Not yet taking advantage of computerized scheduling?

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Not yet taking advantage of computerized scheduling, dispatching and other daily business tasks? Here are two Web-based solutions, which could get you to erase the whiteboard for good.

Aimed at helping small- to mid-sized field service businesses, and customizable for HVAC service contractors, each solution includes capabilities designed to facilitate customer relationship management and job scheduling, dispatching, tracking, billing and invoicing entirely through the Internet. The applications can handle multiple location operations. With either solution, the developer/host maintains the software and hardware for a very affordable monthly fee. There is nothing to download or install — users log in from any computer, laptop or PDA connected to the Internet in the office or in the field, or before or after hours at home.

Bella Solutions Field Service Software v. 4.2, www.bellasolutions.com, supports company customization of estimate, work order and invoice PDF forms with company logo, terms and conditions, and other defined inputs for a minimal fee: $49 per month for the first user, and $10 per month for each additional user (a free trial is available).

The program enables scheduling of emergency, one-time, multi-visit or periodically recurring jobs with drag and drop appointments. Management can schedule by viewing the availability of an individual technician or by an available date and time on the calendar.

Diverse calendar views support viewing of schedules for individual field resources, groups or the entire company by day, week and month. A color coded calendar allows users to identify assigned employees, vendors, location zones and job status at a glance, which can be an aid in fitting in additional work. Users can schedule recurring appointments daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. The application integrates with Google Maps for easy viewing and printing of driving directions to customer locations. It also features a personal dashboard for each technician that displays only his or her assigned jobs and to-do list.

If a technician in the field carries an Internet-connected mobile phone or PDA, a scheduler can send a text message alert of any new or updated job appointment. The technician, in turn, can update real-time information, including labor hours and job costs from the field. In addition, Internet-enabled technicians in the field can create a job estimate onsite, during a service call.

Customer relationship management capabilities include contacts, locations and job history details, including labor hours, expenses, materials, equipment and notes. Equipment tracking, including make, model, serial number and full service history and warranty information, can also be attached to a specific job and work order.

Accounting features include the ability to create invoices for a completed job or for partial payment, and to track open, outstanding and paid invoices. If a company prefers, transactions can be exported to QuickBooks or other accounting software.

Contractors can give approved customers online access through a special customer portal, for an additional $25 per month per 100 customers, which provides numerous self-service options such as requesting a new job or viewing open work orders or job history details.

http://contractormag.com/columns/feldman/field-service-management-solutions-1109/

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Internet Marketing 101

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Bella Solutions

When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?

For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

While there are many more aspects to internet marketing than just permission-based email marketing, email has definitely been the cornerstone on which our business is built.

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Accounting CRM Software-Does Your Small Business Need it?

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Bella Solutions

CRM is one of those acronyms that is used often in business, what does this mean? and can it help my small business? Is an accounting CRM software system really something I should get?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Think about what that means for a minute. Customer Relationship Management. This is genuinely vital for modern businesses. Most businesses don’t just deal with a customer once and after this finished. They try to keep their customers coming back and using them time and again.

But how do you keep track of all of your clients? How do you discern who is the best recipient for a new service you are trying out? Who do you send coupons to?

Accounting CRM software causes this painless. Fundamentally, CRM software is a customer database system which handles every one of the features of CRM discussed above as well as lots of additional features depending on which software you select to get. This is a necessary tool for a lot of businesses. CRM keeps a record of your patrons in a really clever means.

CRM software is being used to a greater extent commonly in businesses large and small to support their customer support systems. Accounting CRM software is painless to use and entirely customizable.

One of its top operations are in call centers. The software is able to maintain a record of what the customer’s problem is and what needs to be finished to repair it. It next keeps track of what is being completed to fix it. So if at any stage in the progression the client or an worker needs to understand where it is at in the procedure, they can open it up in the software and discover straight away.

With growing businesses installing call centers, CRM accounting software starts to be growingly indispensable. Subsequently have the software look after the campaign and track its development.

Operational CRM process-this is solely a term which means the acceptance of a client’s data in the CRM catalog. For example, a customer comes and purchases a product. This makes the CRM to bring up the customer’s information including any older purchases, letting the salesperson to advise any added products based on earlier purchases. CRM will maintain a comprehensive account on each client.

You can see why CRM in a sales department is necessary This will more clearly let you identify which leads will become sales based on historical performance and other telling info.

Using a common reports module, you can easily look for new markets which are similar to yours that do not have too much competition. This allows you to create or find new products to serve your existing customer base.

CRM software systems permit you to easily investigate your opposition. This in itself can be a valuable device for businesses. CRM’s complaints and suggestions modules can be easily used to organize customer feedback. From this information, you can make alterations in your present business.

Accounting CRM software is able to furthermore keep up your campaigns with its optional campaign management function. You are able to initiate a campaign from right inside the program.

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Proven Tactics For Creating Customer Loyalty

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Bella Solutions

The amount of time and energy that savvy Internet marketers spend getting massive, laser-targeted traffic to their websites can be challenging enough. But what about having to deal with customers? As their business becomes more and more hectic, customer service issues can sometimes be put on the back burner — particularly if one is trying to juggle all the balls at one time in his/her business.

Of course, business owners would never intentionally neglect their customers. After all, customers are the lifeblood of any business. It’s just that when one is attempting to serve people from all 4 corners of the earth, customer service issues can become less than what they should be. The fact is, the last thing you want are unhappy customers because if you don’t service them properly, somebody else will.

Since most business owners would agree that the customer is king, all they really need in their businesses, is an effective and efficient method of automating their customer service tasks, without drawing attention away from their other business activities. And thankfully, there is indeed help for these stressed-out business owners, who are looking to vastly improve their customer service issues. This help is in the form of an incredible piece of software called the 3 Pillars Help Desk. With this amazing software, business owners can now:

1) Keep tabs on all queries, and respond to those that are the most urgent.

2) Check the status of all queries any time, by accessing an FAQ database.

3) Customize who has access to certain administrative areas.

4) Install the software without being a “tech wizard”, and working with easily.

Here are some other things for you to consider. When it comes to the success of your business, it’s up to the customer. Even if you employ the best marketing techniques in the world; none of them are going to work if you can’t keep your customers happy. If a client feels like their dealing with robots all the time, or their queries take too long to be answered, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

Simply by taking care of your customers, you’ll foster an environment of security, confidence and loyalty with them. And that’s something you simply can’t buy at any price. You can certainly thank your lucky stars the 3 Pillars Help Desk software can and will assist you in vastly improving this most important aspect of your everyday business activities, as well as improving your bottom line in the process.

The rewards you’ll receive as a result of taking care of your customers simply can’t be measured, because they’d be off the charts. There’s nothing like having customers who are satisfied with you and your business practices. For every person that’s happy with the way you conduct business, that person will probably tell 3 other people about your company. But every dissatisfied person, will tell (at least) 10 other people to avoid you like the plague. So what does this say? It says this: most people will be quick to tell others about a bad experience they had with your company, before they’ll say something positive about it to others.

Click Here For Free Information About Proven Tactics For Creating Customer Loyalty

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Help Desks – Quality Customer Service

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Help desks play a very important role for your business when it comes to customer satisfaction. Therefore, in order to ensure quality customer support service, it’s very important for you to choose your option carefully. There can be different types of help desk solutions, such as web-based systems, phone based systems, technical support, etc. No matter which type or types of help desks you’ve chosen for your business, you want to make sure that your chosen system is capable enough to offer your customers an efficient solution to all their queries.

Developing A Good Relationship With Customers Through Help & Support

You can use the help and support system of your company to develop a good relationship with your customers. This is where you’re recommended to keep the following things in mind while you’re implementing help desks support into your organization.

1) The help and support system must be implemented in a way that should show that your company values its customers. The system must greet the customers whenever they lodge a ticket. Always remember that if customers start to believe that they’re valued, they’re likely to have a much longer relationship with your business.

2) If the help desks you’ve implemented are phone based, it’s very important for you to make sure that the customer service representatives are cheerful and polite. It’s always advisable to train them regarding how to receive calls, listen to the customers’ queries, and offer the proper responses. Irrespective of how unhappy a customer is, the representatives need to maintain their cool.

3) The choice of words plays a very important role when it comes to interacting with customers on phone. For example, you must understand the difference between “I don’t know anything about that” and “I know exactly how to assist you”. There’s a world of difference between the two statements. Of course, the latter is more effective, as it’s more polite and exudes positivism.

4) Always keep in mind that customers want and expect your company to be honest with them. They want to deal with something and someone they can trust. Therefore, you must implement the help desks in a way so that it can deliver what it promises. If the help and support system is unable to do that, it’ll eventually be doing your business a great disservice.

5) Whether the help and support system is based on phone, fax, or e-mail, make sure that it allows the customers to access you 24/7. And finally, the support system must also be capable of delivering quick responses. Overall, poor customer service can be disastrous for any business. Therefore, be very careful while you’re implementing help desks.

Click Here For Free Information About Quality Customer Service

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IT Help Desk Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Bella Solutions

When it comes to achieving breakthrough improvements in corporate and IT effectiveness, IT help desk customer satisfaction surveys play an important role. There are plenty of reasons why such surveys should be conducted. For one thing, they offer a wide array of benefits for your business.

What Kind Of Services Are Measured?

Such surveys are used to measure different kinds of IT services, which may include IT employee satisfaction, project management office effectiveness, project effectiveness feedback, IT training for IT employees and customers, IT procurement, hardware repair, server operations, software development, and resolver applications maintenance support.

Besides that, IT help desk customer satisfaction surveys also measures the regular services, which include help desk support, break fix support, and desk side service and support. These surveys are also used to measure the install, move, add, and change support – it’s usually referred to as IMAC support.

Survey Metrics

Depending upon the type of IT help desk customer satisfaction surveys that’s being conducted, the performance metrics may include some (or all) of the following.

The effectiveness of problem resolutions
Communications effectiveness
Timeliness of problem resolutions
Intranet uptime
The effectiveness of systems developed
The effectiveness of outsourced IT services
The follow up required to ensure a proper resolution
The effectiveness of IT help desk technicians and other staff.

The following are some advantages of taking performance surveys:

These surveys can be used to substantially improve the IT performance, and eventually enables the internal and external customers of the IT help desk to increase their competitiveness, effectiveness, and performance.

You can also use these surveys to point out opportunities and challenges.

You get a better idea regarding how to prioritize IT performance projects and initiatives.

The help desk services achieve breakthrough improvements in different aspects, including problem resolution effectiveness, communications with customers, knowledge, courtesy, professionalism, timeliness, and so on.

The productivity and quality of the IT services are significantly increased.

IT costs are reduced greatly.

IT help desk customer satisfaction surveys help in establishing an effective communication system between IT customers and the help desk service providers.

Depending upon the customer and employee feedback, you can make better business decisions.

You can also use these surveys to get useful information regarding the challenges and opportunities associated with the customer business unit, communication channels, site locations, product, the IT team and agents.

Recurring problems can be easily identified and fixed.

Based on customer feedback as described by the IT help desk customer satisfaction surveys, you can enhance the quality of coaching accordingly.

Overall, when it comes to increasing a company’s performance and competitiveness, such surveys can provide a strong payback.

Click Here For Free Information About The IT Help Desk

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Learning Gardening Services was a #1 move

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Recently I’ve become a provider of gardening services. And though I’ve been doing it for a few months now, I was told very recently that I still can’t refer to myself as a gardener. I’ve been informed that a clear distinction exists between gardening services and landscaping services. Gardeners both maintain outdoor areas, while at the same time are experts in plants and their environments, knowing which plants will fare well in different environments. Landscapers, I was informed, only keep up with existing areas. All that aside, learning how to offer landscaping and gardening services was one of the best things I’ve done this year.

If a person spends enough time at it, gardening will show them almost all they’ll ever need to know in order to keep up with home repairs. Repairing broken sprinklers, building apparatuses for ponds and waterfalls, and setting up retaining walls, one gets to try their hand at plumbing, carpentry, and masonry. Even though I’m still a ways from calling myself an expert in the field of plants and their prime habitats, I’ve gained many of the skills essential for meeting the demands of an aging home. Those skills I’ll hone as much as I can in future months and years.

The other reason why building a collection of gardening services was so satisfying to me, was because it made me feel connected to that old-fashioned master/apprentice model of learning. Doing work for a friend of mine who owns his own gardening business, I was taught gardening firsthand by a man who’d been in the business for over thirty years. Being younger, I have very much enjoyed spending time with a person who is a master at his craft. There’s just something special and rare about that style of learning in our modern day and age. You don’t it much anymore. It’s something I think we’ve lost in this country. Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic. I don’t know.

On the more current, economic side, the demand for gardening services has seen a sharp decline, especially in the state of California, where I reside. During tough economic times, gardeners are seen more as a luxury than a necessity. Add to that the current water crisis in southern California, and you’ve got a very tricky situation for landscapers and gardeners. But the grass still grows as fast as ever, and people will hopefully soon start to miss their landscape professionals. I’ve seen quite a deterioration this year in the upkeep of outdoor landscapes. It seems as though a simple enough thing to maintain a yard, but surprisingly, even keeping up a green lawn can be a formidable task. It’s a shame, not only that gardening services are on the decline, but also that yards are losing their landscape lustre. As things begin to bounce back, I’m hopeful we’ll see a change.

 

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The Best Way To Lower Business Costs

Posted on August 29, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Would you like to reduce your business costs? Do you feel that you need to make cutbacks in order to survive this current recession? If you have answered yes to one or both of these questions then this article may well prove to be of benefit.

 

I wonder how many business owners, company directors or chairman actually ever take a serious look at their monthly business bank accounts. It is quite staggering to see the amount of costs that the average business has to incur. From the electricity bills to paying for the web promotion; there are many different types of costs to pay.

 

In this situation it is prudent to send in the specialists! There are a number of well respected and trusted cost reduction specialists who can help you. Their aim is to enable you to obtain lower business overheads and this is something that they do each and every day of their business lives. They are therefore able to call on a vast amount of experience and are without doubt the best people for the job.

 

So just how do these cost cutting specialists go about lowering a company’s business costs? Well in reality each particular company is different however they are likely to have many contacts within various organisations such as cleaning services, gardening services and communications.

 

This is what happens when you work within the same environment for sometime – you build up a type of network.

 

I am not trying to sell you anything here; I am by no means a cost cutting expert myself; I personally offer a stammering therapy course to help people who have a stammer to achieve fluency. I have however heard many good reports about how successful these cost reduction experts are – they are certainly essential in this current financial climate as it sure is getting quite tough out there.

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Managing Customer Data and Interaction is Critical to the Success of any Business

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Managing customer data and interaction is critical to the success of any business. With Bella Service Software there is no more searching through spreadsheets, emails, and databases. Everything your business needs is located in one place and accessible from any computer, laptop, or PDA at anytime.

Customize Bella to fit your current business process of managing leads, phone and email communications, customer support, and customer service history. Get better visibility into your business by tracking leads and real-time status of customer service request.

With Bella’s easy-to-use interface see an immediate impact to your bottom line by increasing customer satisfaction, closing more deals, lowering costs, and having a real-time view into your business. With Bella’s easy-to-use interface see an immediate impact to your bottom line by enhancing customer satisfaction, closing more deals, lowering costs, and having a real-time view into your business. Field resources have real-time access to customer data while at the service site. Field resources also have the ability to update customer data in real-time for office staff to view.

In addition, a robust Customer Portal feature gives you the ability to greatly improve customer satisfaction by the use of online service requests and updates. Your customers are provided real time access to check Job status and history and provide feedback. Field Service organizations are able to reduce costs by automating this process and increase sales by maximizing field resources time servicing the customer.

About Bella Solutions: Bella provides web-based Service Software or SaaS (Software as a Service) for Field Service companies such as Cleaning Services, IT Services, Contractors, HVAC, and many more. Essentially, the software solution can be utilized in any industry that manages field sales and technicians or remote resources. Bella provides the ability to streamline business operations by providing CRM, Service Job Management, Scheduling Tools, Equipment Tracking, Employee and Vendor Management, Reporting, Accounting, and Inventory Management all from one application accessed from any computer, laptop, or PDA connected to the internet.

For additional information visit Bella’s Service Software

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Providing the Best Customer Service to Maximize Your Business Income

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Bella Solutions

Customer service is easily on of the most important things for a company or business to do, since this can literally make or break it. Many times the quality of customer service can have an effect on the amount of consumers that are attracted to their business, the profit that the business makes, and how the business ultimately does in the long run. Customer service is so important that there are companies that regularly offer required classes or meetings that revolve around the treatment of customers and the like.

Especially in the highly competitive niche, many businesses are competing with each other in the market. Excellent customer service might help you stand out from the crowd.

Taking into consideration how consumers feel and how they are being treated no matter who they are and how they act is crucial to any customer service efforts. You may find that whenever you have gone to an establishment and you received excellent customer service – you almost always wanted to go back, even when you didn’t really need to. But when you were treated rudely, chances are that you would never go back or that you would find a place that will provide you with the treatment that you deserve. 

To provide the best customer service, one should be customer oriented and concerned with the consumers needs before anything else. It might actually be very frustrating to deal with difficult people, yet this is something that anyone can do – especially once they get the hang of calming customers and keeping them happy. Going the extra mile to give consumers the type of treatment and experience that they are in search of is usually what it is all about. Once you figure this out, you will be on your way to providing excellent customer service with almost no effort at all; ensuring you make money at home with your small business.

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