothers.

Our second tier of management are our project managers, team leads, and subject matter experts, who ensure all agents are fully trained and capable of handling myriad customers, so all the performance metrics are consistently met and customer satisfaction levels are high.

IU has created a training program and a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) to ensure all agents on PatPat deliver a consistent level of ecommerce support par excellence. PatPat wants the best ecommerce customer service, great productivity and efficiency, and a cost-effective team—and we deliver all of that.

The quality assurance team creates a third tier of monitoring. All customer interaction is monitored and scored on the CSAT tool and weekly KPIs serve as performance benchmarks. We also conduct a weekly analysis of all agents’ productivity to highlight gaps. Hence, PatPat gets a detailed and transparent insight into our team’s performance on a weekly basis. One-on-one coaching is then carried out by IU Team Leads to ensure all the agents meet and exceed the KPIs set by the client.

IdeasUnlimited contributions to PatPat's Customer Satisfaction

IU’s managed ecommerce support services entail troubleshooting any customer and agent issues to deliver high quality service every time. Our team’s ecommerce support experience and strong command over the SOPs contribute to our laudable CSAT scores. This is the reason why we have long- term working relationships with all our clients.

At the backend, recognizing, nurturing, and rewarding merit has fostered a strong ecommerce customer service team at IdeasUnlimited that consistently delivers results. Our company- sponsored team-building and annual events, appreciation certificates, regular annual increments, and performance-based bonuses to celebrate all milestones help us maintain a happy and satisfied call center support team.

PatPat in turn recognizes our agents’ added value through performance bonuses at the team and individual levels. Our work relationship is thus mutually beneficial. We create value for them, so they reward us in return.

The Road Forward

PatPat has assured us that IdeasUnlimited will be their partner of choice when they start a new brand or venture. Our results speak volumes for themselves, so contact us today.

IU-PatPat future growth
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Dec04
1
Losing sales because of your website

Your Website Is the Reason Why You’re Losing Sales

By | Administrative Support, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Ecommerce Support Services, Entrepreneurship, Freelancing, Marketing Virtual Assistant, Social Media, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

7 stages of the purchase process where you’re driving customers away

These days, if you don’t have a website for your business, product, or service, you are losing out on 81% of your potential customer base; who research their purchase online before buying it. Having a website, however, can prove to be a double-edged sword if you are unfamiliar with website development. A business unconversant in the common assumptions customers derive from website design may inadvertently cause itself to look untrustworthy or obsolete.

There are a host of reasons why investing in ecommerce website development is a good idea for every business. The development, design and code of your website affects every stage of the customer purchase process.

1. The numbers make sense

A quick Google search will lead you to thousands of ecommerce website development agencies; large and small. There will always be someone willing to work within your budget, who can make the website according to your business’ needs. One thing is certain; professional website development always provides return on investment far beyond what you expect. An attractive website lands more leads onto your website, introduces them to your products or services, and converts them into customers.

Trying to set up your own website is like stabbing in the dark for most businesses (unless you’re a web developer yourself). You’re bound to make mistakes, redo things, or give up on having what you think will work best for your business. Hiring a web developer within your budget from the beginning will avoid potentially expensive mistakes and re-dos later.

2. You don’t stand out if you use a template

While there are tons of website templates available on the internet, using one without making any changes to it is not a good idea. Your website needs to mesh seamlessly into your business identity, and a developer will help you make the changes necessary to optimize the website for your business.

Using a template as-is also makes your website incredibly forgettable. Each template you see on the internet (especially one which seems attractive) has been used by hundreds, if not thousands of other businesses. Making your website seem exactly like theirs does not help you stand out in the customer’s mind. Using industry-specific templates compounds this problem by making you forgettable within your niche. Therefore, creating a website that makes your business stand out due to its design will require investment in ecommerce website development.

3. Visitors don’t make it to your website

You’d have heard the buzzword “search engine optimization” everywhere these days. People think it means utilizing keywords and paying for advertisements, but rarely realize that your website visibility on major search engines is inextricably linked with the design you choose for it. Clunky and obsolete design and coding pushes your website lower on the search rankings.

Google, for example, assesses the quality of your landing pages when determining your website’s search engine ranking. It is important to partner with an ecommerce website development agency familiar with search engine optimization; or potential customers will not be able to find your website through search engines.

Why is ecommerce website development necessary?

4. Your website’s first impression may be unappealing

When 66% of all potential customers prefer a beautiful design over a plain one, it is worth looking at making your website appear modern and appealing. Your website is often the first impression potential customers, who have myriad distractions online, receive about your business.

Your website needs to appear attractive on all devices. 88% of customers in an Adobe poll said they used multiple screens to access websites. A further 73% of people require the content to display well on whichever device they are using to visit websites. Professional ecommerce website development will ensure that your content is optimized for display on all devices; so that customers do not turn to your competitor’s websites instead.

5. Customers don’t engage with an unprofessional website

If your content is unattractive or your website is difficult to navigate, 38% of people will stop engaging, and 35% will click off, according to the same Adobe State of Content Report. However, if you think you can make content attractive by merely utilizing videos or inserting high-quality graphics, you would be cannibalizing your website’s position on search engine rankings. Website design needs to straddle the fine line of attractiveness and ease of loading– if your website is bogged down by content, it will load slowly, and Google will kick it right off the front page of search results. Partnering with an ecommerce website development agency that is right for your business will help you avoid these pitfalls.

6. It hurts your brand image

As customers keep navigating your website and use it to consider products or make purchases, they form an opinion of your business, your customer service, your trustworthiness, and whether or not they want a long-term relationship with your company– all without meeting any person representing your company.

Brand Message

Your website is the best way of reaching out to all your current and potential customers with an organized brand message, especially new offers and products. A website can be designed in such a way as to not only sell the product or services but also to receive feedback about its utility. This would make your website and business appear cohesive and reliable.

Trustworthiness

Small mistakes like using a simple template, or forgetting to put a “Contact Us” section in places a customer would expect it, can make your website look unplanned and untrustworthy without you realizing it. An ecommerce website development agency will help you with its wealth of experience in this regard.

Customer Service

Your website also signals how you will treat your customers. Leads who have come across your page might leave it and go to a competitor instead if you haven’t communicated purchase and return policies clearly, for example. If you pride yourself on your customer service but have not managed to portray that on your website, you may be losing out on a lot of potential customers.

Niche Branding

A good ecommerce website makes clear from the homepage whether the customer will find what they are looking for. This helps you avoid unwanted traffic, so that your traffic-to-conversion rate is higher. Niche design for your industry is possible only through investing in ecommerce website development.

7. Visitors don’t convert into sales

All the considerations mentioned earlier combine to create a website experience that will either convert leads into customers, or drive them away to your competitors. When it comes to ecommerce website development, search engine optimization, and conversions, nothing beats experience. A good ecommerce website lands on the front page for search results, draws the customers onto the homepage, directs them easily and quickly to what they want, keeps them there through attractive design, allows them to get help whenever they need it, and familiarizes them with brand enough so that whenever they are ready to purchase, they choose that website. You have to bear all this in mind when creating an effective website for your company.

A buyer-oriented website is also instrumental in retaining customers. Every ecommerce business knows that retaining customers so that they make multiple purchases is much less costly than creating new buyers from scratch each time. A good website will do all the work of retaining customers for you.

That’s why you need to choose the right partner when creating your website. IdeasUnlimited provides unparalleled ecommerce website development services, with customized packages for your business; depending on the services you need. Our multilingual team can create your website in any major language and industry, no matter how small or large your business is. If, after creating your website, you need a team to manage ecommerce support or ecommerce customer support, our experienced global team can take care of all of your support needs.

Dec02
0
IU Named Top Healthcare Call Center Company by Clutch

Clutch Names IdeasUnlimited a Top HR Firm in the Healthcare Industry

By | Administrative Support, Customer Service, Healthcare Call Center Support, Receptionist Service, The IU Way | No Comments

For the past eight years, we have combined skilled human resource, management, and monitoring with cutting-edge technology to provide custom solutions to our clients. Our team has completed over 4000 projects involving a spectrum of services including call center, multilingual, virtual assistant, ecommerce, and backend support. By providing our clients with 24/7/365 support, overheads due to investments in HR, marketing, customer service, and finance departments are no longer necessary. Our dedicated and skilled remote workforce offers great value to our clients. As a result of our success, IdeasUnlimited has been awarded with this recognition by Clutch.

Clutch.co’s latest directory features IdeasUnlimited as a leading service provider for the healthcare industry! We are happy to receive this award as it reaffirms our tailored approach to supporting our clients’ efforts to grow their businesses and increase productivity.

Washington, DC-based ratings and reviews platform Clutch awards leading B2B service providers annually. The team determines winners according to rankings, which are assigned after assessing a business’s market presence, project history, and quality of services. Their analysts collect verified client reviews to evaluate a company’s success.

IdeasUnlimited Awarded Top Healthcare Company, 2019

Here’s what some of our clients said about our services to Clutch:

“We’re long-time clients and are delighted with their innovative approach.”— CEO, advertising & marketing agency

“They are fast, responsible, hard-working, and honest.” — Employee, beauty business

Based on industry leadership, IdeasUnlimited has been listed on The Manifest’s page of top ten HR outsourcing services agencies!  A sister site, the platform expands on Clutch’s content to offer business news and how-to guides.

Our team is thrilled to receive this award. We are thankful to our clients for providing their feedback to Clutch, contributing to this recognition.

For the most effective solution to suit your business’ unique support requirements, talk to our team.

Nov29
0
Essential Skills of a Customer Service Representative

Essential Skills of a Customer Service Representative

By | Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Inbound Call Center Solution, Outbound Call Center Services, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

A skilled customer service representative is the single most important asset of a growing business. Since 71% of customers are lost due to poor customer service, you can build a loyal customer base only if your customer service center is optimized. More importantly, existing customers spend 33% more than new ones, so your priority should be retaining your current customers and increasing their lifetime value. Hence, the most cost-effective way of increasing profits is focusing on these customers through good customer service, rather than intensifying sales efforts. A whopping 80% of your future profits will come from a mere 20% of your existing customers.

Decrease your Customer Churn Rate to increase profitability

The customer service representative is the face of the company—the first point of contact that establishes your brand image. To avoid customer service fiascos in this day and age of social media, when public opinion holds a great deal of weight in determining a company’s reputation, make sure that each customer service representative at your company has some essential skills. We have collated the 10 most important ones here for you that you should look for when hiring your customer service center team.

Essential Qualities

Each customer service representative must possess these skills to be able to effectively build customer loyalty, reduce attrition, and enhance the brand image.

1. Empathy

Empathy in customer interactions can make a marked difference in customer retention rates, since 68% of customers leave when they perceive a business as indifferent to them. A good customer service representative empathizes with customers, trying to understand their problem and resolve it as quickly as possible. Being apologetic for any inconvenience caused and treating the customer in a friendly manner are cornerstones of excellent customer service.

Walk in the customer’s shoes to understand their problem(s).

2. Patience

Stay patient to truly understand what the customer wants.

Customers usually get in touch with a customer service representative when they are confused about or frustrated with the product or service. Patiently hearing out the customer helps de-escalate the situation and improve understanding of the actual issue—improving the chances that it will be resolved expediently.

3. Clear Communication

Your customer service representative should have a strong command over the language and use simple, jargon-free sentences that a layperson can understand. Moreover, the call center operator should make sure to relay all the important information, leaving nothing to doubt. This entails a balancing act between reassuring the customer and promising only what you can deliver.

Make sure that you communicate in a clear and concise manner, using layperson terms.

Strong internal communication between departments, established SOPs, good organization of information into CRMs, and timely management of ticketing systems are all crucial. An experienced 24 hour call center would take all this hassle off your hands.

4. Sufficient Knowledge Base

Know the product or service better than the customer using it

A good customer service representative has a strong grasp over the ins and outs of the products and services being offered, billing procedures, refund policies, and basic troubleshooting steps. This is the only way the customer service representative will be able to answer customer questions accurately. Having an agent passionate about your service is the best possible sales technique since they would in turn convince customers to purchase your good or service.

5. Problem-Solving Initiative

Finding a viable solution for each customer query, to ensure higher chances of resolution on first contact— a higher FCR (First Contact Resolution rate)—is an essential quality in any customer service representative. He or she should know all about your value offering and be intelligent and dedicated enough to find a solution. Additionally, the customer service representative should have enough initiative to resolve as many queries as possible himself/herself, without escalating it to upper management levels.

Take the initiative to solve problems before escalating them.

6. Strong Organizational Skills

Need for good organizational skills in customer service.

Your customer service representative should update databases on time, find relevant information for each customer quickly, and ensure that the rest of the team is aware of the progress of that customer case (by creating notes on the CRM). Work with someone who has handled a range of backend databases, CRMs, and ticketing systems, so you don’t need to start from scratch to establish your customer service center.

7. Strong Listening Ability

The customer service representative should be a very good listener—attentive to the customer’s complaint and able to read between the lines. There should be no audio distortion on the call, so the VoIP should be up to par.

This entails not only listening to the customer’s complaint or question but rather understanding the root causes. Staying attentive to and reporting underlying common issues will help improve the overall omnichannel customer experience. For instance, if customers keep calling for assistance with tracking their orders, the tracking system has not been correctly and sufficiently highlighted on your website.

Only a good listener can unearth the root causes of issues and resolve them.

8. Using Positive Language

Use positive language to communicate with customers.

The language your customer service representative uses in communication has a very strong impact on your customers, especially via non-voice support channels, since connotations may skew negative. For instance, if you are unable to deliver a package on the expected date due to logistical issues, there is a negative way of updating the customer as well as a positive way.

Negative: We are unable to deliver the package tomorrow since you placed the order too late today.

Positive: The packages for delivery tomorrow have already been dispatched today. I will mark your parcel for express delivery and make sure you can get it early morning the day after tomorrow.

Both responses are correct but the second one uses positive language, which will certainly keep the customer happy.

9. Flexibility and Omnichannel Support

Today customers look for instant gratification for all their issues. Your customer service representative should be able to handle omnichannel support inquiries, sometimes at the same time, to deliver holistic customer service to each customer. More than that, he or she should be able to make connections, come up with creative solutions, and switch between support channels to understand each customer’s history with the company. Only then can the customer support be accurate and helpful for the customer.

Need for flexibility and omnichannel support in customer service.

10. Expert Time Management:

Manage time well to provide timely and accurate customer support.

An omnichannel customer service representative needs to handle several support channels at the same time. Handling all incoming queries in a timely fashion is only possible with discipline and expert time management skills. The customer service representative should also be able to prioritize tasks and support channels, handling each inquiry efficiently and give sufficient attention to each. For instance, a call is more urgent than an email and a troubleshooting chat must be answered before one inquiring about the services you offer.

These are a few of the most important qualities that you need in each customer service representative. Concerned about how you can find such a paragon? Hire an experienced agency to handle your customer service center so you get free of the hassle of recruiting and training each customer service representative. They will already be experienced in handling similar projects, so there will be a much shorter learning curve.

Have we missed any important qualities? Feel free to let us know by commenting down below.

Nov21
0

5 Must-Have Tools to Globalize Your Business in 2020

By | Administrative Support, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Call Center for Small Business, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Globalization, Technical Support, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

What is the tool most commonly used in today’s world by individuals and commercial organizations? Very simple, the Internet!

The Internet has made so many tasks convenient and so many processes irrelevant in the business world. Ecommerce support is only one click away—be it multilingual support for your stakeholders or technical support for your customer care center. If you have high-speed internet connectivity and a functional operative system, 80% of your business is already global. Therefore, it is important to investigate a futuristic version of your business considering the global context and available digital tools.

Globalization 2.0 brings the world to your doorstep and the Internet brings a huge potential market to your work desk. It is now easier than ever to create and promote an international brand image. There are many innovations in the tech world to help digital businesses grow. Here are 5 main tools that will be invaluable in assisting you achieve your global strategy:

  1. Research Tools

Research, Research, Research, ACTION! Make this your business mantra and make Google your best friend.

Use research tools to analyze the perceptions and behaviors of your new and existing markets. You can use Google Trends to gauge the demand of your offerings in a specific location, or consumer barometer to read into consumers’ ecommerce behavior.

Another free online tool is Quartz Atlas. It provides a vast database on world demographics and helps you search for information using your relevant keywords. Moreover, the data is presented in the form of tables and charts, which you can customize using your own variables.

Other ecommerce research tools are priced but come with convenient payment plans and free trials. For instance, you can use Jungle Scout—which is most popular for product research, or SemRush—which gives you an insight about your industry’s top keywords and performance of your competitors based on their website.

Similarly, if you are interested in hiring a virtual team, research can help you harness the best of the best by guiding you where to locate your next star worker.

You can find a plethora of other software applications to help you gain more information about your competitors, your niche, your campaign, and product performance.

  2. Resource Management Tools

There are plenty of software and tools available in the market that help in organizing and monitoring resources. They prove helpful in carrying out budget controls, time management, human resource management, as well as data and document management.

Do you also need a solution for conducting audio and video meetings with your remote team members located in different time zones?

Project management software and tools are a good way of managing a remote team, tracking time, efficient communication, and resource management. Popular project management software such as Wrike, Monday.com, or Basecamp include helpful features like real-time chat and messaging, task assignment and progress tracking, document sharing and analyses. Moreover, a comprehensive set of integrations across different in-demand, cloud-based tools makes these software applications a more compelling option. Read more about the best project management tools here.

  3. Marketing Tools

Time has brought enormous innovation in marketing as well. The arrival of Big Data and interactive technology have refined the way marketing is carried out and innovation has introduced new techniques for acquiring and retaining customers.

Marketing tools can handle everything from social media automation to customer-company relationships and affiliate marketing.

In a nutshell, marketing tools for ecommerce sales should ideally relieve you from social media, content creation, SEO, and email campaigning stress. You should also be able to find and segment consumer data for better customer service and targeted marketing campaigns. Some of the most popular marketing tools today are:

MailChimp

Active Campaign

Bulk.ly

Buffer

Smile.io

Exit Bee

  4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools

This set of tools are usually a composite of marketing tools, analytical tools, and research tools. They allow your business to have a systematic approach to managing all the information and interactions of your business with your customers, suppliers, and other businesses. Some examples are Intercom and Pipedrive.

Your customers are your bread and butter. For your business’ survival, it is important to reach out to your customers and meet their requirements. As a global business, you must use multiple communication channels to communicate with your customers. A customer management application (CRM) can help you aggregate all communications in one place and effectively deal with all the purchase, engagement, and feedback information.

This allows your customer care center to prioritize and attend to customers who need immediate response. It also becomes easier to track the website traffic, consumer movement, and preferences in order to optimize their purchase experience and enhance customer loyalty.

CRM tools help the customer care center agents to:

methodically identify and work on prospective clients

build and retain loyal customers

understand customers’ requirements and their response to marketing campaigns

segment customers based on demographics and preferences and create personalized follow-ups.

  5. Coordination and Translation Tools

Important: Communication is the key!

All interaction with your customers, suppliers, and teams has to be timely, efficient, and clear. A global business needs to possess a multilingual and multiethnic outlook. Your website should cater to native languages and norms of your target market. Also, your customer care center should be equipped to provide multilingual support to equally cater to all your customers across the globe.

Communication tools can help avoid unnecessary delays and misunderstandings. This results in identifying issues and resolving them in a timely fashion. Bilingual customer service or multilingual support can be invaluable too.

Other than project management and CRM tools, translation services, and coordination tools such as Calendar, Hangouts, and Skype can help your company boost its ecommerce sales.

For expanding internationally, it is important for you to distinguish between ‘time zones’ and ‘time relationship’. While everything is 5 minutes earlier in Germany, there is a more relaxed relationship with time in the global south. This is where coordination comes in. An efficient multilingual support service can easily handle both for you.

Global expansion is exciting and risky, but it is the best way to increase ecommerce sales.

Some of the abovementioned tools’ features overlap. Hence, it is important to critically analyze your business and its requirements. There are many more tools that you can use to streamline your activities. Choose the right tools from the start or contract a business service provider to take away these worries while you focus on your core activities and strategizing for going global.

Which tools do you use in your business? Let us know by commenting below.

Sep09
0

How to Grow Your Ecommerce Business

By | Administrative Support, Call Center for Small Business, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Ecommerce Support Services, Multilingual Support, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

Buying and selling online is one of the most lucrative business ideas that you could come up with today. The 21st century consumer is primed and hungry for more and more opportunities to be able to finish their shopping experience with ease from the comfort of their own home. But you have to be smart about the strategies you use. If you know how the consumer’s mind works, the task becomes absolutely smooth sailing.

  1. Strategically Market Your Business

Buy ad space on popular websites and search engines to market your business. Focus on video ads and only market your most popular products.

The first major decision-making junction comes at the stage of marketing. Let’s say you already have a website or an app. How are you going to let people know about it? Which products will you market? Where will you market them and how? These all might seem a bit overwhelming, but they follow each other naturally and once you get the ball rolling, it will gather momentum on its own.

The ideal solution would be to buy advertisement space on popular websites like YouTube and Facebook and search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! etc. Your ads should preferably be in video form, since the typical consumer spends 88% excess time browsing a website with video (especially without sound). Videos create more engagement with the user and that results in positive action.

  2. Focus on Customer Retention

Retain your current customer base and offer frequent incentives to make them feel appreciated.

The importance of a loyal and regular customer base cannot be emphasized enough. They are the ones who will visit your website or app again and again and buy multiple items. 65% of a company’s business comes from previous customers. Maintaining these customers with good customer service and showing them you value them beyond one-time customers creates goodwill, word of mouth marketing, and a steady increase in sales. One popular, tried and true way of doing this is by having loyalty cards. Great emphasis should be placed on customer satisfaction at every stage of interaction with your business; you should work with a call center support services provider like IdeasUnlimited that specializes in customer retention.

  3. Affiliate Marketing and Discounts

Get more customers through affiliate marketing and entice them to purchase.

Partner with another business and offer promotions and discounts specific to those customers to bring in new users. Not only will you develop a strong business partnership, these new website visitors would have a high conversion rate due to the strong referral.

Flash sales are also effective ways to create urgency to boost sales and profits, because customers do not want to walk away from a good deal. Never miss out on having sales during festive occasions or celebrations and holidays. Your ecommerce business will generate the most revenue in that time.

  4. Widen Product Base

Widen your range of products to cater to a wider clientele. These can include supplementary products and services related to each other as well as completely fresh product lines.

Although most ecommerce businesses start out small, it is prudent to slowly try to attract other market segments as well. If you have a stationery business and the primary consumer is a school-going child, it is highly likely that their parent or caregiver is doing the online shopping. Think about the extra traffic and revenue you would generate if you increased your range of products to entice mothers with kitchen utensils or home décor, for instance.

  5. Optimize the Customer Experience

Ensure you have good customer support, a user-friendly website/app interface, and a hassle-free shopping experience.

The first-time user especially will not take long to form an opinion and turn away from the website if their initial experience was negative or anything less than ideal. You need to make certain all issues are dealt with before they even become actual problems by ensuring your ecommerce support is par excellence.

A user-friendly interface means optimizing your website for mobile devices or even creating an app for it. 79% of smartphone users have made an ecommerce transaction in the last six months, so this is just astute business sense.

Your call center support should be professional, courteous and, above all, make the customer feel heard, understood and helped. You don’t need to invest in anything in-house; simply find a reputable call center for small business like IdeasUnlimited or partner with a firm that can handle your established business.

Do you feel like your business has stagnated and is not producing the desired profits? This is the ideal time to think outside the box. Come up with creative and fun marketing techniques. Use social media and affiliate marketing to boost your audience reach. Never underestimate the importance of your happy return customer. Most importantly, find an ecommerce support services provider who is experienced in tackling all the above.

Sep02
0
Lost in Translation—Overcome It with Multilingual Support

Lost in Translation—Overcome It with Multilingual Support

By | Call Center Support, Customer Service, Multilingual Customer Service, Multilingual Support, Receptionist Service, Receptionist Service, Remote Support Services, Technical Support, Transcription, Translation, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

In today’s world, where physical borders have become blurred and your business’ customers may hail from any of the world’s 195 countries, focusing on one “world” language like English to cater to your customers can be a costly mistake. In the face of stiff competition, your business will lose non-English-speaking customers if your customer service does not cater to them. The days of differentiating yourself by solely providing a 24 hour call center are long past. You will only acquire and retain customers if you speak to them in their language.

Multilingual Support—The Solution

Companies that wish to expand globally and build a loyal customer base overseas must cater to these customers in their native languages with multilingual support. Multilingual support eliminates communication barriers and errors in translation—open and accurate communication with your customers is only possible in their native languages. You can retain more customers by making them feel like they are dealing with a local company, or a company that values them as a customer, since only 8% of repeat purchasers account for 40% of an average store’s revenue. Having specialized multilingual support in a non-global language—like Finnish customer support for your Finnish customers—can make them feel valued in a way that even the best English customer support cannot achieve.

Benefits of Multilingual Support

Multilingual support creates the optimal customer interaction experience at every stage of the sale and after-sales process.

  • Greater customer loyalty and positive word of mouth
  • Less chances of miscommunication due to language barriers
  • Greater customer lifetime value with repeat purchases
  • Easier integration into overseas markets with better brand credibility
  • Exponential global growth into new markets
  • Greater likelihood of converting a query into a sale and a complaint into a resolution
  • Successful diversification of risk and smoothening of demand cycles for the business
  • Greater competitiveness locally and in the international market

Why Should You Work with a Multilingual Support Services Provider?

  • Working with a specialist requires less investment of time and effort and a lower cost than building an in-house team. Taki Skouras, the CEO of international wireless retailer Cellairis, advises working with a support services provider for multilingual support if you don’t have the budget for full-time in-house translators.
  • Reliance on experts will protect businesses from the pitfalls of expanding globally. They will help you understand the local market and ensure that you comply with local regulations.

Choosing a Multilingual Support Services Provider

A well-informed decision when choosing your multilingual support services provider will guarantee that the positive effect on your business is immediate. The multilingual support services provider should have these characteristics:

 It must have agents with native proficiency in more than one language other than English.

 It should not have large overhead costs that pay for the VIP culture of upper management.

 It must be experienced in providing multilingual support to global companies.

 It should be flexible and scalable to a 24 hour call center as the business grows and calls for round-the-clock customer support.

 It should have agents specialized in providing support in European languages such as French, German and Finnish customer service.

 Call center agents must be experienced with VoIPs, inbound and outbound calling, and resolving customer queries in a timely fashion.

 It should have “live” staff that can understand the nuances of customer behavior and respond accordingly.

 It should be fast, friendly, and reliable, with proven results.

Multilingual Support at IdeasUnlimited

IdeasUnlimited has more than 8 years of experience in providing multilingual support to clients all over the world. Not only does it check all the requirements above, it customizes a solution according to the business’ requirements. Contact us today for a customized multilingual support solution.

Aug14
0
How Remote Work Saved Me! Conquering All Odds

How Remote Work Saved Me! Conquering All Odds

By | Administrative Support, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Employee Management, IdeasUnlimited US Remote Workers, Remote Support Services, Remote Work, The IU Way | No Comments

 LinkedIn: shahzadyaqoob/  Facebook: shahzad.yaqoob.39948
 Upwork: shahzadyaqoob
Email: shahzad@osbprovider.com

Shahzad Yaqoob (aka Nick) is an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a family man, and a human being with a strong resolve. He is an avid reader, a keen sports fan, and loves to spend time with his kids.

He has travelled across the oceans and built a remote career for himself, which no one except his brother believed could work out. He has been successful in establishing an award-winning company that not only offers a professional and flexible work environment but is productive and rewarding for all those involved—the IdeasUnlimited Family.

He is the founder and CEO of IdeasUnlimited, a business support services providing firm that is headquartered in Houston.

Self-discipline and a strong drive can help you overcome any situation and Shahzad proved that in quite short time. He has become an inspiration for all those who know him in a professional capacity.

A chat with him revealed much more about his struggles and relentless efforts to gain a reputable position for himself and help others see the light at the tunnel’s end.

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Social Anxiety and Remote Work

Nick's Story of How Remote Work Saved Him

Like me, most of you must have heard of and may have met people dealing with some kind of psychological struggle. But it is hard to fathom the agony they must be going through in order to meet day to day expectations as a family member and a worker. Typically, our society does not consider them fit to be a part of normal life.

Social anxiety impacts a worker’s life as soon as the day starts. A worker starts worrying about commuting to work, meeting people, deadlines, and the office environment. These worries also have spillover effects in their personal life.

It is usually advised to work on your anxiety disorders and then re-enter the workplace. However, it is neither financially nor professionally feasible. There are many different types of anxiety conditions but the proven key to success despite anxiety issues is to find an outlet and not let anxiety control your life.

Remote work has been a blessing in disguise for many of us facing geographical, health, and social constraints.

Shahzad had been struggling with acute social anxiety since his teenage years but in 2010 it worsened as a never-ending turbulence for his social existence. He was so perturbed that he could not contemplate any other solution other than ending everything, including his life.

As he left his regular job, he got called in for a part time remote job as an outbound caller. Halfheartedly, he accepted it and soon realized the opportunities that remote work could offer.

It gave me hope and that was a big thing… remote work can give you time to settle. You can explore the possibility of making likeminded friends or exploring other avenues of tackling social anxiety, or any other psychological or physical limitation you might have.

IdeasUnlimited’s existence shows me the importance of a support system in your life. It might be just one person. But someone to support and understand you, someone to show trust in your strengths and help you overcome your weaknesses, can take you a long way in life. For our CEO, this constant support has been from his brother. Today Shahzad considers all his colleagues as his support system, but it is primarily his brother, Shahid Yaqoob, who recognized Shahzad’s potential and guided him well at every step.

My brother has been the most positive influence in my life and career, my strongest support…I must thank my brother who helped transition everything without a hassle. I still look up to him for business advice…

IdeasUnlimited Making Lives Better

I had a chance to talk with Shahzad recently and it made me realize that everyone has their own battles and you never get a level field to achieve your ambitions. It is important to fall and then learn to stand tall. I realized that every company was once just an individual struggle, and every CEO-ship was once just a start…

In 2010, Shahzad took his brother’s advice and registered his company in USA. He worked day and night and built his credibility in the remote work industry and continued to build his team. Despite all hurdles, he stayed consistent and expanded his business to hundreds of workers from Pakistan, Philippines, India, USA, South America, and Europe.

I have been running this business remotely for nine years now! I manage call center locations myself in Karachi (Pakistan) and in Houston (USA), and then have partners run several call center locations in the Philippines.

Shahzad initially faced the common issues of remote team members. However, after sporadic work and trials and errors, IdeasUnlimited developed a very effective recruitment and monitoring process that facilitates competent workers in achieving the results expected by the clients. There is no discrimination and IdeasUnlimited promotes an inclusive workplace for anyone who is willing to unleash their potential and achieve results.

Now we have highly professional and trained HR and Administration teams, along with precisely tested processes to assure top productivity and efficiency, and a workforce that possess the required skills, attitude, and intent to do well.

Over time Shahzad has trained himself to stay calm and not let anxious thoughts take over his decision-making ability. He did not let initial failures deter his perseverance to achieve his dream. Interestingly, his dream has never been to succeed alone, it has always been about allowing people suffering in any way find HOPE for their future. And quitting was never an option.

This [quitting] never crossed my mind even when we went down to only one major project in 2013 for three to four months. We had a major downfall for no discernable reason, but quitting was just not an option.

The beauty of a struggle is that it helps you relate to those who are in the same boat. But the beauty of success comes when you work to let others be a part of the new possibilities too. It is when you build collaboratively to help others benefit from it as well. Shahzad proves how honest struggle creates empathy and the desire to improve the lot of others like you.

Knowing and having gone through such feelings [anxiety] and then finding remote work, which helped me gain my confidence back in life, has convinced me to show this path to others as well.

IdeasUnlimited in the Future

Shahzad often talks about mutual growth and giving back to society. He frequently initiates discussions about global social and economic concerns on the company’s platforms and I find him very ambitious towards finding solutions to major world problems. He envisions an inclusive company that provides opportunities for those with talent and one that sponsors education for orphans and the less fortunate all over the world.

He sees the remote work industry expanding in terms of innovation, coverage, and workforce. But he is looking forward to this industry getting globally regulated and judicated to meet new challenges of fraud and digital deception.

IdeasUnlimited is one of the highest-ranking companies for remote contracts and has recently won recognition on Clutch Awards and The Manifest. Shahzad thinks it is because of his team that his vision is gradually becoming a reality.

Shahzad values his workers and strictly believes in mutual growth. He always mentions each one of the senior members of his team in connection to IdeasUnlimited’s consistent upward track record.

With the same regard and passion, he wants to take the company forward in a way that it is rewarding for all those involved.

IdeasUnlimited is aspiring to become a company that meets the expectations of its clients at competitive pricing while the workers grow professionally, without being restricted by any personal circumstances.

IdeasUnlimited gives me hope for all the conditioned workers in the labor force today—they too can work with a vibrant, growing company and build their remote careers. I will always be proud to have worked in an organization that values and builds its success with people, without discriminating or benching someone for something beyond their control.

It is a company that is future forward. It has the potency to help millennials choose their lifestyle as well as workstyle.

Shahzad Yaqoob has been successful in creating an organization that has commendable work ethics and quality of service while focusing on agility and technical standards required by their fast-paced, modern clients.

Shahzad has learnt the art of balancing life and work and not taking anything for granted. He is helping others strive for this balance too by believing in their strengths and conquering the odds set against them.

If you are interested in Shahzad’s complete narrative, you will find here a detailed question and answer session I had with the CEO of IdeasUnlimited. It is a story of his perseverance and personal struggles that have led to the success of many.

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Aug08
0

The Future of Omnichannel Customer Support is NOW!

By | Backend Support Services, Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Employee Management, Entrepreneurship, Remote Work, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant | No Comments

Not very long ago, customer services were predicted to get revolutionized leaps and bounds by the end of next decade. The future is already here! A future-oriented customer service center focuses on all key aspects of modern consumer preferences delivered jointly, through groundbreaking interactive technology and optimally skilled call center support teams.

Plenty of new trends have infiltrated into customer services and support services over the time.  Many predictions were called and some of them have stood the test of time well. Digital innovation has transformed a customer service center in terms of communication channels, modes, services, time zones, and digital and human interactions.

Today, customer service is rapidly weaving into the core and unified systems of a business setup. Thanks to cloud-based technology, a customer service center is now a successful integration of skilled humans, innovative processes, and cutting-edge technology.

Creative disruption is playing a critical role in this integration. Work centers are decentralized, and innovation is elevating and sharing operations across desks and boundaries. In such an environment, a reliable firm can play a vital role in creating such synergy for you, and that too cost effectively. It can help you set a truly omnichannel customer experience by knitting marketing, PR, helpdesks, and social media together.

Why do you need a specialized customer service center if digitization is taking over? Let’s answer this question after we consider some features of a future-oriented customer service center that are proving to be absolutely necessary and seem to be bringing in the revolution at a faster pace:

  1. Personalized Omnichannel Support

Customer experience has been bombarded with several buzzwords, new concepts, and practices since last two decades. Creating value for customers has taken the forefront in service delivery and communication has become the key. This ‘communication’ is multifaceted and multichannel-ed; therefore, it is polarized into automation and live person-person talking.

Companies are using customer demographics extensively to sieve customers through their communication network. They have social media, telephone, and email to connect to its customers. With social media customer services as a first priority for Gen Z, Millennials preferring live chats and video calls, and Gen X reaching out to a live customer service representative, the newest ways of integrating social media, voice infrastructure, and CRM systems have to be worked on. However, telephonic conversations are a priority for they bring the most personalization, better Customer Effort Scores, and ease of shifting between mediums to resolve complex issues in a timely manner.

  2. Voiceprint Identification

There has been an exponential increase in the use of smart devices since 2000s and this will further increase by 2025. This takes us to the next aspect of personalization and customized customer support.

A future-oriented customer service center is now working towards ‘Token-ising’ the identity of a caller through voice recognition. This information is passed through the data channels and information is sorted and displayed for the customer service representative accordingly. This will help in end to end encryption, identification, and verification of data through core contact centers and CRM applications. Moreover, this helps the agents deliver exceptional level of personalized services without wasting time on gathering primary information each time. Long wait time for retrieving customer history puts off the modern consumer. Nor do they like repeating themselves at each interaction.

  3. Shopping the Customer Experience

Another complementary feature is the growing trend of letting the customers ‘shop customer service experience’ for themselves. This means customers can see a list of agents available, their characteristics, experiences, lingual skills, technical skills, location, and reviews. Depending upon their preferences, they can select an agent and a communication channel.

Customers can further decide if they want to share their profile with these agents for all future interactions and solutions. This signifies the worth and impact of quality human-to-human interaction. This also emphasizes the fact that consumers are not ready to compromise on time or quality of their interactions. They are comfortable in share their profiles if they expect credible value in return.

  4. Video Sessions

The key is to avoid any communication break, which might lead to customer churn. This has led to a movement between different communication mediums at a given time. Resultantly, there is a growing need to manage the shift from interactive channels to interactive sessions in customer dealings.

Nothing works in isolation in this new customer service center model. Therefore, these customer engagement sessions can start from an interactive self-help library search and move to real time

chat, then to voice and video chat in one complete session.  A smart contact customer service center needs to incorporate video support calls, which will be the main differentiator of premium services.

Video calling will be augmented through rich data, content, and tools. Just like telephonic conversation with a customer service representative, looking at an agent on your mobile screens will help develop a better and more emotionally stronger bond of understanding and credibility for the customers. It will help meet the quintessential need to employ technology but keep the human contact intact.

Future of Customer Service Center - IdeasUnlimited

  5. Data Enrichment and Advanced Analytical Tools

Data Enrichment and Big Data are proving to be game changers. Tools for capturing data, analysis, and transforming insights into valuable actions for customer experiences will continue to gain importance. Detailed analysis is required for understanding customer journeys, identifying bottlenecks, improving customer touch points, and reducing customer effort in order to increase brand loyalty.

Customer feedback and survey analysis, social media traffic analysis, and text and speech analytics can help in highlighting issues as well as in bringing continuous improvements in the future. Smart workers in smart contact centers will be able to generate and handle data analytics in a sophisticated manner to yield maximum benefits for the company. A well-rounded team in a customer service center can not only record data but also gather individual and specific feedbacks and use advanced tools for results.

  6. Proactive Sales and Marketing

The customer service center is also becoming a part of proactive sales and marketing operations. It helps businesses monitor and track service or product usage to offer resubscriptions, updates, or repairs. These marketing offers target customer engagement and customer loyalty by making it easier for customers to decide, purchase, and use.

This task is informed through data analytics but captured by humans sitting in a customer service center. Your future-oriented customer service center requires a unified system of information exchange and strategy to provide value to their customers in order to build brand value.

All the above-mentioned features are the uncontested need of the hour and requirement to be part of the future. It is very evident that human factor has not been and cannot be discounted when it comes to the future of customer services.

To step into the future you require a technically adaptive customer service center, where a multitasking agent can competently resolve complex issues by escalating between channels and take a customer interaction from start to finish without breaks. As you cannot drop communication to change channels, you can also not drop communication to change agents.

A 24/7 diverse and dedicated multilingual customer service center is not just an add-on to reap the benefits of globalized business environment, it has become the necessity and a basic need for globalized business operations. You do not have to wait any further to shift to a more sophisticated, and digitally advanced customer support that is inclusive of the winning human factor. Contact a specialized call center support provider and get a customized solution right away!