Whats the Best Way to “Earn Money At Home”?
Written on January 22, 2010 by admin
Customer Service Makeover
Written on January 20, 2010 by admin
Customer service is truly the lifeblood of any small business. Small businesses generally can’t compete with big box stores and bigger corporations on price, but customer service can provide small businesses with a competitive edge – if you do it right.
So this Customer Service Makeover focuses on making sure that your small business provides the kind of customer service that builds customer loyalty, gives positive word-of-mouth advertising, and increases sales – in short, the good, better or even superior customer service that consumers want. Here’s what to do:
1) Find out what shape your customer service is in right now.
Before you can improve your customer service, you need to find out what it’s like at this point in time for customers/clients to do business with you. The best way to do this is to interview or survey your customers/clients.
Put Some Extra Eyes on your Customer Service provides suggestions for eliciting feedback from your customers.
Insurance premiums tipped to jump as claims rise and profits sink
Written on January 20, 2010 by admin
Insurance premiums for professional indemnity insurance, directors and officers insurance, workers compensation and commercial vehicle insurance are tipped to rise after a horror year for the sector.
The forecasts, contained in a report by accounting firm Deloitte and investment bank JP Morgan, come as the insurance sector struggles to recover from a disastrous 2009 financial year, when industry profits fell due to increased claims, catastrophes and increased competition.
Commercial insurance lines (including building, vehicle and director’s insurances) are tipped to see an average rate rise of 6%, while personal lines (vehicle and home and contents insurance) are tipped to climb 7%.
This follows an average 4% jump in commercial premiums in 2009 and an 8% jump in personal premiums.
JP Morgan senior insurance research analyst Siddharth Parameswaran says the increase in commercial premiums was felt most at the small and medium end of the business market.
He says the new increases for 2010 mark a real change in the sector’s pricing cycle, which has helped business customers over the past few years.
“This is a real turn in the cycle since there have been premium decreases in a majority of classes for a number of years.
Do homeowners need more bonds?
Written on January 20, 2010 by admin
Professor Milevsky discourses in his new book on the need to diversify financial portfolios with respect to “holistic balance sheets.” But what about the house you own: should it be included on your holistic balance sheet? And should you diversify your financial portfolio with respect to that asset as well?
I haven’t found much discussion so far on this facet in Milevsky’s book – even though it would seem to be a logical extension of the main thesis.
I have also wondered about this in the past. To wit: many homeowners have financial portfolios with high allocations to stocks. That seems rather undiversified given both house values and stocks are similarly affected by the state of the economy. For example, if you have been laid off in a recession and are facing the prospect of selling your house at a loss, your portfolio is likely to be way down too.
Shouldn’t homeowners with financial portfolios perhaps have higher allocations to bonds and GICs for the sake of diversification? Having wondered
Going all-out at All Over Albany?
Written on January 19, 2010 by admin
ALBANY — Two years ago, the Web site run by Greg Dahlmann and Mary Darcy was a fledgling start-up, and it was unclear if there was demand in the Capital Region for its online mix of information and entertainment.
But today, All Over Albany is an established, if still small, part of the area’s media landscape.
The site — alloveralbany.com — has about 40,000 unique visitors a month, Dahlmann and Darcy say. And it sells enough advertising that the pair have mostly been able to leave their day jobs behind.
“Things have gone pretty much as expected,” said Dahlmann.
“Or as we hoped, anyway,” added Darcy.
But how much more can the All Over Albany audience grow? Is everybody who’d be interested in reading its content already doing so? Or is there a large audience of folks who haven’t discovered the site?
Those are questions that Darcy and Dahlmann expect — or hope — to answer this year.