Choose a Web Design Firm or Web Designer

Once you have made up your mind to design a website to promote your business, the next thing you encounter is to find a competent Web Design company.

If you do not have an established in-house IT department or design team, you are more likely to hire a Web Design Company to build your website. Selection of a reputed web design firm cannot be overlooked since it assures you online success and takes your business to a new height. Web Design Company London is a reputed name in the market which ensures you excellent web designs and result-oriented performance. At this challenging market condition, you cannot afford to take a chance with the profitability of your business, since your competitors are ever ready to knock-you down and target your potential customers. Therefore, when you hire a Web Design Company make sure you are aware of all essential guidelines. These guidelines help you to take a right decision about the web service provider and save your time and money.

Given below are some easy tips that you should remember:

1.When you consider a web hosting company, it is very essential to go through with its portfolio and track record. Since there are a myriad of web design companies in the market, it becomes really important to consider only that company which is reputable and has maintained a good track record.

2.Qualification and experiences of web design team is very important factor when considering a web design firm. Web designers design your website and developers ensure its functionality. Thus, it is important to ensure about their knowledge, what designing tool they are using for website and what have been their achievements in web design field?

The web design company, you have considered should have strong visitor usability and user-friendly interaction knowledge.

3.Due to a cut-throat competition in the market, SEO or Search engine Optimization has become an inseparable part of website promotion. You need to ensure that the web design company has a full-fledged knowledge of SEO technique and offers you excellent SEO services.

4.The next tip is the experience of the company and since how long it has been operating in the market. A company with years of experience in web design is very more lucrative than an amateur web design company.

5.While considering a web design company, it is imperative to see its customer care services. Since you would be dealing with the company time to time, you need to check how its customer representatives behave with you and how they address to your concerns.

6.At present time, e-commerce is becoming a great way to earn money. Hence, choose a company which has e-commerce experience.

7.Make sure the company offers you 24/7 toll free technical support.

8.There should be effective communication between a web owner and the web service provider for a successful working relationship.

9.One of the most important things is Price. Make sure the company is charging you an apt fee for the web services.

By Jack Sam
Reprint by Acarre Community Media

Introduction - Building digital skills through training : opinion pieces

A dual market exists for training — digital marketers who need to grasp the full breadth of both online and offline activity and conventional marketers who need to skill-up for the digital realm. This article considers the differing needs of these groups and how well existing training resources are meeting them.

What is digital marketing?

So far, I’ve used the term digital marketing as if it covered one area. Just as with ‘conventional’ marketing, there are many digital marketing areas. They include:

• How marketing strategy is affected by the use of digital channels, in particular how the drive to use digital to reduce marketing costs may lead to reduced differentiation, even commoditization and consequent competitive weakness and lower margins and even revenues, and possibly to financial exposure because offline costs remain the same.
• How competitive marketing strategy is affected by the changes digital approaches allow you to make to business models, sometimes providing the ammunition to attack and bring down competitors, as many offline retailers and IT companies have discovered.
• How to plan digital marketing, covering how to develop and manage new ways of contacting and managing customers.
• How to manage different digital channels (eg, web, mobile, email), overall and in specialist technique areas, eg, search engine optimization, developing and managing apps.
• How to optimize across and within digital channels, including through accurate attribution and smart real-time bidding.
• Managing, analysing and presenting digital data, from developing insight to dashboard management. A key area here is to understand what the data is telling you, in particular staying open-minded about it and using classic market research to find out why the results are as they are.

The more technical the area, the more rapid the evolution of technique and so the more quickly training material can date, but the greater the possibility of new techniques distracting you from the essentials of competitive marketing.

In the last few months, the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing, of which I am an Honorary Life Fellow, has asked me to help with several digital marketing training programmes. It reminds me of when, 30 years ago, the demand for direct marketing training was surging, as big companies (some recently privatized, such as BT, British Gas and BA) implemented customer databases for the first time. They discovered how responsive customers were to relevant communications, but also that they needed to change the mindsets, knowledge and skills of large numbers of their people, at all levels. These people came from many backgrounds, including advertising, public relations, retailing, brand and product management, general and technical sales, telemarketing and, of course, customer service. A revolution had taken place in what they could do. A parallel revolution had to take place in what they were trained, able and motivated to do.

Becoming more professional in customer management

      This revolution then spread out by sector, as various market changes (privatization, deregulation and a general collapse of barriers to competition) forced companies to become much more professional in how they managed their customers. The skills also spread, with the industries that were strongest in direct marketing (eg, mail order, credit cards) losing some of their best people to industries that were desperate for their skills (eg, telecommunications, insurance, travel, utilities and, eventually, retailing).

Offline still delivering most revenue

      Today, a similar revolution in marketing, sales and service is taking place because of the growth of digital capabilities and their addition to — and in some cases substitution for — older ways of doing business. Therefore, companies face the same challenges they faced 30 years ago, as they wrestle with the continuous growth in channels, media, consumer touch-points and marketing technology. However, in many companies, offline ways of doing business (including direct marketing) still deliver most revenue and profit. This means digital (at least for the moment) must take its place alongside them.

Digital is not a bolt-on

      However, while digital techniques are becoming a key for success, for most companies the link between online and offline marketing is critical, as is the need to manage a combination of online and offline channels. Most customers do not separate their online and offline lives — they tend to mix these journeys. The few leading-edge companies that have a data management platform that combines the two sets of data have realized that they need skills and knowledge from both online and offline worlds in order to manage and use the data. A view that is either purely online or offline is a partial view. One issue here is that the new digital capabilities are often ‘bolted on’ to marketing departments, rather than integrated strategically.

Further more information about this articles, please you check on Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice or e-mail merlin@merlin-stone.com.

By Merlin Stone

Repost by Acarre Community Media

Mystery shopping in the Digital Age

It's everywhere you want to be

With this issue’s spotlight on mystery shopping, we contacted the Mystery Shopping Providers Association to get input from member companies on some of the issues and topics currently affecting the industry.

In general, mystery shopping focuses on gathering real-time insights about competition, pricing and positioning and consumer path-to-purchase that will enable clients to quickly modify processes and enact change. Over the years, it has taken many forms and undergone numerous transformations. Most of the transitions have been centered on advances in technology. For example, more and more mystery shopping companies now rely on mobile devices for in-the-moment reporting. “We’ve incorporated mobile technology into our Web-based reporting system, as have many providers, allowing shoppers to complete their shops while they are still in the field. As technology continues to advance, we speculate this will become a standard operating system for all shopper companies and a standard expectation from our clients in the future,” says Charles Stiles, president of Mystery Shopper Services, Arroyo Grande, Calif.

“In the old days – 15 years ago – we relied on the mail to send out shop forms and fax machines and telephone calls to receive reports from the shoppers to retype and compile reports to send to the clients. If clients could receive a shop back within seven to 10 days of the interaction, they were happy. With today’s technology, we can deliver much faster results - in many cases, the same day,” he says.

In addition to speed of reporting, technology now also allows the capture of multiple forms of information, beyond the data contained in the individual shopper’s report. “Mystery shopping is not only about shopping and evaluating process and protocol but also about evaluating how a store is maintaining brand integrity and about how the individual brands within a store are being positioned,” says Kimberly Nasief, president of Measure Consumer Perspectives, Louisville, Ky.

“Audio-recorded mystery calls; video capture and digital images and photo snapshots of product displays and associate interactions are not uncommon. All customer-facing roles can now be monitored, measured and coached to ensure every company develops brand loyalists,” says Marci Bikshorn, president of Service Excellence Group, St. Louis, Mo.

Customer experience measurement providers can now present views from all touchpoints in every imaginable industry, including government agencies and assistance programs, religious congregations, as well as entertainment venues such as casinos, theaters, baseball parks and more, says Bikshorn.

In addition, mystery shops are evident in the health care industry, from pre-patient through medical treatment to home, as well as auto and life insurance compliance audits.

Sophisticated scams

As its use grows, the industry continues to be plagued by increasingly sophisticated scams targeting unsuspecting consumers looking for flexible income opportunities working as mystery shoppers. “Scam artists use the names of many reputable companies in an attempt to trick consumers into disclosing their personal information in exchange for high-paying ‘mystery shops,’” says Stiles.

These scammers post multiple advertisements on online job boards affiliated with reputable news stations and on Craigslist and steal the identity of many reputable firms’ Web sites, says Bikshorn.

The Mystery Shopping Providers Association, as well as member companies, are working with the FBI, the Better Business Bureau and Western Union to inform the public about these scams and to catch individuals running them but they are typically internationally-developed, making it difficult to protect the public.

The smartphone class

One of the main ways the Digital Age has impacted mystery shopping is by creating the so-called smartphone class, says Bikshorn. “These individuals are always on, consuming content and information straight from their mobile device, so utilizing a smartphone on a mystery shop assignment certainly is not a blatant give-away, as it might be if a mystery shopper entered a location with a clipboard and printed form.”

With Internet access from anywhere, the smartphone class continues to frequent the Web, both in store and out, allowing integrity of data capture and accuracy; credibility and proof-of-visit through geo-verifying tools; and visual and audio recordings and image capture. “Smartphones always know where they are and when they are,” says Andy Walker, president of iSecretShop, Mercer Island, Wash. “You can’t easily falsify that data. We now have the ability to verify if the shopper was at the right location, at the right time, on the right day, in a way we never have before. The ability to deliver this level of accuracy significantly increases shop quality and greatly reduces the risk of fraud.”

A shift in industries

Beyond the usual retail and service-based users of mystery shopping services, more research firms, insurance companies, law offices and manufacturers are utilizing mystery shopping as a way to validate claims, document patent infringements and conduct competitive market and product audits. “We are starting to see a shift in industries utilizing mystery shopping as a means of data collection because of the speed that data can be delivered,” says Stiles.

While new industries are turning to mystery shopping and employing new tools to do so, its status as a tool for monitoring employee performance endures. Mystery shopping is great for auditing specific behaviors and service cultures, as well as determining if employees are providing the type of service a company expects. “Unlike general surveys, where customers are reporting or providing information about their personal perspective of the experience, mystery shopping allows the client to outline and measure the exact performance criteria they are expecting out of their employees,” says Stiles.

The most effective use of mystery shopping is dependent on the purpose of the shops and how the information is delivered, the MSPA members agree. “In regard to the most common use, which is driving employee behavior and company compliance with expected service offerings and the service culture within the organization, the most effective and critical component is in how the information is delivered. In order for the information to make a difference, it has to be shared with the associates who are interacting with the customers,” says Stiles.

There must be both accountability and recognition for the service experience that was reported, Stiles says. If it was a bad experience, the results must be shared with the associate and coaching and training must be incorporated to correct the deficiencies. If it was a positive experience, then recognition for a great job should be communicated so they understand they are appreciated. This makes them feel part of the team and encourages them to continue to deliver on the experience rather than just receiving bad news when something is not right.

Question the credibility

Another persistent issue is the managing of feedback from field-level associates who question the credibility of mystery-shop results by saying things like “We knew it was a shopper” or “I never say that.”

“One of the most difficult coaching moments is to throw the ball back at the field and take the stance, ‘If you knew it was a shopper, why weren’t you compliant to your trained best practices? Why did you fall short of your company’s standards? Let’s listen to this recording or watch this video so that you can understand the mystery shopper’s perception of your delivery,’” says Bikshorn.

Individual analysis of mystery shop results and a clear outline of performance assist in identifying a team’s competencies and disparities. With this information literally at a team’s fingertips, they can quickly target development plans. Automating these painstaking processes – which had been done manually for decades – that are tied to customer experience evaluation and training, streamlines the entire accountability piece of an organization’s training regimen, which in turn, benefits each level within the organizational structure.

“When effectively put into action, employees, middle managers and the executive team benefit from this type of customer experience management solution,” Bikshorn says. “Creative, automated processes such as this help performance management and action planning by letting associates assess their own behaviors by clarifying expectations of each associate while providing an ongoing review process of performance and by building a strong foundation for career growth and future job placement.”

By Quirk's Staff

Editor : reprint