How Safe Is Your Personal Information on Social Media?

Have you ever been approached on the street by some random stranger who knew your name along with some other personal information about you?

Stalker, right? If you geo-target your Twitter Tweets, Instagram pics, or public Facebook posts, that could very well happen to you.

Comedian Jack Vale decided to search through Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms for posts tagged near his location. He stalked the posters’ feeds, called them out in the street, and started conversations around the information that he had learned about them on social media.

Check out the video:

Cnet also reported that whenever you click a Facebook ‘like’ button, your preference is not just shared with your friends and followers, but data about your interests is sent back to Facebook’s servers – ready to be sold to third party advertisers. What’s more, personal data is exchanged when you use apps via Facebook. It has even been reported that signing up for these apps will give those companies who created the apps access to your personal data – even details you specifically told Facebook to keep a secret.

Rule of Thumb: Don’t share any private, confidential information on your social media channels. The less people know about your whereabouts and likings, the better.

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80% of Companies Believe They Provide Good Customer Service

A recent study found that 80% of companies believe that they provide great customer service….unfortunately, only 8% of their customers believed that they actually provided a superior service.

Is your business one of the few that are actually living up to their promises? If so, then it’s very likely that you’re using social media and a customer relationship management tool to enhance your customer service offerings.

In case you’re not 100% sure, this blog post offers you tips on how you can keep your “superior” customer services top notch.

 

customer service

 

1. Be Personable & Social

The moment that consumers have a negative experience with a business, one of the first things they do is make a complaint on Yelp or Google+. If they feel they’ve been cheated, they will want the whole world to know how bad they thought your business was. When this happens, you should already have staff in place that will find these people and try to resolve their problems, professionally. When you do this, you are letting other customers and prospects witness how your business actually takes care of its customers and complaints.

 

2. Exceed Expectations

Over 55% of consumers don’t expect their complaints or inquiries to be responded to within an hour. What happens if you exceed their expectations? What if you had a social media manager or CRM software that could help you pinpoint the issue and resolve it in 30 minutes or less? It would significantly improve your customer service and exceed your customers’ expectations.

 

3. Make things convenient

Now a day, customers expect almost real-time complaint resolution and want to be able to communicate with organizations through a wide variety of channels (email, phone, SMS, mail, Web, social media). If a customer complaints to you on Facebook, don’t respond through email or a phone call. Respond on the platform so that the customer used, so all others viewing the complaint will see how you resolved it. Once the complaint has been addressed, offer the customers other ways to get a reach of you if they have any other concerns or questions.

 

4. Keep a record!

Be sure to record each and every complaint you receive in your CRM system, no matter how small or innocent it may seem. This will give insight into what processes are consistently going wrong in your business. CRM software can help keep things from slipping through the cracks, but in order for it to be effective, the information needs to be collected and analyzed.

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How to Respond to Complaints with Contact Management System

Just last week, I was dealing with a service outage in my area. The internet as well as the phone lines and television services were not working. I called my service provider for assistance and they told me that they wouldn’t be able to fix the issue until a week later. I wanted to cancel because my alarm system was not working and causing me to have security concerns.

In this midst of finding out information about cancellation, the customer service representative’s line got disconnected. I wasn’t quite sure what to do because I had a contract with the service provider and wanted to weigh my options. Instead of calling me back, the CSR immediately assumed that cancellation was the only way out for me and cancelled my services. When I tried calling back, the tech department told me the billing department was closed. The next day I spent 6 hours, with long wait holds, on the phone trying to get an answer out of them. Upon the 6 hour mark, I decided to cancel because I was tired of being transferred from billing to technical from technical to billing and from billing to management.

Two hours after cancellation, I get a call from the retention department. They were sad to see me go after only 7 months with them. I was shocked! I was a customer of theirs for 7 months in my current location. In my previous residence, I was their customer since 2002. The bottom line was they would not tear up a contract for interruptions, large or small. Irregardless of the security concerns it was causing.

After careful consideration, I called and emailed the level 3 manager I previously spoke with about continuing our discussion about customer retention. I was promised a call back within 24 hours. 1 week later, I still have not received a call from that manager. What I did receive was an email blast from the VP of Loyalty telling me that he is sorry to see me go and recommended that I call their retention department to get the best deals.

If the company had invested in a proper contact management system, they would have known that I was interested in staying on and already tried to email and call the level 3 manager who clearly was avoiding my calls and emails. It is also safe to say that if they had a comprehensive contact management software they would have known that I was their client since 2002 and not for 7 months.

I am the first to admit that sales and customers are two of the most sensitive topics in the world of business. First impressions are very important and you don’t want to start off your relationship with prospects and customers on the wrong foot. Here are some tips you can follow when responding to a complaint or negative review.

 

customer service - contact management system

 

Stay Calm

When you receive a complaint about your business, your automatic reaction will be to respond immediately, defending yourself and trying to make things right. The problem with this is your emotional response will probably not sound too professional. Stick to a rule of waiting a couple hours before responding. This will give you time to calm and allow you to think straight.

 

Acknowledge their feedback

It may seem wrong at first to thank someone for complaining about your business, but just like in real life, courtesy can go a long way in putting out the fire. Start off your response by thanking the commenter for their constructive feedback and immediately follow that with an apology that they were unhappy. Encourage the commenter to contact you in person so that you can immediately rectify the situation.

 

Be honest

If there’s a true, honest explanation for why your customer had a bad experience, be open about it. Perhaps it was all just a big misunderstanding. Lay your cards on the table. Just keep it brief. If there isn’t an explanation, don’t be tempted to make up an excuse. Just own the fact that what happened did happen and it’s time to move past it.

 

Take action

Propose a solution to the complainant, if possible, that will help correct the problem at hand. Make sure that they understand their business is very important to you. Offer a discount on future services. But don’t get too carried away. Sometimes there’s no pleasing for an upset customer. Going back and forth may not do you any good.

 

Invest in Contact Management System!

Most often, customers aren’t happy with the services they receive because they feel that the service provider does not understand their needs and does not fit their goals. It’s a learning curve for some organization and business leaders  who should be looking at complaints as something positive and something that they could utilize to improve the organization in the future. A good place to start is to purchase a comprehensive contact management system, such as InfoFlo.

A comprehensive contact management software allows you to input as many important details about a customer or prospect as possible. Information can include invoices sent to customers, recent transactions, contracts signed, important milestones, birthdays of C-Level executives etc. You can even set yourself reminders in the calendar to ensure you don’t forget to follow up with them and see how they’re doing. Another purpose of setting up reminders is so that you can send occasional email blasts to those customers/prospects to show your appreciation for their business.

 

Your feedback about our services and our products is very important to us. We incorporate your comments into R&D and to delivering solutions that align with your requirements. Download your free trial today. 

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The Differences Between Outlook & CRM Software

What is CRM?

The easiest way to define CRM is to call it customer relationship software. It describes a wide variety of software programs, both on and off the web, that promote better customer contact via a complete, well- organized data system. It can greatly enhance any organization’s administration since it links contact information with a large number of data points, including emails, relevant documents, purchase orders and more.

What are the differences between CRM and Outlook?

At first glance it may seem as though there are very few differences between CRM software and Outlook. Both are email clients that also have unique ways of storing client contact information. However, the difference become most apparent when one considers all that CRM software enables users to do above and beyond mere contact and email management.

CRM Goes Beyond Outlook

Even a basic contact management system is able to increase the capabilities of most businesses, and with additional features called add-ons, many software companies take the level of sophistication even further. For instance, the project management add-on allows users to coordinate project organization strategies with contact information, creating numerous ways to cross-connect information for perfect project completion.

What About Companies Reluctant to Abandon Outlook?

Outlook is perhaps the most popular email client around and has a great reputation as a solid contact manager, but companies should keep in mind that there are numerous Outlook alternatives that are highly capable of doing the job. For those who are reluctant to part with their tried and true Outlook configurations, but would still like to partake of the versatility a more advanced CRM system has to offer, it’s important to note that most contact management software s are compatible with Outlook and fairly easy to integrate.

Get the Best of Both Worlds

One convenient way to get around the fact that, as an Outlook reliant business, there’s plenty of progress your company could be missing out on, is to consider investing in an Outlook compatible CRM system.

The CarmelVision Infoflo Outlook Alternative & Contact Management System, for instance, offers all the flexibility of a genuine CRM system, and it’s easily integrated with Outlook. With the INfoflo system, all Outlook data can be imported hassle-free. This means you never even have to think about starting over from scratch.  Let Infoflo, with its affordable and customizable contact management software, do all the work for you. Find out more here.

 

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Should You Trade in Your Old Phone for the New iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus?

If you are thinking of purchasing the new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, consider trading in your old iPhones or Android phones first. There are several options for trading in old devices that can significantly cut down on the cost of purchasing the most anticipated phone of 2014, and most of the trade-in options are very easy to obtain and good bargains.

Verizon, for example, is giving its customers a $200 trade-in gift card for their iPhone 4, 4s, 5, or 5c and a $300 gift card for their iPhone 5s. Consumers must be willing to purchase a new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus on a new Verizon Edge two year contract.

Retailers like Target and Best Buy are also offering trade-in opportunities for consumers and Apple enthusiasts. Best Buy currently offers $310 for a 32GB iPhone 5s in good working condition, while Target offers $247.50 for the same device.

Rogers Communications in Canada has launched their Trade-Up program as well and permits customers to bring in an old smartphone or tablet and get credit towards the purchase of the new iPhone. The program is powered by Clover Wireless, so Rogers is really receiving the device on behalf of another company; a third party. All you have to do is bring your old smartphone or tablet to your local participating Rogers store. The device must be able to power up and have a working touchscreen with no cracks. iPhone 6

About InfoFlo

Couple your new iPhone purchase with a new CRM software for your office team.

InfoFlo is a powerful small to mid-sized business CRM software. The CRM software offers more than 40 integrated features including automatic linking of all emails to contacts, document management, collaboration, social media integration, email marketing and much more. By providing users with 360 degree visibility into all activities linked to specific contacts and shared projects, users can easily improve the efficiency of their customer facing processes, while decreasing their software costs through InfoFlo’s revolutionary pricing model.

You’re just 30 Seconds away from your free 30 Day Trial of InfoFlo! Download your free trial here.

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