Archive for December 14th, 2009
How Financial Management Can Save You Future Financial Troubles
Monday, December 14th, 2009For the past year or so, a lot of individuals have lost their jobs and had no other alternative but to give up their assets beginning with their cars or houses. For the last ten years, a lot of middle class individuals have spent a huge portion of their salaries on luxuries and not reserving the required savings.
With the number of young workers and professionals, most of their wages go to material things such as clothes, electronics and electronic gadgets, and automobiles. It’s not that there is something wrong with any of these, but the source of the problem starts when persons use up most of their earnings solely on these things alone. The predicament even gets worse if the money used for these things came from borrowed money accompanied by brash purchases.
There has been a considerable change in personal financing between the generations of the past and present. Back then, our moms and/or dads saved as much as they can in the attempt to elevate their living standards and be able to give for their family without having to fear where they will get the money from and be equipped if ever something ill-fated goes down to their monetary situation.
With the dependency on all kinds of loans on the rise, many people nowadays have neglected proper financing of their expenses. Also, with a lot of individuals losing their jobs and all, a lot of people have also acquired high amounts of debts, forcing them to give up their homes.
A lot of the young individuals will reason that they would instead enjoy everything while they are young rather than enslaving themselves with nothing but work and only enjoy what they have stored when they are old and gray. This mentality may sound fair but the fact that the economy’s present position have become unpredictable, there’s a good chance we can see ourselves falling down the financial ladder and lose everything.
Even though life is hard, you can still maintain a somewhat generous lifestyle and still save some funds for you or your family’s future.
Saving 40%-60% of your monthly income will ensure your financial future significantly. If an unexpected incident such as a loss of job, illness or recession, you will have something to lean on for a while before you can recover from it.
As best as you can, do not engage in impulse buying. Self control and discipline is the key. If you see shoes, bags, or clothes you like, make sure the cost is within and won’t hurt your resources. Manage your money well, if you think it might compromise your present budget, wait for the sale season where almost all inventory prices are discounted.
Credit cards should be used only for near or definite emergencies or if you are sure that you’ll be able to compensate for it on time. The same also goes with loans.
Moderation is the key. When personal finance is concerned, it is better to have an excess than have less. Your resources should be the extra and your debts or expenses should be less. All of us understands what that means. But for it to be viable, valuing your money should be given value.
Reassessing Your Retirement Portfolio To Ensure Your Retirement
Monday, December 14th, 2009In the last couple of years, American retirement plans have lost nearly two trillion dollars of their asset values. If you’re depending on your best 403 b retirement plan and other retirement plan to sustain you during your retirement years, you should start to pay attention to your retirement plan statements.
Most investors, after they’ve chosen the initial investments, rarely look at their portfolio again. To have the best chance of actually having a retirement portfolio that will support you once you retire, you have to manage it.
The first task that you have to tackle as you start to manage your portfolio, is to assess its current value. In many cases you will discover that the investments that you originally opened your accounts with are no longer the ideal assets that they seemed when you chose them. The [calculations
When you have calculated the present value of your portfolio, contingent on how long you have until retirement, you may have to reevaluate your retirement choices.
In the best case scenario, your portfolio has over performed your income assumptions and you don’t have to change your retirement plans. If, however, like most people, your portfolio has under-performed your income projections, you have some hard decisions to make.
Typically, the choices you have will fall into one of three options. 1) You can decide to step-up the amount of money that you are currently putting into your account to bring it up to what you’ve projected its value to be at this point. 2) You can downsize your expected retirement lifestyle to match your portfolio’s new projected future value based on it’s value today.
The last and final choice you have, is to delay your retirement for a few years to build up your retirement nest or, alternatively, to plan on working part time once you do retire, to avoid lessening your standard of living.
For more information on senior retirement communities and other retirement options visit Eric’s website.
How to Write Effective Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Monday, December 14th, 2009Why should you bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. Although you should try and attract new customers good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.
A Customer Satisfaction survey will help you not only identify problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.
Where do you start?
Objective – Before you start compiling your survey you should first consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.
Analysis – Having completed the survey consider how you will analyze the answers.
Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where a respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are much easier to analyze than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).
A lot will depend on the expected volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.
Opportunity – Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to advertise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
It is important that before you publish the survey that you check that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analyzed will help you make informed decisions.
Next, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?
The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-
- Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
- Marketing – promote aspects of your business
- Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of
For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?
By asking this question not only will the store receive good market research feedback on the facility they provide but they will also promote their facilities and advertise themselves as a family friendly store, even beyond those customers who have a specific need for the baby changing facility that has been provided.
Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to dig deep and accept the worst.
A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to identify any problem areas so that they can be fixed; conducting regular customer satisfaction will help prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where you may be losing business to your competitors initiatives.
What to ask?
Although each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online internet store or a service industry. The following are key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication – Is it easy for your customers to contact you?
When a customer telephones is the phone answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services properly handled? Good businesses will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.
If a problem is not resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?
Use a customer satisfaction survey to confirm that all your staff are perceived by your customers as being helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.
Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, is it conveniently located with good access?
Making it pleasant, making it easy – For an internet business it is important to ensure that your website is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.
Physical store or online website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?
The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide do fully match your customers’ requirements.
Value for money – Cheap or expensive is hardly ever a good measure, value for money is.
Are the products you sell or the services you provide considered by your customers to be value for money, if not, why not?
Speed and attention – No matter what the business, the majority of customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.
Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?
Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is appreciated but it needs to be followed up with a quick and satisfactory resolution to the query.
Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example where do they live and what is their age group?
The more knowledge you have of your customers the better you will be able to target your business.
Within the survey encourage customers to highlight their problems and provide contact details.
What is next?
Having completed the survey analyze the results.
Trends – Look for common and specific areas where the service is failing.
Ask yourself if any criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?
Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
Where employee training programmes have been implemented have they made a positive contribution to the business and improved the customer service?
Follow-up – If a customer has raised a specific issue through completing a survey ensure that they are contacted and that their complaint is properly addressed.
Don’t lose an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.
Continuously Monitor – Make changes based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.
If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and would like to view a sample survey for a store that will demonstrate some of the above advice please view the Sample Customer Survey
A Close Shave
Monday, December 14th, 2009Shaving is one of those activities that men endure, rather than look forward to. For at least hundreds of years a metal blade scraped across the face has been how it was done.
Things have moved on since then, of course, and you can now find new types of electric shavers that are very smooth. When you have less irritation on your skin, you actually help your skin maintain its youth. You look better too.
For most of us, there’s nothing nicer than the feeling of a really close shave, after you’ve shaved. While shaving itself may not be fun, the post-shave feeling is generally a pleasant thing. Unfortunately, traditionally electric shavers have not given as good a shave as the old-fashioned ‘wet shave’.
There are various ranges of electric shavers now, for example the Philips RQ1051 Arcitec Rotary Shaver, which has an ergonomic and slim body. Using Flex and Pivot it provides a perfectly close shave, even on the neck. Traditionally, as most men will know, that’s one of the harder areas to shave properly.
It also has stainless steel blades to lift the hair to shave. The benefit of a system like that is that you end up shaving below skin level – talk about a close shave!
Of course the RQ1051 isn’t the only electric shaver that offers a close shave. For example the HS8060 offers shaving with a built-in moisturising system. There is an almost bewildering array on offer in every department store.
In some cases it pays you to research as much as you can on the web before making a decision, because you’re not usually allowed to try them out and return them. For hygiene reasons that’s a very good thing. After all, would you want the one that somebody else had returned the day before?
How to Select the Correct Custom Subwoofer Enclosure for Your Vehicle
Monday, December 14th, 2009After retailing car audio subwoofers for decades, there is little question that the right subwoofer makes a world of difference in a vehicle’s sound system. Matching the correct components is very important to creating great sound. The shopper really has to spend some time doing research and deciding exactly what type of sound he wants to create.
Usually the best choice of a subwoofer will be made after considering the space available for your installation. In the case of subwoofers, size can make a world of difference for several reasons. While car audio subwoofers are available today in sizes from six to fifth teen inches in diameter, shoppers are sometimes surprised at the volume produced by even the smallest of subs. A subwoofer’s capability to produce a certain amount of bass is dependent upon the amplifier as well as the subwoofer enclosure.
In most cases, your available space will tell you how large a sub enclosure you might install and this will lead you to the correct subwoofer selection. A custom subwoofer enclosure will make a great installation if available. A custom-fit subwoofer enclosure is a sub box that has been made to fit in an “out of the way” location and usually results in a factory look when installed.
If budget minded, you can also search for standard or truck subwoofer boxes. Your choice of sealed or ported will be governed by the specifics of the subwoofer you select. The easiest way to shop for a universal subwoofer enclosure is to check your box measurements. While ported enclosures generally produce louder bass, they also require more space then sealed boxes. So measure your install area first, match a subwoofer that you like to the boxes volume or air space.
The final step in adding a subwoofer is to match it to a good subwoofer amplifier. Again you have to check your subwoofer’s spec sheet to determine the proper power requirements. Don’t allow this procedure to deter you from adding a sub, the results are worth the effort. As you might guess, there are several variables in the selection process that I can’t discuss here. Be sure to click through to see detailed articles on selecting the correct components for a subwoofer installation.