Twitter said it will officially support “Do Not Track,” a standardised privacy initiative that has been heavily promoted by the US Federal Trade Commission, online privacy advocates and Mozilla, the non-profit developer of the Firefox Web browser.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple Inc’s Safari, include a “Do Not Track” option that sends a line of code to websites indicating the user does not want to be tracked. But under current regulations, it is up to the website to honour the requests.

Google has said it will implement a “Do Not Track” feature in its Chrome browser later this year.

The “Do Not Track” announcement also coincides with Twitter’s recent push to provide a more personalised service. Twitter recommends “tailored suggestions” based on a user’s Web surfing history, but does not use the data for any other purpose, the company said on Thursday.

“As always, we are committed to providing you with simple and meaningful choices about the information we collect to improve your Twitter experience,” Twitter’s Director, Growth and International, Othman Laraki, said in a blog post on Thursday. “For those who don’t want to tailor Twitter, we offer ways to turn off this collection.”

Twitter’s support for the initiative was first announced on Thursday by Ed Felten, the FTC’s Chief Technology Officer, during a panel in New York. The microblogging site later confirmed Felten’s statement, adding in a Tweet: “We applaud the FTC’s leadership on DNT.”

Mozilla praised Twitter’s move in a blog post and noted that adoption rates for “Do Not Track” have risen steadily, to 8.6 percent of desktop users and 19 percent of mobile users.

“We’re excited that Twitter now supports Do Not Track and global user adoption rates continue to increase, which signifies a big step forward for Do Not Track and the Web,” Mozilla said.

Twitter’s decision to get onboard with “Do Not Track” represents something of a balancing act for the six-year-old company, which has been closely scrutinised on how it can generate enough revenue to justify its multibillion-dollar valuation.

Online tracking through bits of code embedded in websites known as “cookies” underpins the business models for many Internet companies.

Facebook, due to go public on Friday in the largest-ever US IPO, has been valued at $104 billion, partially by investors who believe it can offer advertisers a platform for highly targeted ads based on perceived user interests. Google similarly generates billions annually by targeting ads based on what a user is searching for.

Major online destinations that have endorsed “Do Not Track” include Yahoo, which said in March it would allow consumers “to express their ad targeting preferences to Yahoo” beginning this summer.

Written by:  Gerry Shih, iOL News

http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/internet/twitter-to-support-do-not-track-option-1.1299642

Android is sitting pretty atop the smartphone market; accounting for more than 56 percent of the 144.4 million smartphones sold worldwide this past quarter, according to Gartner. The second closest rival was iOS, which claimed 22.9 percent of the market.

On the other end of the spectrum, sales of Windows smartphones accounted for just 1.9 percent of the market, lower than even Bada’s 2.7 percent share for the quarter. RIM, meanwhile, clung to a 6.9 percent share.

Despite Android’s market share swelling from 36.4 percent to 56.1 percent year over year, the platform’s continued dominance is by no ways guaranteed, according to Gartner: The smartphone market has become highly commoditized and differentiation is shaping up as a challenge for manufacturers.

“This is particularly true for smartphones based on the Android OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work and most players are finding it hard to break the mould,” said Anshul Gupta, principal analyst at Gartner. “At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid- to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator.

“This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability, and scattered market share,” Gupta said.

Both Microsoft and RIM may have a shot at chipping away Android’s lead, though it won’t be easy. Microsoft is paying the price for taking so long to bring a viable mobile OS to market. Still, the company is a powerhouse in the technology field with the resources, connections, and name recognition to give its platform a boost. The company’s partnership with Nokia finally appears to be bearing fruit in the Lumia 900, which is reportedly enjoying strong sales and has garnered praise from reviewers and consumers (not to mention Siri). Praise for the Lumia 900 is by no means universal, however; InfoWorld mobile maven Galen Gruman was not so impressed.

RIM, meanwhile, may have a more difficult time gaining back lost ground in the mobile space. The company sold 9.9 million mobile handsets in the first quarter of 2012, down from 13 million in Q1 in 2011. “RIM desperately needs to deliver winning BlackBerry 10 products to retain users and stay competitive,” said Gupta. “This will be very challenging, because BB10 lacks strong developer support, and a new BB10 device will only be available in the fourth quarter of 2012.”

On the hardware side, Samsung took the No. 1 spot in smartphone sales from Apple, having sold 38 million devices for the quarter. Android’s growing popularity contributed to Samsung’s success. Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in Q1 represented more than 40 percent of all Android-based smartphone sales worldwide, according to Gartner.

Apple and Samsung raised their combined share to 49.3 percent, up from 29.3 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, while widening their respective leads over Nokia, which saw its smartphone market share drop to 9.2 percent.

“Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level. For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 percent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 percent for Nokia,” Gupta said.

Like Microsoft, Nokia’s success in the mobile market will depend heavily on the success of Windows Phone.

Author: Ted Samson

Source: InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/t/smartphones/windows-phone-down-not-out-in-fight-android-193430

I got to thinking ‘could the need for businesses to retain existing customers and build brand loyalty, really be achieved through ‘loving?’ their customers?’

Browsing through Amazon’s listing of 2,145 books on ‘lasting love’ it seems that the ingredients that love gurus recommend applying to secure superb personal relationships for life could be successfully applied to our customers.
How strong is your relationship with your customers?

Here are some of those key ingredients:
1. Validation – do your customers trust that you put them first?
2. Responsibility – are you fulfilling your service promises?
3. Appreciation – do you say thank you? Afterall your customers are the life-blood of your business.
4. Commitment – are you in it for the long-haul? Are you constantly evaluating your customer’s needs and growing successfully through the relationship?
5. Integrity – are you acting in your customer’s best interests at all times?
6. Communication – are you connecting with your customers and continuously learning about how to improve through that dialogue?
7. Celebration – are you recognising and valuing your relationship? As Tariq Mahmood from Insight 100 says, ‘Loyalty should be sought, nurtured and valued but never taken for granted.’
And finally, one of my favourite films is Jerry Maguire. For those of you who’ve seen it, how many of you could say, hand on heart, that when your customers think of your first encounter, they can truly reminisce and say ‘you had me from hello!’
Happy Valentine’s Day!

Author: Frea O’Brien

Source: Call Centre UK: http://www.callcentre.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=Library/libID=1/listID=24/libEntryID=332

Consumers are no longer satisfied with simply calling a contact centre, says Mike England; they want to communicate in the way that best suits them – whether that is via the phone, text, email, web portal, video calling or social media.

The reason for this is that the consumerisation and changing attitudes towards technology means customers have an ever-growing toolkit of communication modes at their disposal to converse with and about companies. Indeed, consumers now have better access to technology in their personal lives than they do in their working lives, which never used to be the case. From a customer management and contact centre perspective, consumers have a much higher expectation that these will match the experiences that they have at home – consumers are putting pressure on companies to have the same attitude to those technologies.

Integrate communication channels

Communicating with the customer in the mode that suits them best has the potential to greatly increase profits; happy customers spend more money and are also willing to spend more to remain satisfied. For example, many bank customers are happy to pay a premium to receive a better service from their account.

Additionally, many customers prefer to use a simple self-service solution rather than being kept hanging on the phone, waiting to speak to a call centre operative. The proliferation of mobile and tablet applications makes this more accessible. A more flexible unified communications (UC) platform allows businesses to use multimodal means of access. This is a great opportunity for companies to reduce the number of incoming calls through the development of applications that give customers access to information. It is also possible to embed UC functionality within apps, presenting the customer with perhaps a click to call or video opportunity.

While it offers the ability to make money, UC can also enhance a company’s reputation. Gone are the days when conversations between a company and a customer remain private. The proliferation of social media means that a customer complaint can be quickly relayed to hundreds or even thousands at the click of a button. As such, it has become increasingly necessary to have the ability to spot when a customer broadcasts their dissatisfaction about a product or service, and to act upon it, fast.

UC can supplement and support the call centre. For instance, through UC an operative has the ability to use instant messaging (IM) or video while dealing with a call as an internal service to communicate with knowledge experts, who might be outside the contact centre environment. UC technology also has screen sharing capabilities; agents can then share desktops with supervisors to give assistance and extra training.

Adapt to what the customer wants

In order to find out what communication channels customers use, companies need to be better at understanding how their customers prefers to make contact. All too often companies, when conducting surveys of how customers wish to communicate, limit the choice to those modes that they already use. This potentially restricts the presented options to the ones that suit the company rather than what the customer wants. Instead they should allow customers to state their preferred communication platform. If a business wants to truly represent the voice of the customer, an organisation has to fit in with how that customer wants to communicate.

Customers are being empowered to take the conversation to new and varied locations. As the choice of communications channels evolve, customer service departments need to keep pace. The days of the walled garden around customer service are numbered.

Author: Mike England

Source: Call Centre Uk: http://www.callcentre.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=Library/libID=1/listID=27/libEntryID=4227

The value of the judgements in March declined by 28.2% y/y to R361.2m, while the number of summonses for debt dropped by 7.7% y/y to 96 698.

The main drivers behind the 25.3% annual decrease in 2011 were civil judgments relating to the money lent category (contributing -12.0 percentage points), the services category (contributing -5.6 percentage points), and the promissory notes and other acknowledgements of debt category (contributing -4.1 percentage points).

During 2011, 503 528 civil judgments for debt amounting to R5.1656bn were recorded.

The largest contributors to the R5.1656bn were money lent (R1.5261bn or 29.5%), “other debts” (R1.0186bn or 19.7%), services (R901.2m or 17.4 %), and goods sold (R807.8m or 15.6%).

Source: Fin24

http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Civil-debt-judgments-down-20120517

That is the view of Hugh Hacking (Pictured right), Head of Retirement Fund Solutions at Old Mutual Corporate, who says that he is seeing an improvement in awareness levels among companies regarding the importance of retirement savings and other employee benefits. 

More and more, companies are acknowledging that employee benefit programmes are a key tool to increase the savings rate of the working population.

“Employee benefit programmes create the structured mechanism through which employees will save regularly for the future and thereby become more financially secure,” he says.

This renewed enthusiasm among local companies for providing employee benefits is being tempered by affordability issues in the wake of the global financial crisis and concerns around the economic outlook in South Africa.

“As a result, it is crucial for employers to look at employee benefits in the context of what is ideal, but realise that they do not need to implement everything at once.”

According to Hacking, an ideal employee benefit programme could include a mixture of retirement savings, group life insurance, medical aid, funeral and disability benefits, but that the importance of these elements vary from company to company and from employee to employee.”

When structuring an employee benefits package, it is important for companies to understand the core needs and priorities of their specific employees.

“For example, younger employees who don’t yet have families may not place much value on group life cover. They are also likely to feel that their salary, not their retirement savings, is their primary wealth generator.”

“In these instances, employers need to have a strategy in place to communicate the benefits of long term saving and investing.

“While employers have a responsibility to ensure the long term financial wellness of their employees, there are also self-serving reasons for companies to implement an effective employee benefits scheme.”

Old Mutual research has shown a direct link between people who are members of retirement funds and higher levels of confidence in their financial planning. “Simply the act of putting an employee benefit programme in place has a positive impact on the workplace.”

“Happy employees tend to be more productive and more incentivised to work for an employer when they know that the company has benefits in place for them and their dependants,” says Hacking.

In addition to these advantages, well-structured employee benefits can help small businesses avoid disaster in the event that one of their employees becomes disabled or dies.

“Many small businesses insure their equipment but neglect to consider the financial consequences of a staff member becoming too ill to work or dying”

According to Hacking, the savings benefit of an employee benefit programme is not only for retirement. “Employee benefit programmes create long term wealth and financial wellbeing for employees.”

“The savings they generate can protect them from financial shocks such as job loss and create wealth that, importantly, can be passed on to future generations.”

“It is crucial that South African employers get on board with this to address the savings crisis in the country,” he says.

Source: itinews

http://www.itinews.co.za/companyview.aspx?cocategoryid=61&companyid=22676&itemid=1220E0A6-D86C-4188-8C4D-A1A8BAED3358

There’s no doubt about it — Facebook has people’s attention this week. With an IPO going live and public stock trading due by Friday, it’s no wonder everyone is getting ready for one of the most exciting public offerings to date.

A hot IPO doesn’t ultimately matter to IT, but the implications of Facebook’s business model do.

How’s that? The Facebook revenue model is based on self-serve advertising, engagement ads, and games — all ways that will let employees waste even more time at work while consuming your network resources. Consider the time-wasting nightmare you might be allowing into your company if you unlock those firewalls and let Facebook in. On top of employees updating their timeline and jabbering about life when they should be working, they are also being marketed to and playing Mafia Wars on company time.

Facebook isn’t the only time-stealer in your organization. YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites are black holes as well. Even Twitter, which I use for business purposes only, has been a distraction when I needed to fully focus. I decided to try an experiment and place Twitter on a PC other than the one I typically sit at. As a result, I get more work done with less distraction. When I get a cup of coffee, I might check my Twitter feeds, but my mind stays in the game while I’m at my desk.

Then there’s CNN. Yes, you heard me — news sites can be just as distracting. I can spend hours just clicking from one story to the next, looking at tech articles and entertainment articles. Before I realize it, I’ve lost 30 minutes.

The social “enterprise” network

Some organizations have tried to make social networks work for them by using corporate-only flavours like Yammer, where you can post pictures and announce what you are doing for your business. Even Microsoft’s SharePoint has social elements to allow for more company interaction if you use things like the Outlook Social Connector and personal blogs.

Some people would say the use of social technology in business has formed a closer-knit, familylike environment in their company. I’ve never been a fan of that type of company culture, personally. The problem with having your business personnel act like a family is that it falls apart every time someone has to get fired. You typically can’t fire family, no matter how much you wish you could. For example, there’s Dave in marketing, who is a little strange at times, but hey, he’s one of the family. Now Dave has been fired, which means anyone’s neck is on the chopping block next. It’s not quite the family you thought it was, is it?
People need to be focused on their job, not on being more like a family. It’s true that communication and collaboration are essential, which is why I love SharePoint’s many other features. But in my shop, all the social networking pieces get turned off from the get-go.

The (social) problem with smartphones

Try as you might to keep social networks at bay, mobile devices let people be in constant connection to their social networking vices over the cellular networks, which you can’t block. Still, it’s not completely impossible to stop social time-wasting over mobile: You can establish policies that, if enforced strongly enough, eliminate social networks from being accessed on company time. Treat it like smoking: Let employees take a 15-minute coffee/smoking/Facebook break and make them go to a designated area to do it.

Even though the whole BYOD (bring your own device) phenomenon sounds like a great idea to save the company money and keep people happy with whatever device they’re using, it makes your workplace more difficult to control. If you supply the devices, you can set the policies to lock down those devices. For example, with Exchange Active Sync policies and mobile device management (MDM) tools you can turn off devices’ cameras, Web browsers, and specific apps you don’t approve of. It’s worth it for companies to provide the device so that you can control it and keep people working, not playing.

When you’re at work, you’re supposed to work

I’m not an old fuddy-duddy, but my start in this business was on Wall Street with companies like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Solomon Smith Barney. There were rules, and those rules were enforced strongly. I wonder what those companies are doing now about social networking sites, tools, and apps. If they held true to form, they are reading this article and nodding their heads in approval of lockdown.

Author:  J. Peter Bruzzese 

Source: InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/why-you-should-block-facebook-access-the-office-193206?page=0,1

The notion that customer service is applicable to the NHS is debatable. The NHS can’t turn away unprofitable patients or raise prices to fund costly customer service professionals.

Despite this, it can still ‘profit’ from higher customer satisfaction levels if it gets the basics right. It can also achieve a fairly quantifiable return by investing in managing complaints better.

The ‘customer’ in the context of healthcare

Hospitals, GP practices, health centres and publicly-funded domiciliary care services suffer crippling reputational damage from being seen to fail to deliver patient satisfaction – also known as customer satisfaction – in the public eye.

Despite the critics who would ban the word ‘customer’ in the context of healthcare, and who argue that hospitals should just be allowed to get on with the business of treating patients, patients and their relatives do expect a full customer ethic.

Many are increasingly willing to complain over poor service from the nurse, porter or care assistant, or simply protest over something as ‘innocent’ as care centre parking charges – all the while encouraged by patient groups to publicly let off steam.

The spiralling effect of poor customer service

In the age of the blogger who can let off steam around the clock, simple lapses rarely go under the radar. Bad customer care can lead to highly damaging reports or TV programmes showing secretly-filmed footage of poor service.

This is not only with reference to extreme examples of abuse or the devastating impact of a bad Care Quality Commission inspection on local media coverage. Further complaints can be triggered by anything from bad publicity or errors in nursing practice in hygiene to failing to handle customer complaints sensitively.

When things go wrong with a healthcare provider, the fallout seems to snowball.  Negative media coverage soars, staff morale falls, talented staff leaves, all leading to a further decline in service and again, more negative press.

Good customer service can build bridges

This is a subject worth tackling now, given the financial pressures the NHS is due to face over the forthcoming years.

The cost saving the NHS must make in the near future will, almost certainly, result in a creakier service environment, with the inevitable staff cuts and diminished morale.

Smarter organisations are aware of this and will have a contingency plan.  They will hire staff with a customer care ethic hard-wired into their DNA, who will take pains to retain key people.

They probably work with experts – customer service professionals, motivational experts and other gurus who can teach them people-based principles that make private organisations thrive.

The best managers know that this is a cost that will pale in comparison to the damage caused by a weak customer service culture.

For those organisations that do lapse in customer service from time to time, the savvy recognise the value of complaint handling. An authentic response is a human response, and can silence the objector but also build real bridges.

Author: Kay williamson

Source: Call Centre UK: http://www.callcentre.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=library/libID=1/listID=52/libEntryID=4365

The typical middle class South African family (LSM 8+) earns around R18 000 per month after taxes and the latest statistics indicate that almost 73% of their salaries is used to service their debts. On average, South African households carry about R60 000 in credit card debt, overdrafts and store card debt, R30 000 in personal loans, R142 000 in Car Loans and R746 000 in home loans.

To put this into perspective, a household with this amount of debt on an average interest rate of 15% will pay around R12 878.20 per month on these combined debts. That’s around R2 112 2678.00 in interest and up to 20 years to pay their total household debt… shocking! We know.

Applying Debt Rollover to Your Personal Finances
Debt rollover is a simple and efficient way to pay off your debts. The idea here is to out pay the interest on your debts, and thereafter the actual capital amount in the shortest amount of time.

HINT: Your credit report will provide insights into your credit status. See all your debts, start dates, due dates and balances in one report. You can access your credit report here.

Below is a hypothetical case of how a household could use the roll over technique to pay off debts faster:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith have the following debts listed to their name:
Combined personal debt (credit card and personal loan) of R15 000;
Car loan debt of R142 000;
and home loan debt of R746 000.

Personal Debts:
Personal Loan Debt and Credit Card Debt: R15 000.00

AS IS:
Time to pay off: 1 year interest to pay off:
R1 674.00,
Monthly payment: R1 389.52

ROLL OVER:
Paying off the credit card and personal loan debts first will free up R1 389.52 per month to pay towards the car loan debt.

Car Loan Debt:
Debt Amount: R142 000.00

AS IS:
Time to pay off: 5 years or 60 months
Interest to pay off: R46 448.00
Monthly payment: R3 140.80

AFTER ROLL OVER:
After Mr. & Mrs. Smith have finished paying their credit card and personal loan, they can settle their car loan with the freed up amount of R1 389.52 per month added to the car payment.

Payment to Roll Over: R4 530.32

This will save them R8 257.00 in interest and reduce the car loan term by 1 year (46 months).

Home Loan Debt:
Debt Amount: R746 000

AS IS:
Time to pay off: 20 years
Interest to pay off: R981 775.00
Monthly payment: R7 199.06

AFTER ROLL OVER:
Lastly they can settle the debt with the lowest interest but the largest debt balance and payment term.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith have now accumulated a total payment amount of R11 729.38 (credit card, personal loans, and car loan payments) that can be contributed towards the home loan; this will save them R362 465.00 in interest and reduce the term of debt by 8 years.

By applying the Roll Over Debt strategy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith will end up saving a total of R370 721.00 in interest and reduce their lifetime debt by 10 years and 46 months. That’s half the time it would have taken them and a 3rd of their payments saved on interest.

Get Started Today:
Start today by getting an overview of all your debts with a 3-in-1 credit report. It will save you a lot of time and can be achieved instantly.

Create a budget or review your existing budget on moneysmart. Look at the last payment date due on the account with the highest interest rate (the one you will be getting rid of first).

Increase the payment on the second biggest debt starting the month after you have settled your first debt, this way it won’t come as an unbudgeted surprise. Continue to do this until all your settled debt contributions are being added to the outstanding debts as you pay them off, i.e. roll over your settled debt payment amounts to the next debt payment.

Source: Women24

http://www.women24.com/CareersAndMoney/Money/How-to-Pay-Your-Debt-Super-Fast-20120516

Key facts that illustrates Tesco’s dominance of the UK retail industry

Over 20 million customers patronize Tesco stores, annually

Over 18 million households own a Tesco Clubcard

There are over 2,900 Tesco stores in the UK which operate over 6 formats

Tesco employs over 250,000 people in the UK

Tesco’s share of the grocery market is around 30%

Tesco makes an annual profit of over £3 billion

Tesco is more than a grocery retailer – it stocks own-label brands, operates in over 13 countries internationally and is engaged in financial services, internet retailing, telecommunications, media production, beauty salons and even sells tyres

3 possible reasons for customer loyalty to Tesco

The Tesco story has occupied TV documentaries and newspaper columns over the years. Various commentators have conjectured as to the reasons behind Tesco’s success. Many have pointed to the Club card and its ability to profile customers as the reason for their ability to give customers what they want.

Others have argued the Tesco product range, number of stores and variety of store formats as the reason behind Tesco’s successful customer loyalty rates.

While still others point to promotions and incentives for consistently high customer acquisition and retention over the years.

4 customer loyalty strategies

My research into Tesco and its capacity to build and maintain relationships with its customers draws on the themes of all three of these perspectives and argues that Tesco utilises all four of the customer loyalty strategies proposed by KPMG: push, pull, purge and pure.

1. Push loyalty

This involves encouraging customers to try new shopping experiences. Examples include providing 24 hour opening times, online shopping channels and the ability to accumulate ‘points’ to save towards a higher purchase.

2. Pull loyalty

Pull loyalty implies attracting the customer with offers and incentives, such as ‘buy one, get one free’ and loyalty card rewards.

3. Purge loyalty

Purge loyalty is to operate a price discounting strategy, whereby customers are first attracted and then retained to a company by the promise of lower prices.

4. Pure loyalty

This means creating a sustainable bond between the customer and the retailer, adding value to the customer experience and giving the customer what the customer wants. With Tesco’s ‘Every little helps’, a mutual understanding and lasting relationship is formed.

The relationship building environment

By combining these four customer loyalty strategies, Tesco has succeeded in creating a unique relationship building environment, which influences customer preferences. The relationship building environment can be summarised as having the following interrelated components:

Tesco has retail dominance beyond market share, with the number and conveniently located stores

The number of staff employed in Tesco stores, distribution and call centres

Tesco’s varied online and offline ‘grocery package’

Tesco’s use of the media to remind customers that they are there, giving customers what they want

Tesco’s ability to profile customer information which, when combined with market research, allows them to reduce customer attrition and tap into their need for convenience

The recent dip in Tesco’s upward trajectory has illustrated that the customer loyalty formula requires continual monitoring, evaluation and must be fluid enough to adapt to changes in consumer behaviour and the competitive marketplace. The ability to adapt will not only keep the offering fresh and varied, but will also help to avoid ‘spurious loyalty where customers exhibit a low relative attitude, yet high repeated patronage’ (Dick and Basu, 1994).

Author: Jason J Turner

Source: Call Centre UK: http://www.callcentre.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=library/libID=1/listID=52/libEntryID=4355