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6 Dreadful Mistakes that can Kill your Startup

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Building and running a startup successfully is not easy. Founders of tech startups, who are young and generally have negligible experience of running a company, need to make a wide range of decisions when establishing their startups. Market, recruitment, management, product, finance and legal issues- taking intelligent decisions on all these fronts is a major challenge for entrepreneurs.

While making progress towards the above mentioned critical decision areas, startup founders are bound to make mistakes. And these mistakes can sometimes cost them heavy and can even lead to closure of their startups.

In fact, according to Small Business Administration research, only half of new businesses survive for the first five years and only one-third of new businesses are able to survive for 10 years.

It is extremely critical for entrepreneurs to be very careful and head forward with caution and intellect to keep away from any mistake.

Below is a list of 6 mistakes that startup founders must avoid:

Onboarding Investors too Early

Entrepreneurs should not approach investors before their startup is investor-ready. Investors have very high expectations as far as the venture’s performance is concerned and getting them too early might cause some inflexibility and may create a bottleneck. In the very early stages, entrepreneurs are still struggling to figure out how their product or service will create customer value. You should not approach the investors for financing prior to determining the customer value as investors need a proof that your customer value concept is working and the business is ready to scale. Investors also look for a strong team of founders and some proprietary advantages. There is a greater risk of rejection when approaching investors in a rush.

Also, if a startup is funded too early, it may lead to conflicts and disagreements between the investor and the founder in future, which may lead to the investors not funding the firm again.

Not Realizing the Importance of Social Media

Social Media not just enables new businesses to introduce their brand to the potential customers but, if carefully packaged, it helps in getting their audience excited about their company and products. It is an effective and powerful tool to share your products and services with the whole world and create a unique experience.

By monitoring the social media platforms, you can gauge what your customers need and then offer the right solution. Developing valuable content and sharing it on social media wisely aids in finding new customers. One can also get insights of their competitors’ activity and observe what’s working for them.

Also Read, 7 Mistakes Startups Make with Social Media

Hiring the Wrong People

Onboarding the right team is crucial for a startup’s success. Employees must have the capability to share your vision and shouldn’t necessarily be eyeing on large pay packet. Founders must weigh their talent and attitude and not just skill set.

However, hiring too inexperienced people in managerial roles is usually not considered good as it will not work. You can’t make someone a VP who has never been in an ownership role.

Trying to Build your Product for Everyone

You can’t fit in your product for too many audiences. This will make your product being less appealing to your potential customers. Limit your product for a specific set of audience that can actually consume it and do a stellar job for them. Understand your target customer, build your product accordingly and stay focussed.

Launching Too Soon

If you decide to launch quickly, there are chances that your product is unfinished and raw at that point of time. Launching too early can damage your reputation easily. The early adopters of your product or service will never come back if there is a fault. Think about the overall goal of the business and plan your launch accordingly. Delay your launch until your product is fully ready because if the product falls short of claims, it will definitely get bashed.

Not Talking to Customers

It is significantly important for founders to converse with their customers. The customer’s feedback will enable you to improvise your product and do better. If your customers are leaving, collecting feedback is the best way to learn what is causing dissatisfaction with your product. Know enough about the customers by talking to them regularly and be more effective.

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4 Most Serious Challenges for Startups in Contemporary Times

‘Every rose has its thorn’.

Yes, it a popular alternative rock ballad from yesteryears. However, the song title fits perfectly in the contemporary setup for startups in India.

Our government have launched a slew of measures to help in the mushrooming growth of startups. However, are they enough to counter the major challenges faced by startups?

The answer on most occasions might be a resonating ‘No’. Continue reading “4 Most Serious Challenges for Startups in Contemporary Times”

10 Ways To Make Your Customers Fall In Love With Your Brand [Infographic]

In today’s highly competitive environment where price has become much less of a deciding factor, nurturing fruitful relationships with your customers is a critical part of growing a successful business. Brands must foster a deep, committed and emotionally connected relationship with their customers. Instead of just focussing on short-term, single purchase, businesses must invest in long-term relationships. Continue reading “10 Ways To Make Your Customers Fall In Love With Your Brand [Infographic]”

Why Is SIP Protocol More Suitable for Most Contact Centers than TDM Protocol

The contact center business is going through a phase of rapid transformation. This is the age of digitization, and communication is safest and most reliable when it can be broken down into small packets of data. If data is dispatched over IP networks, there is little chance of loss of data, and IP phone also allow data and voice calls to move through the same conduit.

To be fair to Time-division multiplexing (TDM) however, one must concede that this mode of data transmission also has some advantages which is why it has been in use in contact centers for more than 4 decades. However, when TDM protocol was invented, there was no concept of internet and different data centers were not hyper-connected in a non-linear formation. Speed was also not the most important criteria. Continue reading “Why Is SIP Protocol More Suitable for Most Contact Centers than TDM Protocol”

Different Types of Dialers for Handling all Situations in Contact Centers

Unless you live in a different world, you must have received a call from an executive that says, “Hi, would you like to get a Credit Card?” These executives are the backbone of the businesses, be it small, mid-size, or large enterprises. And making sales calls all day long is a difficult task to do. Sales reps are constantly working to simplify a customer’s journey with the brand, pushing their deadlines to convert leads faster.

But, did you know that you can make your outbound call center agents’ life easy with a call center dialer software? You can optimize your dialing strategy with an outbound dialer to increase your business efficiency and decrease the manual tasks. For instance, a call center dialer could be programmed to use the service provider for domestic calls, and another for international calls. If your business has reached a point where you need to ramp up your outbound dialing strategy, then you need a dialer software for call center that is tailor-made for your business calls.

A call center dialer software automates the process of dialing in a contact center, it dials the contact lists on behalf of agents, thus helping in increasing their productivity.

There are different types of call center dialer solutions that you can choose from to suit your business-specific needs.

Types of Call Center Dialer Solutions:

Preview Dialer

Preview dialers help the agents to get a preview of the customer’s information before the call gets connected. Preview dialers work best when you need to upsell or cross-sell to your HNI customers. Providing customer information prior to the call prepares agents well to deliver a personalized experience. The admins can configure the time to display customer information, it can be set as 5 seconds before the call or 10 seconds.

If you are in a collections business, your sales reps can use some information like date of the last installment, payment reminder, etc, to engage with the customer without stalling them with unwanted information.

Predictive Dialer

Predictive dialer is suitable for businesses that have high call volumes. A predictive dialing strategy collects a large amount of data like agents’ average handling time, agents availability, and then start to place a call when the agent becomes available. According to Predictive Dialer Algorithm, the dialer dials out several calls simultaneously and with answering machine detection, detects if the call is answered by a human being, machine, or not answered. It will route the calls to agents only when the call is answered by a human being.

Predictive dialers dramatically increase the agents’ productivity by reducing the idle time between the calls, ensuring that the sales reps spend their time on calls and do not struggle with unanswered calls.

The dialer works intelligently according to agents’ availability, it uses predictive analysis on the basis of past call trends to ensure that when the agent will become available again, the next call is already patched. For instance, if an agent takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds on an average for each call, the dialer will start to dial out another call every 3 minutes to ensure that the agents get the time to wrap the call and are prepared for the next call.

The effectiveness of this dialer works on several factors such as Max Pacing Ratio, Call Drop Ratio, Agent Wait Time, and Variance Factor.

Progressive Dialer

This dialer works in similar fashion as that of Predictive mode, except that dialing only begins once an agent becomes available. The number of calls dialed is equal to the number of agents available. It is ideal for businesses that are engaged in telemarketing. Unlike predictive dialers, progressive dialers make calls one after the other and it utilizes agents’ availability to answer the calls.

This dialer works best for high-quality leads where you do not want your customers to experience silent calls. In this dialing strategy, your agents can deliver a more personalized interaction, thus increasing their productivity.

In a Nutshell

Making outbound sales calls can be stressful but with the right dialer software for outbound call center can increase your business ROI by manifolds. It’s time to equip your agents with the right tools to increase their productivity that helps them increase your business efficiency at large.

(Learn How To Boost Your Call Center ROI With An Auto Dialer?)

Top 4 Lessons Pokemon Go has provided in Customer Engagement

 

The other day I came across a meme on Pokemon Go, and burst into a hysteric laughter. It read “2006: In 10 years, we will cure cancer, populate the moon, and will achieve world peace. 2016: Don’t Pokemon and drive.” While the meme was undoubtedly funny, but I would still say that we can learn considerably from Pokemon Go.

Don’t be shocked, tag along and I’ll explain why. Continue reading “Top 4 Lessons Pokemon Go has provided in Customer Engagement”

Calling Line Identity Localization and How it can be Used to Increase Contact Rates

Calling Line Identity (CLI) is a phone service available in digital and analog phone systems. It is available in many of the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications as well. The service transmits the telephone number of the caller to the call-receiving party’s telephone equipment when the call is being set up or during the ringing signal. It is done before the call is answered. The caller ID will also display the name of the caller associated with the number if it is pre-programmed. A contact center software can display the information on your computer screen as well.

The process of presenting a localized CLI to the callee is termed as CLI localization. Various organizations, including contact centers, insurance companies, and debt collectors, use it to increase their contact rate. Continue reading “Calling Line Identity Localization and How it can be Used to Increase Contact Rates”

5 Kinds of Customers that will take Most of your Startup’s Time

In a time where Millennials rule the roost in the client base of almost every business, handling customers have become more pertinent than ever. So much so, that industries have started putting confidence in the slogans – ‘customer is king’, and ‘the customer is always right’.

While some customers are painless to handle, others can give your startup a tough time. It is true that all customers irrespective of set parameters essentially translate into potential business for you. Continue reading “5 Kinds of Customers that will take Most of your Startup’s Time”

6 Techniques for Startups to Get their First 20 Customers

 

One of the major concerns of every startup founder is “How will I get my first few customers to kick-start my business?” Even if you have a great startup idea and you have come up with an innovative product, not selling it successfully to the customers can put an end to your business. Early customers of a company are critical to the eventual success of its business as they validate your offering and prove that you have made something extremely good and useful. Their valuable feedback can help in improving your product or service as well. Continue reading “6 Techniques for Startups to Get their First 20 Customers”