Goodbye Late Payments: 10 Tips To Help You Get Paid On Time

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Reshma Roy

Get Paid on Time

Slow and steady never wins the race when it comes to chasing late payments. It is nasty and time consuming especially for freelancers and small business owners. Here are some tips that might help you to avoid late payments and get paid on time.

1. Plug the gaps in customer data

Confirm your customer’s ‘current’ address – both Web and postal addresses. Find out the person who will actually be making the invoice payment and contact him/her. Ensure to use a good invoicing software to keep track of customer data like customer balance, pending invoices, email communication and much more.

2. Set clear expectations

Remember to mention your payment terms and late fees clearly on the estimate or on the invoice. Add a discount factor for the payment that has been made early. Let’s say, if the payment is due in 30 days, offer a discount of 2% for the full amount that is paid within 10 days.…

Just In: Customize Charts to your Heart’s Content!

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Arvind

Yes, Zoho Reports now offers quite a few customization options for a chart. Let’s see how a chart transforms when its settings are customized. Below is the default chart you would get when plotting Apple’s quarterly revenue numbers (from 1Q 2011 to 1Q 2013).

Click Settings at the top-left and it brings you the ‘Settings’ wizard.

In the General tab, you can set the chart’s ‘Title’ and ‘Description’. The next Axis tab will look like the below.

You can change all the values of the Axis parameters.

And you can set the Borders & Colors too.

We will leave out the last Threshold tab for now (who are we to set a threshold for Apple’s sales? ). Your chart with the settings modified will look like the below.

That’s quite a transformation from what you saw as the default chart, right? Try your own settings for the charts you create in Zoho Reports now.…

3 ways in which Zoho Campaigns can help your Email Marketing Agency

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Sharanya R

You believe in Email Marketing. You also know all the statistics that prove email marketing to be one of the most cost-effective methods of reaching out to your customers. That’s why you run an Email Marketing Agency – helping your clients get the maximum out of their email campaign efforts!

Your team consists of Ben, James and Peter.

Ben is the one who comes up with those catchy subject lines and the email content.

James is the creative one. He designs templates and is the HTML coder.

Peter manages all campaigns and makes sure that they go out right on time, to the right people.

And, you’re the entrepreneur, of course. You also work with Peter to analyze all the reports that have come out, keep making changes to every campaign, so that the next one does way better!

The 4 of you make the best use of your expertise to help your clients. Your email marketing software must be capable of helping each of your team members to work independently.…

Better way to Track Notes: Introducing CloudWork’s Connector for Zoho CRM and Evernote

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Vaishnav

This is a guest post by Christophe Primault, CEO of CloudWork that supports lean businesses to stay focused on core activities, rather than spending more resources on managing office tasks as more clients come on board.

Zoho CRM, listed by readers of GetApp as one of the top cloud business apps of 2013 – really does what it says on the box: it is a fully-functional client and a sales automation tool. But we find that too many of our small business users are not taking full advantage of all that Zoho CRM has to offer, as individual staffers don’t maintain the contact notes with updates on the latest client interactions. As a result, Zoho CRM is used as a sales management tool, but may not be taken advantage of in helping manage relationships or to exemplify customer service once clients come on board.

Through our user feedback, for example, we know that design teams may all contribute to the same client project, but predominantly work individually.…

Infographic: What’s the Secret to Being a Successful Project Manager?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Darice

Project Managers are responsible for performing streamlined juggling acts. In addition to successfully meeting goals and objectives, Project Managers must also find a balance between a client’s needs and a team’s capabilities. What traits must a project manager possess to play the juggling act to perfection?

In a past Facebook poll, we asked you what makes a successful project manager. Below, is a visualization of the responses we’ve received. Share your thoughts with us in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

…

Poll: How do you organize your support team?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Prashanth V K

Whether customer support is a right or a privilege for your customers, it’s a tricky commitment to uphold. More often than not, running a team involves finding order within chaos. It’s all the more applicable while running a customer support team.

One of the easiest ways to seek out ‘order’ is to organise or group a bunch of your support reps using some condition.

By Channel

If you have multiple ways by which customers can reach you, a thoughtful way to organise your support team would be by channel. Each channel can have one or more support agents dedicated to it. That way, each channel gets the optimal treatment. Channels like live chat, phone and social media are far more interactive when compared to email and web forms. By staffing appropriately, you can win across all your channels.

By Time Zone

For companies that offer products or services to customers across the world, dealing with various time zones is of utmost importance.…

Results: For ‘free’ accounts, customer support is…

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Prashanth V K

Earlier this week, we had asked the same question to both customer support managers and agents, in a bid to see how their opinions differed. Much to our surprise, there was a visible difference!

About 57% of managers and administrators felt that, for ‘free’ customers, customer support is indeed a privilege. Amongst support agents, about 54% actually opined that customer support is a customer’s right.

Straightaway, it’s easy to see one possible reason for this difference. Support agents deal with customers on a daily basis. They deal with the emotional aspect of customer support. They see the ups and the downs in raw colours, everyday.

Managers often do not handle customers directly on a day-to-day basis. They see customers via support agents. The emotions are not as vivid when there’s an intermediary. In other words, what managers see is more of the analytical picture.…

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