Archive for June 2011
Guidelines For Choosing A Customer Service Call Center
Customer service is key to retaining your clientele, but it can be a challenge to manage in operational terms. A recent study by Forrester Consulting found that consumers rate automated telephone customer service higher than live agents for some straightforward transactions. The study also found that the majority of consumers were not satisfied with their customer service experiences. Using a mix of both automated and live customer service can be the way to keep your customers loyal to you. Better still, outsourcing this process will ensure that a professional answers your customer’s queries round the clock, so that their queries are answered whenever they call for assistance.
Contracting an outside provider to manage customer support will ensure better service for your customers at an affordable cost. Here are some guidelines to follow for hiring a customer service call center-
* Look for an established company which has a reputation for prompt service. It should have a strong technical team so that there are no glitches whether the system you are using is voice based or non-voice based.
* In case you are using an overseas telephone customer support provider, it should have training provisions for its staff, so that your customers are able to communicate with them easily. If a customer finds it difficult to make the staff understand his or her requirement, you may lose the business.
* Helpdesk services are available round the clock at an affordable cost if you outsource them. However, take the time to understand the terms and conditions of the contract before you hire the business process outsourcing service provider.
* A service level agreement can help you monitor the company’s performance. If it maintains or exceeds the level of service determined upon, you may choose to renew their contract or sign up for extra services.
* Appoint a person within your company to manage the transition process, so that your customers are not inconvenienced. It is also sensible to make one of your employees responsible for coordinating with the company.
Hiring a reliable customer service call center can ensure you have the time and resources to focus on your core competency. The company you choose should have experienced staff members so that they can handle a variety of customer queries. Providence BPO has over a hundred staff members with more than twenty years of experience in the industry, and they specialize in providing customized solutions for your customer support needs!
Ethics in Business ? From Compliance to Commitment
By the time this article goes to print all of us will surely have had our fill of news reports about Conrad Black’s infamous lawsuit. We’ll likely be numb to the never ending allegations of fraudulent practices at Nortel. But, how many of us as human resource professionals will be asking, ‘What does this have to do with me?’
It seems that, by and large, human resource professionals have been quite happy to have the accountability for their company’s business ethics and code of business conduct rest with their legal or audit departments. In so doing, human resource professionals miss an opportunity to help their companies shift from merely being compliant with the law to demonstrating their company’s firm and unwavering commitment to build an ethical business culture.
The ‘iceberg model’ helps us to better appreciate the influences that may undermine a company’s policies and practices with respect to business ethics. Think of the ‘the Law’ and your company’s Code of Business Conduct Policy as the tip of the iceberg, visible above the surface. Now, think about the influences that exist below the surface lurking within many companies. Things like:
· Pressures to conform (“Hey, we always take off early Friday afternoons, you need to join us or else someone’s going to take notice”)
· Desire to please (“I picked up the tab for a lunch I had with my boss. He told me it was the only way he could expense it without needing to get further approval. I did it because I wanted to stay on his good side!”)
· Accepted practices (“Don’t worry, we give box seat tickets to all our clients and they sure don’t have any problem with accepting them!”)
· Performance drivers (“Hey, maybe we should just alter our numbers a bit. If we do, we’re sure to be in the top category for a bonus this year!”)
When asked, most of us do not hesitate to say that we are ‘ethical’. In fact some people are offended when asked to sign a document confirming they have read and understood their company’s Code of Business Conduct Policy. However, what we fail to recognize and appreciate is our ability to rationalize our own behavior. Sometimes we justify our actions so convincingly that we no longer even perceive that what we are doing is inherently wrong or unethical. For example:
Career Clusters, a Bridge Between Education and Career Planning
Since 1960s, career cluster resources have been used as career exploration and planning tools in schools, learning communities, and organizations across the nation. Career Clusters is a system that matches educational and career planning.
Step 1: Identifying Career Cluster Interest Areas
Career clusters are groups of similar occupations and industries. When teachers, counselors, and parents work with teens, college students, and adults, the first step is to complete career cluster assessment. The assessment identifies the highest career cluster areas. Career assessments show teens, college students, and adults rankings from one of the following 16 Interests Areas or Clusters:
1. Agriculture, Food, & Natural Resources
2. Architecture & Construction
3. Arts, A/V Technology & Communication
4. Business, Management & Administration
5. Education & Training
6. Finance
7. Government & Public Administration
8. Health Science
9. Hospitality & Tourism
10. Human Services
11. Information Technology
12. Law, Public Safety & Security
13. Manufacturing
14. Marketing, Sales & Service
15. Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
16. Transportation, Distribution & Logistics
Step 2: Exploring Career Clusters and Related Careers
After pinpointing the highest career clusters, teens, college students, and adults explore the different careers and create education plans. Career cluster tools used in career and educational planning include:
LISA: A comprehensive career cluster database
Models
Brochures
Pathways
High school plan of study
Interest and Skills Areas
Crosswalks
After completing a career cluster assessment, teens, college students, and adults look at web sites, career models, brochures, pathways, and high school plans. One of the most unique comprehensive career cluster resources is the Louisiana Integrated Skills Assessment (LISA), an Internet program. LISA lets you explore career clusters, careers, abilities, training requirements, and more. There are 3 steps in the LISA program:
STEP 1: Click here to select a Career Cluster,
STEP 2: Click here to select a Career Group
STEP 3: Explore Occupations within this Career Group
In Step 1, when you choose a career cluster, you will see a description of the cluster. When you select a career group in Step 2, you see different careers. Finally, in Step 3, you see a wealth of information:
Inculcation of Ethics Through Education and Globalization Effects on Ethics
Inculcation of Ethics Through Education and Globalization
Effects on Ethics
INTRODUCTION
‘The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government’………….. Thomas Jefferson.
‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist’……………..Dom Helder Camara.
Now we are living in the technological modern world. Science and Technology have a prominent role in the development of the any nation in the world. India is a developing county in the world. Indian economy is the fourth largest economy in the world. According to 2001 census the literacy rate of India is 64.84%. It is very less when compared to developed county in the world. The Planning Commission made a survey for finding out the number of persons below poverty line and estimated that 18.96% of the total peoples live below poverty line as of the year 1993-94. It is necessary to take care about poor and illiteracy.
ETHICS
Ethics is a major branch of philosophy, encompasses right conduct and good life. It is significantly broader than the common conception of analyzing right and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is “the good life”, the life worth living or life that is satisfying, which is held by many philosophers to be more important than moral conduct. The major problem is the discovery of the summum bonum, the greatest good.
Ethics are related to institutions and rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and human rights accordingly stem from ethics even if no moral grounds can be adduced. Yet moral grounds are to be found everywhere, including science. From the point where, in the name of ethics, science itself does not fall outside this domain, morals, similarly, do not lie outside the realm of ethics as ethics are a profoundly human, secular construction in so far as they represent a conscious choice or plan and a legal endeavour in terms of the law. The confusion that exists between rights and values on the one hand and between morals and ethics on the other lie at the heart of the debate on universal ethics, that is to say, universal ethics based on recognition of human rights.