The relevance of any certificate is a function of how well you can defend it. So whether it's online, free or not, if you're able to defend it, you will get value otherwise it becomes worthless from the perspective of the potential employer.

You can go for online training but focus more on the skills you are meant to acquire rather than the certificate. That way you will be able to defend the certificate.

You can try:

Linkedin.com
Udemy.com
Learnsmart.com.ng
Coursera.com

When you provide the right service at the right price, at the right time, and to the agreed-upon specifications, the customer is satisfied. This is the mission of most organizations because they assume that it is sufficient to satisfy customers. But studies conducted on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty show that this assumption is deeply flawed.

Xerox, for several years in the past, polled 480,000 customers per year regarding product and service satisfaction using a five-point scale from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Their goal had always been to have 100% of their customers give 4s (satisfied) and 5s (highly satisfied). But in a particular year, the result of the analysis of customers who gave Xerox 4s and 5s showed that the relationships between the scores and actual loyalty differed greatly depending on whether the customers were satisfied or highly satisfied. Customers giving Xerox 5s were six times more likely to repurchase Xerox equipment than those giving 4s.

This has profound implications which are: Satisfied customers are not loyal. Only highly satisfied ones are.

Truth is, however reasonable a customer is, they need to be highly satisfied; if they are not and have a choice, they can be lured away easily. That is why in today’s competitive and rapidly changing market-place, merely satisfying a customer is just not good enough.

Thus, if your organization still aims at making your customers satisfied, then there’s the need to stretch your objective and start aspiring to make them highly satisfied. And making a customer highly satisfied simply requires providing the unexpected or the extra service - the few add-ons that in most cases cost so little.

For example, consider the experience of a customer who wants their car serviced. The customer’s primary goal is to have it serviced properly. The car then goes in for servicing. When the customer is collecting it, everything on the checklist has been carried out correctly. The car is ready on time and the bill is also totally correct. The customer will be satisfied.

Here’s another scenario. When the customer is collecting the car, they find not only that the service has been done properly, bill correct and car ready, but that the car has also been washed, the interior has been vacuumed with a clean white sheet of paper placed in the footwell. And that there is a band of paper around the steering wheel that says, “This car has been serviced by Femi Okafor. If you have any concern, please ask to speak to him.” The customer will be highly satisfied.

In the first scenario of the example, what the auto workshop did was what the customer paid them to do. They carried out their task correctly and made the customer satisfied. This sort of service that makes customers merely satisfied is out of date.

The second scenario of the example shows an outstanding service where the extras made the difference and resulted in the customer being highly satisfied. This is the contemporary customer service model.

The organization that will survive and flourish over the long term is the one that understands how important the level of customer satisfaction is and continually works to do for their customers everything they can do after they have done what they are supposed to do.

So here is an important question to ponder: What are those extra things you can do to give your customer a better experience that will make them highly satisfied?

If you do not find the answers and take action, your competitors will. And when they do, your customers who are merely satisfied will be lured away – making them depart in hard-to-spot dribs.

Source is Learnsmart.com.ng: https://learnsmart.com.ng/blog/making-customers-satisfied-is-out-of-date/

We are an e-business organization looking for people who are interested in data mining to help us get data from the internet for the sole purpose of marketing. They will be required to work from anywhere as long they have access to the internet.

Key Requirements:

1. Good understanding of how to navigate the web(internet)

2. Own a laptop and have access to the internet

3. Basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel

If you're interested, please send an email to uwaj54@yahoo.com

When you provide the right service at the right price, at the right time, and to the agreed-upon specifications, the customer is satisfied. This is the mission of most organizations because they are of the belief that it is sufficient merely to satisfy customers. But studies conducted on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, show that this assumption is deeply flawed.

For several years in the past, Xerox had polled 480,000 customers per year regarding product and service satisfaction using a five-point scale from 5 (high) to 1 (low). Their goal had always been to achieve 100% 4s (satisfied) and 5s (completely satisfied). But in a particular year, an analysis of customers who gave Xerox 4s and 5s on satisfaction found that the relationships between the scores and actual loyalty differed greatly depending on whether the customers were completely satisfied or satisfied. Customers giving Xerox 5s were six times more likely to repurchase Xerox equipment than those giving 4s.

This has profound implications: Merely satisfying customers who have the freedom to make choices is not enough to keep them loyal. The only truly loyal customers are completely satisfied customers.

Customers are reasonable, but they want to be completely satisfied; if they are not and have a choice, they can be lured away easily. That’s why in today’s competitive and rapidly changing market-place, customer satisfaction is just not good enough.

So if your organization still aims at merely satisfying your customers, there’s need to stretch your objective and start aspiring to completely satisfy your customers. And making a customer completely satisfied simply requires providing the unexpected or the extra service - the few add-ons that in most cases cost so little.

For example, consider the experience of a customer who wants their car serviced. The customer’s basic goal is to have it serviced properly. The car goes in for servicing. When the customer goes to collect it, everything on the checklist has been carried out absolutely correctly. The car is ready on time and the bill is also totally correct. The customer will be satisfied.

Here’s another version. When the customer collects the car, they find not only that the service has been done properly, the bill is correct and the car is ready, but that it has also been washed, the interior has been vacuumed with a clean white sheet of paper placed in the footwell. And there is a band of paper around the steering wheel that says, “This car has been serviced by Jide Fadipe. If you have any worries, please ask to speak to him.” The customer will be completely satisfied.

In the first part of the example, what the auto workshop did was what the customer paid them to do. They carried out their task correctly and made the customer satisfied. This sort of service that makes customers merely satisfied is out of date.

The second part of the example shows an outstanding service where the extras made the difference and resulted to complete customer satisfaction. This is the contemporary service model.

The organization that will survive and flourish over the long term is the one that understands how important the level of customer satisfaction is and continually works to do for their customers everything they can do after they have done what they are supposed to do.

So here is an important question to ponder: What are those extra things you can do to give your customer a better experience that will make them completely satisfied?

If you do not find the answers and take action, your competitors will. And when they do, your customers who are merely satisfied will be lured away – they usually depart in hard-to-spot dribs and drabs.

"The gulf between satisfied customers and completely satisfied customers can swallow a business." - Thomas Jones and Earl Sasser

Source: http://www.pls.com.ng/blog/?p=385

If you do not develop your skills, don't bother. The most sustainable way to keep getting a high paying job is through personal development. Focus on that, position yourself well on Linkedin, and you will attract the right recruiters. Skilled professionals are being sought after everyday but most people lack the patience and the discipline to develop themselves.

Overview

We specialize in helping organizations to build competence in their workforce through classroom learning and e-learning. And we need an intern for a 1-year Customer Service role.
He or she will work directly with customers to meet their needs, answer their questions and provide support. The person in this role must be someone who is nice and genuinely willing to help customers – must be patient and empathetic.
He or she will be trained in all areas relevant for making our customers highly satisfied.

Responsibilities:

1. Manage incoming calls and develop rapport with customers
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
7. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
8. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
9. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Good communication skills
2. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
3. OND in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

Overview

We specialize in helping organizations to build competence in their workforce through classroom learning and e-learning. And we need an intern for a 1-year Customer Service role.
He or she will work directly with customers to meet their needs, answer their questions and provide support. The person in this role must be someone who is nice and genuinely willing to help customers – must be patient and empathetic.
He or she will be trained in all areas relevant for making our customers highly satisfied.

Responsibilities:

1. Manage incoming calls and develop rapport with customers
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
7. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
8. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
9. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Good communication skills
2. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
3. OND in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

Overview

We specialize in helping organizations to build competence in their workforce through classroom learning and e-learning in many areas of business, soft skills, and office productivity tools. Based in Lagos, we are looking for a customer-oriented service professional with superior communication skills and a great work ethic.

He or she will work directly with customers to meet their needs, answer their questions and provide support. The person in this role must be someone who is genuinely excited to help customers – must be patient and empathetic. It must be someone who loves to talk and can put him- or herself in our customers’ shoes and advocate for them when necessary.

Our target is to ensure excellent service standards and maintain high customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities

1. Manage incoming calls and develop rapport with customers
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Meet customer service call handling quotas
7. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
8. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
9. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
10. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Strong phone contact handling skills and active listening
2. Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
3. customer orientation and ability to adapt/respond to different types of characters
4. Excellent communication and presentation skills
5. Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively
6. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
7. University degree in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

Poor customer service creates a leak in your organization, causing potentially loyal customers to slip away. In other words, poor service will cost your organization money. Lots of money.

You incur this cost in two ways . . .

- Your customers won’t come back

- Your customers won’t recommend you to anyone

So where is all the lost money going?

1. Direct loss of sales

Have you ever tried to buy something from a company, and their service became so poor that you left? For example, you waited so long on a queue, became frustrated and left. Or your organization loses a contract because your representatives seemed uncaring. These are typical examples of direct loss of sale due to poor service.

Lost sales are the first way poor service is shrinking the bottom line. People will just leave and go elsewhere.

This is true for online businesses just as much as offline businesses. On average, roughly 80% of people will not complete a transaction due to poor customer service. That’s four out of five.

2. Ruined reputation as poor service spreads like wildfire

The word-of-mouth behavior of dissatisfied customers is often underestimated. Study shows that customers who are dissatisfied tell twice as many people about their dissatisfaction as those who are satisfied. Hence bad news travels faster than good.

Poor service means bad word-of-mouth, which means you potentially lose customers who may have purchased from you had their friend not ruined your reputation.

3. Sabotaged second chance

58% of customers will never use a company again after a bad experience. And many customers who are dissatisfied don’t complain. Research shows that 90% of dissatisfied customers do not complain and most show their dissatisfaction by not buying again.

Unfortunately, the 10% who do organizations a favour by complaining are sometimes ignored with their complaints not well handled. When you ignore your customers’ complaints, you’re losing the opportunity to quickly solve the problem that will potentially retain the 90% who do not complain.

In other words, you need to listen to the people who are talking to you and ensure you fix the problem for them as well as anyone else who may have experienced it, but didn’t say anything. If not, people will complain about you to everyone but you, and taking their business elsewhere.

Please note this: Always assume other people have the same problem as the customers who reach out to you.

4. Increased sensitivity to price:

Research from TARP Worldwide, found that additional problems increased customers’ sensitivity to price, price changes, and additional fees. Shown below is a survey from retail banking customers.

Hence with poor service, it’s going to be difficult (if not impossible) to charge a premium or change your pricing structure because poorly treated customers are more sensitive to price changes than well treated ones.

Taken together, these four outcomes are triggered by poor service and they lead to loss of money. Because some are not obvious and immediate, the cost of poor service is often underestimated. However, it’s huge. Poor service costs businesses $338 billion in revenue every year, globally.

That’s why providing excellent service (and avoiding poor service) is one of the most impactful things you can do to grow your organization. It offers a unique opportunity for you to build your business around the element that matters most – loyal customers.

Sourced from Paradigm Learning Blog: http://www.pls.com.ng/blog/?p=269

We are about to enter the second half of the year. So as you think of your goals for the year, this is a good time to take a very important step to increase your chances of accomplishing them.

And there’s just one major thing you need to awaken in you in order to turn your goals into accomplishments – Discipline. Imbibe it and your goals and dreams will come to life. Neglect it, your goals and dreams will not be accomplished.

Discipline is your ability to do what is necessary. It can also be defined, in the words of James C. Collins, as consistency of action. Even though it seems simple by definition, it is not always easy to overcome certain level of inertia and get ourselves to consistently do the necessary things.

Perhaps there are things you said you’d do in the first half of this year but you haven’t done them. Not that you require anything extraordinary to be able to do them. Yet you haven’t done them. The fact is that what’s required is discipline.

It’s the number one trait you need in life to succeed because for every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards.

For consistent daily exercise, the rewards come in the form of health benefits. For conscious and regular personal development by reading good books and taking new courses, the reward comes as an increase in your value which translates to higher earning. For disciplined commitment in your spiritual activities, there’s growth in your spiritual life. For consistent positive habits in managing your finances, the reward comes in form of financial independence.

Little wonder Jim Rohn defined success as “. . . a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” You must pay constant daily attention to the activities that will lead to the actualization of your goals. Do not take things for granted.

Learn to do the necessary things. Start from the little necessary things. Learn the discipline of arriving to appointments on time, or using your time more effectively. Learn the discipline of saving or investing a portion of your income each time you earn money. Learn the discipline of having regular meetings with your child about their work in school. Learn the discipline of learning all you can learn, of reading all you can read.

At this moment, few days to the second half of the year, think about your 2018 goals. If you made a list, bring it out now and check. How many have you accomplished? What areas need attention right now? Perhaps you've not accomplished most of your goals. Wouldn't this be an ideal time to examine your need for new simple disciplines?

One of the things that dampen the eagerness to do what is necessary is the delay to act. Once we delay, our intent starts to diminish. So set up the disciplines immediately and start to practice them. If not, the law of diminishing intent will catch up with you, slow you down again, and make you lose the discipline that you require to convert your dreams and goals to equity called accomplishments.

Source: https://learnsmart.com.ng/blog/what-you-need-to-turn-your-goals-into-accomplishments/

Overview

We specialize in helping organizations to build competence in their workforce through classroom learning and e-learning in many areas of business, soft skills, and office productivity tools. Based in Lagos, we are looking for a customer-oriented service professional with superior communication skills and a great work ethic.

He or she will work directly with customers to meet their needs, answer their questions and provide support. The person in this role must be someone who is genuinely excited to help customers – must be patient and empathetic. It must be someone who loves to talk and can put him- or herself in our customers’ shoes and advocate for them when necessary.

Our target is to ensure excellent service standards and maintain high customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities

1. Manage incoming calls and develop rapport with customers
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Meet customer service call handling quotas
7. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
8. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
9. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
10. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Strong phone contact handling skills and active listening
2. Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
3. customer orientation and ability to adapt/respond to different types of characters
4. Excellent communication and presentation skills
5. Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively
6. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
7. University degree in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

Overview

We specialize in helping organizations to build competence in their workforce through classroom learning and e-learning in many areas of business, soft skills, and office productivity tools. Based in Lagos, we are looking for a customer-oriented service professional with superior communication skills and a great work ethic.

He or she will work directly with customers to meet their needs, answer their questions and provide support. The person in this role must be someone who is genuinely excited to help customers – must be patient and empathetic. It must be someone who loves to talk and can put him- or herself in our customers’ shoes and advocate for them when necessary.

Our target is to ensure excellent service standards and maintain high customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities

1. Manage incoming calls and develop rapport with customers
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Meet customer service call handling quotas
7. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
8. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
9. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
10. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Strong phone contact handling skills and active listening
2. Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
3. Customer orientation and ability to adapt/respond to different types of characters
4. Excellent communication and presentation skills
5. Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively
6. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
7. University degree in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

One of the primary drivers of success is finding your strengths and focusing on using them. Your strengths are those personal characteristics that allow you to perform at your personal best.

The more you can narrow down to what your core strength is the better your chance of success. That’s why the key to having an excellent career is to ask yourself one simple question: “What is my biggest strength?”

So many people are in jobs they don’t like because they haven’t found the answer to that question. And because everyone is good at a few things and does them here and there, many talented people float in the pool of mediocrity – lacking real success.

That should not be. Don’t deny yourself fulfillment and subsequent success by failing to play in areas of your strength. You must nail down your strengths so you can discover your passion. Critical to success is finding and being sure of that one big thing you want to do forever – your biggest strength.

Here are three tips that will help you identify your strengths and find ideas for using them:

1. Discover what makes you tick

To identify your strengths you have to start paying close attention to the things you do with ease and that you generally achieve a good result from. Pay attention to the things that come most naturally to you that you love to do.

That’s a good start. The process will show you, what you are truly good at. Next, you have to make sure of what your emotions are telling you.

How do you feel when you do these things? For instance, when you’re involved in an activity you are truly good at, your excitement is visible and you feel more engaged.

These are all positive emotions, which will give you a closer look into your passions. It’s important that you focus only on the strengths that connect with your strong emotions. Only in this way, will you be able to keep improving your strengths in the long run.

You could also brainstorm and note what comes to mind with the following questions:

• What do other people always tell you you’re good at – but you don’t notice?
• What activities give you energy? When do you feel most alive at work?
• When did you last lose track of time? What were you doing?
• What activities make you feel most motivated?

2. What do you suffer with?

Like the first point, you should identify your personal weaknesses too not because they will become your strengths, but because you don’t want them to hold you back. Also, knowing them, you might consider partnering with someone who is far better than you in those areas. In this way, you’ll be able to turn your deficits into your advantages.

Identifying your weakness should be easier because it gets quite obvious, when you don’t enjoy a process and when others are much better equipped than you in a certain area.

The following indicators will help you to pinpoint your weaknesses:

• You don’t like an activity or you don’t feel any positive emotions about it.
• You feel a lack of energy or you procrastinate when faced with this area.
• You get things done, but it takes you more time than others need.
• Others do it much better.

Use these indicators, during your work routine. When you notice a pattern, which points to one or more indicators, consider it as one of your weaknesses. The stronger the pattern, the stronger your weakness is.

With both your strengths and weaknesses identified, it’s now a question of emphasis; you’ll know what to focus on in your life. In other words, allocate your time wisely and invest more energy into your strengths.

3. Recall your achievements

What have been your proudest moments in life so far? What are your finest achievements? Usually we’re so modest and self-effacing that we try to casually belittle our best achievements. Please don’t do that in this case. Identify your achievements and really recall them in detail.

Think of all your major achievements and for each one try to remember that achievement in detail. What did you do? How did you influence those around you? What strengths would you say you used during this achievement?

Considering all the achievements, which one was most creative? Which one took most courage? Which one was most inspiring? Which achievement do you most look back on? Which achievement took most stamina? Which achievement was the most difficult?

In answering the questions above, you may have identified the particular achievement that got attention most. The strength you used there is a good indicator of what your biggest strength may be.

Taken together, it is critically important for you to know your strengths and put them into practice. If you are looking to advance your career, finding and leveraging your workplace strengths is perhaps the most important thing you can do. Otherwise, you will find yourself in an area that doesn’t leverage your strengths and your drive and performance will suffer along with your career advancement.

Generally, your strengths are ultimately the keys to your success. If you fail to find your strength and focus on using them, you’ll play on the ‘wrong’ side of the pitch and life will inadvertently assess you wrongly.

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein

Source: http://learnsmart.com.ng/blog/find-your-strengths-focus-on-using-them/

None. Primary focus should be on acquiring the skills. But if you must choose, get a masters. It's valid forever but certification gets outdated and some require recertification after few years.

The following article may be useful:http://learnsmart.com.ng/blog/professional-certification-good-but/

Professional certification is a process in which a person proves that he or she has the knowledge, experience, and skills to perform a specific job. The proof comes in the form of a certificate earned by passing an accredited exam that reflects prescribed standards for the particular industry involved.

So certification in itself is good. Ideally, the process of certification should equip professionals with the requisite skills. The question now is why do we find many certified professionals who are incompetent – lacking even the theoretical principles?

The reason is not far-fetched. Most professionals have the wrong motive during the learning process that leads to certification. When the motive of learning is to get certificates instead of to acquire skills, the professional, through exam success, ends up with only the certificate and no new skill.

Perhaps because it’s seen just as exams to be passed, the quest for professional certification is on the increase. It has become a popular fad. One time it was Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), today it is Project Management Professional (PMP), but ask most ‘certified’ professionals some basic questions in the area they are certified, you’ll be very disappointed.

This outcome is driven by the myth that when you get certified, you include them in your resume, append the corresponding acronyms beside your name, and it becomes easy to get new jobs.

But what most professionals do not realize is that certifications don’t get you a job. What employers are looking for is someone who can do the job and fit in. And for you to be able to do the job you need the necessary skills and the right attitude. If you want to validate them with certifications, fine. However, that does not make certifications the primary requirement.

Even though certifications provide status to those who have proven their knowledge, being certified does not ‘protect’ the incompetent. In fact, employers now know that you can become certified and still not be able to deliver on the job.

This is because learning with the primary aim to develop yourself is different from learning with the primary aim to get a certificate. Hence the outcomes are different. While personal development is what helps you to become the best human being you can possibly be, certification has become what people do to ‘get ahead’ in their career – a means to a limited end.

When your primary motive is to develop yourself, certification (if still need it) then helps to assure employers, customers, and the public that you’re competent and professional. But when your primary motive is certification, you’ll fail to develop yourself.

Hence to advance professionally, do not put the proverbial cart before the horse. Seek personal development first and everything else will take care of itself.

So wouldn’t you rather focus on personal development? In one of our articles, “Developing Yourself to Success”, it was defined as the conscious pursuit of self-growth by expanding self-awareness and knowledge and improving personal skills.

You could start by reading value-adding books; volunteering in the field you hope to enter so as to learn; taking a course with the right motive.


Source:http://learnsmart.com.ng/blog/

Overview

We are an e-learning company based in Lagos and looking for a customer-oriented service professional. He or she will act as a liaison: provide product/services information and resolve, with accuracy and efficiency, any emerging problems that our customers might face.

We need someone who is genuinely excited to help customers – must be patient, empathetic, and passionately communicative. It must be someone who loves to talk and can put him- or herself in our customers’ shoes and advocate for them when necessary.
Our target is to ensure excellent service standards and maintain high customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities

1. Manage incoming calls
2. Generate sales through excellent customer service
3. Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
4. Build sustainable relationships of trust through open and interactive communication
5. Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
6. Meet customer service call handling quotas
7. Handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
8. Keep records of customer interactions and process customer accounts
9. Follow communication procedures, guidelines and policies
10. Take the extra mile to engage customers

Requirements

1. Strong phone contact handling skills and active listening
2. Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
3. Customer orientation and ability to adapt/respond to different types of characters
4. Excellent communication and presentation skills
5. Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively
6. Good problem-solving skills and ability to gather customer feedback
7. University degree in any field

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send an application and your CV to uwaj54@yahoo.com.

Soft Skills can be learned. For example, work ethic is a form of soft skill. And no one is born with the right work ethic even though it can be shaped by environment, upbringing, etc. Same applies to communication skills, business etiquette, resilience, and many other forms of soft skill.

I agree with AdemolaA2 that people with natural preference in certain soft skills will find it easier to learn them. However, there may not be any difference after all if learnt with the right purpose (as rightly stated by pressplay411). If you have time, please find and read the book " Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin.

We need not allow any belief to stop us from developing ourselves into what we want to become. Through personal development you can make yourself better in any area of drawback - be it in soft or hard skills, personal or professional life. You may want to read my related post on personal development titled "Developing Yourself to Success": https://www.nairaland.com/3580814/developing-yourself-success#52932445

To do your work, you typically need hard skills. For example, Dentists need to know how to fill cavities, Computer Programmers need to be able to write functional codes, and Accountants need to be certified.

However, beyond the hard skills, which dentist do you go to? The one who is pleasant and takes time to answer your questions; or the one who treats you like a number in a long line of numbered mouths?

Which programmer do you retain when the economy is down? The one whose attitude is positive and upbeat, and who is always willing to help; or the one who is inflexible and has a hard time admitting mistakes?

Likewise, think about accountants. The one who has a great work ethic, listens actively, and encourages his colleagues is the one who will, most likely, excel in his position and organization.

In these situations, and all the others like them, it’s the soft skills that matter. Soft skills are personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Examples include your communication skills, attitude, business etiquette, work ethic, emotional intelligence, ability to handle crises, and even the way you carry yourself.

On the other hand, hard skills are the technical expertise and skill sets you need to complete your tasks at work. In other words, they are your knowledge and occupational skills. Examples of hard skills include an accountancy certification (like ACCA), knowledge of a particular software, typing, writing, or experience in a particular industry sector.

Since hard skills are specific knowledge and abilities typically backed up with certificates and certifications, people tend to focus more on them. But the reality is that hard skills are inadequate for optimal career advancement. While your hard skills may get your foot in the door, your soft skills are what open most of the doors to come.

If you’re a hard worker who has watched a string of other seemingly less-qualified individuals being promoted ahead of you, what you may not know is that it could be your soft skills—or lack thereof—that could be holding you back from achieving the next level in your professional life.

Soft skills are that important. When they are lacking, the outcome is evident.

For instance, managers with poor people skills can create an unfriendly work environment, which will typically lead to unhappy workers, low productivity, and costly employee turnover.

Similarly, an employee who lacks time management skills can cause unnecessary delays in projects. In many cases, this could cost an organization valuable time or make unhappy customers to leave.

Also an employee who is not assertive can make needless concessions to demanding customers at the expense of the organization.

Outcomes like these highlight the inadequacy of hard skills and make soft skills the determinant factor during reorganization and downsizing.

Ironically, many organizations do not train their employees on soft skills as much as they do on hard skills. The reason is that your organization expects you to know how to behave on the job, like being on time, taking initiative, being friendly, and producing high quality work – typical soft skills.

And truly, you need to have a reasonable level of soft skills to complement your occupational skills. Gone are the days when professionals could hope to achieve sustainable career progress without first cultivating necessary soft skills.

Unfortunately, too many people in professional positions won’t concern themselves with developing their soft skills. For instance, some who have bad interpersonal skills dismiss criticisms of their interaction styles by saying it’s just their personality and they can’t change.

Others feel their on-the-job training has been enough to get them to their current positions and they don’t need soft skills development to advance their career.

However, smart individuals know that hard skills are not sufficient so they continue to develop their soft skills to avoid prematurely reaching a plateau in their career.

To advance in your career, it’s important to start to develop your soft skills now and practise using them at work on a regular basis.

Soft skills revolve around personal relationships, character, and attitude. You can nurture these skills by developing your communication skills, strengthening your interpersonal relationships, and demonstrating enthusiasm and ingenuity in any role you find yourself.

By doing so, you can increase your work performance, build stronger relationships, and ultimately move your career to the next level.

“There’s not one specific thing or skill people have to have to work for us. But I can tell you why we fire people: soft skills. We hire for hard skills. We fire for soft skills. The ability to interact and communicate with others or behave ethically and take responsibility for things tends to be where people tend to break down.” -- Rick Stephens, Senior Vice President of HR, The Boeing Corporation

Source: http://learnsmart.com.ng/

Personal development. If you could put what drives career success into one phrase, that would be the phrase. Personal development is the conscious pursuit of self-growth by expanding self-awareness and knowledge and improving personal skills.

Basically, what it takes is for you to be aware of your personal drawbacks and strive to make yourself better - in every area, be it in personal or professional life.

The key component of personal development is self-awareness. If you do not know yourself, you cannot improve yourself. If you know yourself well, you will know what it is that will make you fulfilled. This knowledge is the foundation upon which true success is built.

However, the most common mistake you must avoid is thinking that fulfillment comes from what you get. Don’t assess career advancement opportunities based only on what you’ll get. The reason is that what you’ll get is not nearly as important as what you’ll become.

For instance, some jobs seem difficult with little pay but may offer more opportunity for you to learn, develop yourself, and become a better person. Another may offer more pay, look more ‘corporate’, but exposes you to less responsibility and experience. If you’re conscious of your personal development, you’ll prefer the former irrespective of the little pay.

This personal development principle is summed up best by John Ruskin when he says, "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."

The important question to ask on a job is not, What am I getting? Instead, you should ask, What am I becoming? Getting and becoming are so closely intertwined—what you become directly influences what you get.

Most of what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are right now. So when you stop developing yourself, you have inadvertently stopped possible increase in your income because income rarely exceeds personal development. Even when your income takes a lucky jump (which happens sometimes), if you don’t develop yourself enough to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle. The fact is: It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

Here is the great axiom by Jim Rohn which you should focus most of your attention on: To have more than you've got, become more than you are.

Hence, to progress, you must continue to develop yourself. The way to start is one small step at a time. Read value-adding books; take a course; volunteer in the field you hope to enter; join an organization that is related to your new career goal.

Otherwise, you just might have to contend with Jim Rohn's axiom of not developing yourself, which is: Unless you change how you are, you'll always have what you've got.

It’s no wonder many of us are not fully satisfied with where we are at professionally. Perhaps, we are ignoring that crucial personal component that helps drive change and great results.

Many people remain in jobs where they are not developing. And often the reason is that they have accepted that this is how they are just meant to work. It has not occurred to them that there can be another “life” out there. This acceptance of the “status quo” is, unfortunately, all too common.

Understood. Change can be scary but should we then get comfortable, even in our lack of development and fulfillment, and avoid taking risks that put us in new “places”?

We should always have new goals, things to look forward to, new experiences we want to have. Personal development is a life-long process. Ultimately, what it does is that it transforms you into a self-realized person living at full potential and reaching real happiness in life.

In other words, you can use personal development to steer your life to success. It's possible. But you must make it a conscious pursuit and a continuous process.

Have a very prosperous new year!

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -- Carl Gustav Jung

Source: http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

Have you ever felt intimidated by others? How many times have you told yourself that you could have done better when handling a conversation only to repeat the same mistakes again? Do you like to stay out of conflicts and keep to yourself? Do people take advantage of you?

If your answer is “yes” to any of these questions, then it's time to start being assertive. Being assertive means you have courage in your convictions and stand up for what you believe in, while being respectful of others. Assertive people communicate their opinions without apology and in turn allow others their say. They are not pushovers as they recognize the limits to which they can bend.

Assertive people are extremely lucrative to companies because they can express themselves freely, get things done, don’t take no for an answer (which is useful when dealing with clients) while at the same time appear polite, professional and fair.

Also, a successful entrepreneur is an assertive one. They always do well in the business world because they know how to communicate effectively and earn respect.

When you are assertive, you operate from a position of equality and respect. You respect your own rights, values and beliefs while respecting the rights, values and beliefs of others. Treating everybody, including yourself, as equal gives you better appreciation of the way in which the world actually operates.

Aggressive people feel that everybody should serve them and passive people feel that they should serve everyone else. Assertive people understand that we can work together for the mutual benefit of everyone involved.

Being assertive is a frequently misunderstood concept as there are many of us who confuse assertiveness with being aggressive and domineering.

Assertiveness is a core communication skill. So to understand it better, let’s go through the kinds of communication styles regularly used. They have four distinct patterns as follows:

Passive: A passive communicator goes out of their way to avoid conflict and tend to put their needs last. They apologize a lot and often are taken advantage of. They tend to think of themselves as a peacekeeper but in reality send out a message that their feelings and opinions are not as important as those of others.

Aggressive: An aggressive communicator comes across as a self-righteous bully, dismissive of others opinions and feelings. They use criticism, intimidation, and humiliation to dominate others.

Passive- Aggressive: This is a style of communication often seen in corporate situations, when one feels powerless. The behavior exhibits a mixture of agreement and resistance where you are easygoing and cooperative on the outside and resenting the authority on the inside. Uncomfortable with conflict or confrontation of any sort, people exhibiting this behavior often resort to manipulation, sarcasm and playing games with others to exert power or subvert authority.

Assertive: Assertiveness is said to be a balance between passive and aggressive. Being assertive is communicating your perspective and opinions, while being respectful of others. Assertive people are respected and feel secure in their actions. They know how to say ‘no’ and aren’t afraid to stand by their decisions.

Have you identified which style you tend to lean to? The healthiest communications style everyone aspires for and generally the most underused is Assertiveness.

If we look around in our environment, there are those who are overlooked and viewed as uncertain, indecisive and weak because of their ‘passive behaviour’. Then, there are also those who trying to be assertive accidentally veer off into “aggressive” territory who are overlooked as not being a team player.

If you’re not assertive, you need not worry because assertiveness, like any other skill, is learnable. And when this skill is acquired, it can help you both personally and professionally because it improves your confidence level and self-esteem. In addition, it helps you in handling other people, whether they are aggressive or passive, no matter the nature of your profession.


Source: http://learnsmart.com.ng/course-detail/Mzg=

Put simply, a service process is a set of defined tasks needed to complete a given business service activity, including who is responsible for completing each step, when, and how they do so.

It is important to note that service processes are not just the processes at the point where the customer receives the service. Service organizations that consistently meet both cost and quality targets know that they must manage the chain of processes from start to finish rather than simply the final stage of delivery to customers.

Service processes are the lifeblood of the operations in service organizations. The way the DNA provides the pattern for a living organism is the way service processes provide the service pattern for a service organization. Service processes determine the procedures to be followed in service delivery and also how various activities link together to provide the whole service.

Hence good service processes ensure that service is delivered consistently, time after time and creates the desired experience and outcomes for the customer.

That is why excellent service – which satisfies the customer and meets the strategic intentions of the organization – is usually the result of careful design and delivery of a whole set of interrelated service processes. These processes not only ‘process’ customers to create the customer experience but they also process materials, information and even staff.

The service process is not just one of the key elements of service delivery, it’s also the glue that holds the rest – the customers, staff, equipment and materials – together. It is the mechanism that creates the customer’s experience and results in the service outcomes.
Thus services frequently fail when service processes have been inadequately designed and executed. And rather than solving service failure issues from the root, most organizations keep treating them on the surface by merely trying to pacify customers.

What makes customers annoyed, even angry, after a failed service recovery, is not so much that they were not satisfied but that they feel the system has not been changed to prevent the problem from arising. In other words, the relevant service processes have not been improved.
Many service organizations underrate the importance of services processes and do not pay adequate attention to them. They fail to get their process design right and also do not bother to make continuous changes as needed.

This results to services that are inconsistent and poor. Unaware of the root cause, these organizations just let their staff soak up the resultant pressure, leading not only to dissatisfied and disillusioned customers but also to stressed out and negatively disposed staff, who feel powerless to help or sort out the problems.

As mundane as service processes may seem, their importance to service operations cannot be overstated. To achieve consistent service excellence, service organizations should ensure they have processes that are well-defined, consistently executed and evaluated, and continuously improved.

Otherwise, it would be a case of showing only occasional service greatness, which Mark Sanborn may be inadvertently referring to when he says, "Better to be consistently good than occasionally great".

By: http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

About 16 years ago, online learning was in its infancy, whereas being taught in a classroom in a systematic form has been around for hundreds of years. Little wonder that it’s not been easy to translate the pedagogical methods used in the classroom into those adopted in online learning. Yet there is evidence that suggests both methodologies can deliver comparable learning outcomes (notwithstanding that both methodologies can be subject to poor implementation and delivery).

A number of things are different in online learning but in order to explain why it is a viable alternative to classroom learning, we will focus on the three things that have the most significant effect on the outcome of training impact assessment.

Effectiveness

When the US Department of Education carried out an evaluation and review of online learning in 20101, it found out that the learning outcomes of students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of the students engaged in classroom learning. One reason for the improved effectiveness seems to be the increased level of participation through interactivity and self-paced ownership of the learning. This leads to higher levels of cognitive engagement and therefore higher levels of retention.

Learners can stop to reflect whenever they want, or return to previously-delivered content, and thus ensure a deeper understanding before continuing. This is what Vygotsky (1896-1934) called ‘Scaffolding’ – learning at a level that is appropriate to the learner’s capability.

This contrasts with classroom instruction with its ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, whether you are ready or not. The flexibility of pace in online learning gives the learner time to digest and reflect on the information being presented, and time to integrate it into their existing understanding and context. This is how they make sense of it and how they are helped to embed it in long-term memory.

Time

One minute of classroom time does not equal one minute of online training. The same subject covered by an online learning course typically takes between 25 and 60 percent of the hours needed for traditional learning due to more condensed content delivery, scripted to be succinct and accurate, coupled with the time lost to the physicality of classroom events, e.g. introductions, tea and lunch breaks, etc.

Where a traditional classroom course may span a longer period of time (for instance, 8 hours of delivery, the content time compression aside), an online learning course offers the convenience of being accessed at any time over a period of days and weeks e.g. 8 x 30 minutes sessions.

Cost

From a corporate perspective, it is well understood that the cost of developing online learning content can be higher than for a classroom-based course. However, this difference is ultimately negligible when taking into account the scalability of online learning and the indirect logistical costs of classroom events. As the online learning field matures it is also becoming the norm to be able to purchase off-the-shelf online content which further helps justify the large savings of using this medium.

For instance, Ernst & Young cut training costs by 35 percent while improving consistency and scalability. They condensed their training time by about 52 percent.

In addition, sending Online Content to international locations via the internet is cost-effective in comparison to sending instructors via airplanes.

Both online and classroom learning programs have a fixed development cost. The development cost of classroom learning course is clearly lower than that of online learning. On the other hand, once developed, the online learning course does not incur any further costs. Therefore, the total cost line for online learning is horizontal. The classroom course, however, contains such variable costs as the cost of the trainer. Consequently, the total cost line of the classroom course continues rising after development.

From the perspective of individual professionals seeking to develop their skills, the cost of enrolling for an online training is only a fraction of the what its classroom equivalent costs. For instance, the cost of our Email Marketing Course online is N7,350 where as in the classroom it costs N35,000.

Conclusion

This analysis clearly shows that online learning is more cost-effective, or cheaper. However, the most critical point is that the learning outcomes are achieved by both approaches and in fact in some cases the online learning approach can deliver even more effective learning with better memory retention. This makes it a viable alternative to classroom learning.

By: http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

To get and keep a job, you typically need hard skills. For example, Dentists need to know how to fill cavities, Computer Programmers need to be able to write functional codes, and Accountants need to be certified.

However, beyond the hard skills, which dentist do you go to? The one who is pleasant and takes time to answer your questions; or the one who treats you like a number in a long line of numbered mouths?

Which programmer do you retain when the economy is down? The one whose attitude is positive and upbeat, and who is always willing to help; or the one who is inflexible and has a hard time admitting mistakes?

Likewise, think about accountants. The one who has a great work ethic, listens actively, and encourages his colleagues is the one who will, most likely, excel in his position and organization.

In these situations, and all the others like them, it's the soft skills that matter. Soft skills are personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Also known as people skills, examples include your communication skills, attitude, business etiquette, work ethic, ability to handle crises, and even the way you carry yourself.

Hard skills are the technical expertise and skill sets you need to complete your tasks at work. In other words, they are your knowledge and occupational skills. Examples of hard skills include an accountancy certification (like ACCA), typing, writing, knowledge of a particular software, or experience in a particular industry sector.

Since hard skills are specific knowledge and abilities typically backed up with certificates and certifications, people tend to focus more on them for career advancement. Even most organizations provide more training for hard skills than they do for soft skills.

But you should not misconstrue your organizations’ apparent emphasis on hard skills. The reality is that hard skills are inadequate for optimal career advancement.

The reason your organization seem to train more on hard skills is because they expect people to know how to behave on the job, like being on time, taking initiative, being friendly, and producing high quality work – examples of soft skills.

Thus hard skills are necessary but not sufficient skills for career advancement. While your hard skills may get your foot in the door, your soft skills are what open most of the doors to come. Hence, even though, the importance of soft skills is often undervalued, they are critical for career advancement and eventually makes the difference.

If you’re a hard worker who has watched a string of other seemingly less-qualified individuals being promoted ahead of you, what you may not know is that it could be your soft skills—or lack thereof—that could be holding you back from achieving the next level in your professional life.

Gone are the days when professionals could hope to move into management roles without first cultivating people or self-management skills. For one thing, a manager with poor soft skills who lacks the ability to handle his subordinates with tact could leave a company open to lawsuits.

Any employee with poor soft skills is also a financial liability for a number of reasons. A manager who lacks time management skills can cause unnecessary delays in projects. In many cases, this could cost an organization valuable time or cause unhappy customers to drop services or products.

Managers with poor soft skills can also create an unfriendly work environment, which will typically lead to unhappy workers and costly employee turnover.

Unfortunately, too many people in professional positions won’t concern themselves with getting more training, especially in areas that involve soft skills. For instance, some who have bad people skills dismiss criticism of their interaction styles by saying it’s just their personality and they can’t change.

Others feel their on-the-job training has been enough to get them to their current positions and they don’t need soft skills training to advance their careers.

However, smart individuals know that they can benefit greatly from continued training in the area of soft skills to complement their technical prowess. They know that reaching a plateau in their career can be frustrating and demoralizing. Hence they prevent it by proactively developing their soft skills.

If you wish to advance in your career, it’s crucial to start to develop soft skills now and practice using them at work on a regular basis. Your superiors will take note of your efforts, which will ultimately mean your name is at the top of the list when it comes time for promotions.

One way you can learn to improve or develop your soft skills while working is to take self-paced online courses in areas that involve soft skills, or perhaps even go back to school on a part-time basis for a degree in business management. In either case, you will be provided with valuable and effective tools for dealing with others and for self-management, which could help prepare you for ultimately moving to the next level in your career.

By: http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

One of the reasons people choose online learning style is that it’s very convenient. This advantage, however, means you have to take some extra steps to successfully learn online.

You need to dedicate a significant amount of your time, consistently take the sessions, be concentrated while studying, and fully commit to your learning process, just as you would do for a regular course.

It’s important to realize that online learning is not an easier way to learn, but rather a more convenient one. It requires commitment, self-discipline, willpower, and strong motivation. Without these, it may be challenging for you to successfully complete your online courses.

In this write-up, we’ll share five key study tips that will help you get the best value from your online course.

1. Effective Time Management
You must be able to manage your time well. Most online courses are not taught in real time. So there are no set times for classes – making it flexible.

This flexibility, one of the great benefits of online learning, can also be a drawback for a student who procrastinates, is unable to stick to a routine study schedule, or is not able to complete tasks without daily reminders from a teacher.

Effective time-management skills don’t just happen. They have to be learned. Once you do, they will benefit you throughout your life. Follow the tips below to develop yours:

-Review the course content details for each course.
-Develop a long-term plan for completing the course (e.g. one session a day for X number of days until course is completed).
-Set deadlines. But there would be no point in setting deadlines if you make executive decisions to always push them back. Set a deadline and try your best to stick to it.
-Make a daily “To Do” list including online learning targets. Have fun checking things off the list as you complete them.
-Reward yourself. When you accomplish something/reach a milestone, celebrate it! How you celebrate is up to you.
-Be consistent. Find a time when you assimilate best and consistently learn at that time. For example, most of our students learn for about 30 minutes every morning before work begins. It’s more effective to learn consistently in chunks of few minutes than to try to do a long stretch of hours.

2. Take study breaks
Your performance will decrease if your are feeling tired or frustrated while studying. Integrate some personal time into your study routine and you will be able to work more effectively on your online course goals.

When taking a break, make sure that you get away from your study space; you need to have a change of scenery. A mild physical activity, such as a walk around, will help you maintain balance, renew energy, and go back to studying with a clear mind.

3. Eliminate Distractions
You probably won’t be able to eliminate all interruptions. People still need your time and attention through the day and you have to respond to a crisis or unexpected need for an immediate decision.

However, for the period you’ve chosen to do your online course, don’t hesitate to block out time not to be disturbed.

Use a quiet place to work without distractions from things like television, family, or roommates. Turn off your cell phone. Turn off your email notification and instant messaging. And beware of surfing the black hole of the Internet. It is easy to lose track of the time as you wander from site to site.

4. Don’t skip the learning tasks or assignments
To get the best out of your online learning course, ensure you do all the learning tasks or assignments. Most online courses are interactive and will require you to think and give some response during the training. This aspect of the learning process is very important and should not be skipped. Skipping it will result to suboptimal learning outcome which also reflects as low performance score.

5. Take the online course and yourself seriously
Many people take online courses, because they believe them to be easier or take less time. These people either drop out or do poorly in the course. Don’t let this happen to you!


By: http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

Good service creates customer satisfaction. Excellent service creates customer loyalty. Hence, by building service excellence into your organization, customer loyalty is increased which in turn results to profitable and sustainable business growth.

Implementing an effective service strategy with a focus on retaining customers has proven to be more effective at increasing sales and profit, than mere marketing campaigns, promotions or advertising. Thus there is a strong correlation between service delivery and profit with research showing that a 5% increase in customer service can result in a 25% increase in profit.

This implies that organizations that successfully marry the culture of profit with a strong service excellence ethic benefit from customers that stay longer, utilize more services and add to the all-important bottom line.
Service excellence is a first rate service that consistently delivers truly memorable experience, each time, every time.

For the power of service excellence to be harnessed to drive customer loyalty and service profitability, it’s imperative to understand the service concept.

The service concept is a critical element in knowing and defining what the organization is selling or providing and what the customer is buying or using. The service concept (and its development) is a core task in managing service delivery. It can be used as a central tool in the design, delivery and improvement of services, yet its potential is often underutilized.

The service concept is something very important to service organizations, but is often not articulated, shared or understood. It is something that is more emotional than a business model, deeper than a brand, and more solid than a vision. It is also something that can unite employees and customers and create a business advantage.

It’s important to recognize that what customers buy are concepts. In other words, when buying (or using) services, customers tend not to be simply buying the elements of a service but something much greater and usually more intangible.

For instance, looked at simply, in terms of its elements, a hotel provides a bed, bathroom and food. But looked at as a concept it can provide anything from a low-cost, comfortable night’s sleep, through a relaxing and pampered stay, to a truly unique and unforgettable experience.

Also, at an elemental level, a post graduate business school provides lectures, food, accommodation and books, but what its customers are looking to buy is something much greater – ‘employability’. Likewise, we go to a restaurant for ‘a great evening out’ or to a firm of consultants for ‘peace of mind’.

The service concept is a shared understanding of the nature of the service provided and received, which should include information about:

The organizing idea – the essence of the service bought, or used, by the customer.

The service experience – The customer’s direct experience of the service process, which concerns the way the organization deals with the customer.

The service outcome – The result for the customer of the service (in particular, the benefits provided, the resulting emotions and assessment of value for money).

A service concept with clarity and sufficient detail guides employees to know what to deliver to the customer, how to deliver it, and what to offer to the marketplace. So it is important that it is well defined and agreed so that all different business units can be aligned. Yet it is surprising how few organizations have clearly defined service concepts.

When the service concept is not clearly defined, customers’ expectations are not met, employees feel frustrated and there is tension between business units (especially operations and marketing) - a mere reflection of the fact that the service concept is the very soul of service excellence.

What is your organization’s service concept? Is there a shared understanding of what it is amongst all employees? If not, there is need to start work on it.

Source: http://www.pls.com.ng/blog/?p=130

In a challenging economy, consumers become value oriented, set stricter priorities, and reduce their spending. Although it’s wise to contain costs, this is not the time for your organization to stop spending on marketing. Rather it’s the time to put customer needs under the microscope to understand how they have changed, and nimbly adjust your strategies, tactics, and product offerings to the new reality.

Organizations may forget that, in prosperous times, rising sales are not caused by clever advertising and appealing products alone. Purchases depend on consumers’ having disposable income, feeling confident about their future, and trusting in business and the economy. In a challenging economy like ours today, these things have changed for the consumer.

Hence, you must make changes in your approach to marketing. You must find new ways to make marketing work more effectively and get more out of marketing investments. Doing the same things in an uncertain economic environment and expecting the same results is a flawed strategy.

So what strategies can your organization adopt to market and grow the business in this challenging economic times? Some are as follows:

1. Focus on quality over quantity
If marketing efforts focus solely on quantity over quality, fewer leads will convert, more sales resources will be wasted, and sales people will begin to distrust marketing's lead generation programs. Commit to programs in which quality is a key attribute: programs that can deliver interested prospects, provide prospect contact information and offer reports of program performance.

2. Start measuring your marketing efforts
Metrics will provide the data you need to spend your limited marketing budget wisely. If you are not reviewing your web statistics already, that’s a great place to start (and doesn’t have to cost a lot). Next, start building trackable landing pages and developing measurable campaigns. Then, using a technique called AB testing, begin discovering what messages resonate with customers.

In short, the challenging economic time is the time to scale back any marketing plans whose results you can't measure or are unsure about.

3. Think integration
Integrated marketing means your marketing strategy takes advantage of multiple media, resources and customer touch-points to create a whole that's greater and more effective than the sum of its parts. The more that marketing efforts are integrated and comprehensive, the greater impact you can achieve in gaining visibility in your market, qualified leads and sales.

4. Get targeted
A fundamental but sometimes overlooked marketing tenet is to "fish where the fish are." In other words, invest in those specific, targeted media where you know your customers and prospects will be exposed to your message.

For instance, it’s likely that your potential customers use the internet. But the internet is vast, and the fish you are looking for may be using specific websites where the content is directly related to their information needs. Work with your media partners to identify and target those sites.

When you’ve rightly found where the fish are, your market offerings and message must take into consideration the fact that new customer segments emerge in challenging economic times.

In prosperous times, it would be fine to segment according to demographics (like “over 35,” or “new parent” or “middle income”) or lifestyle (like “aspirer” or “reformer”). But in a challenging economy, such segmentations may be less relevant than a psychological segmentation that takes into consideration consumers’ emotional reactions to the economic environment.

Hence, in Nigeria today, it will be better to think of your customers as falling into four groups:

The slam-on-the-brakes segment: Feels most vulnerable and hardest hit financially. This group reduces all types of spending by eliminating, postponing, decreasing, or substituting purchases.

Pained-but-patient consumers: Tend to be resilient and optimistic about the long term but less confident about the prospects for recovery in the near term or their ability to maintain their standard of living. Like slam-on-the-brakes consumers, they economize in all areas, though less aggressively.

As news gets worse, pained-but-patient consumers increasingly migrate into the slam-on-the-brakes segment.

Comfortably well-off consumers: Feel secure about their ability to ride out current and future bumps in the economy. They consume at near-prerecession levels, though now they tend to be a little more selective about their purchases.

The live-for-today segment: Carries on as usual and for the most part remains unconcerned about savings. The consumers in this group respond to the economic challenges mainly by extending their timetables for making major purchases. They’re unlikely to change their consumption behavior unless they become unemployed.

Amongst other things, more of the strategies and how customers are reassessing priorities, reallocating budgets, switching among brands and product categories, and redefining value, will be more practically explored during our Marketing Skills training coming up on the 23rd of this month.

http://pls.com.ng/detail/39/marketing-skills

To get, and keep, a job you typically need hard skills. For example, Dentists need to know how to fill cavities, Computer Programmers need to be able to write functional codes, and Accountants need to be certified.

However, beyond the hard skills, which dentist do you go to? The one who is pleasant and takes time to answer your questions; or the one who treats you like a number in a long line of numbered mouths?

Which programmer do you retain when the economy is down? The one whose attitude is positive and upbeat, and who is always willing to help; or the one who is inflexible and has a hard time admitting mistakes?

Likewise, think about accountants. The one who has a great work ethic, listens actively, and encourages his colleagues is the one who will, most likely, excel in his position and organization.

In these situations, and all the others like them, it's the soft skills that matter. Soft skills are personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Also known as people skills, examples include your communication skills, attitude, business etiquette, work ethic, ability to handle crises, and even the way you carry yourself.

Hard skills are the technical expertise and skill sets you need to complete your tasks at work. In other words, they are your knowledge and occupational skills. Examples of hard skills include an accountancy certification (like ACCA), typing, writing, knowledge of a particular software, or experience in a particular industry sector.

Since hard skills are specific knowledge and abilities typically backed up with certificates and certifications, people tend to focus more on them for career advancement. Even organizations provide more training for hard skills than they do for soft skills.

But you should not misconstrue your organization’s apparent emphasis on hard skills. The reality is that hard skills are inadequate for optimal career advancement .

The reason your organization seems to train more on hard skills is because they expect people to know how to behave on the job, like being on time, taking initiative, being friendly, and producing high quality work – typical soft skills.

Thus hard skills are necessary but not sufficient skills for career advancement. While your hard skills may get your foot in the door, your soft skills are what open most of the doors to come. Hence, even though, the importance of soft skills is often undervalued, they are critical for career advancement and eventually makes the difference.

If you’re a hard worker who has watched a string of other seemingly less-qualified individuals being promoted ahead of you, what you may not know is that it could be your soft skills—or lack thereof—that could be holding you back from achieving the next level in your professional life.

Gone are the days when professionals could hope to move into management roles without first cultivating people or self-management skills. For one thing, a manager with poor soft skills who lacks the ability to handle his subordinates with tact could leave a company open to lawsuits.

An employee with poor soft skills is also a financial liability for a number of reasons. A manager who lacks time management skills can cause unnecessary delays in projects. In many cases, this could cost an organization valuable time or cause unhappy customers leave.

Managers with poor soft skills can also create an unfriendly work environment, which will typically lead to unhappy workers and costly employee turnover.

Unfortunately, too many people in professional positions won’t concern themselves with getting more training, especially in areas that involve soft skills. For instance, some who have bad people skills dismiss criticism of their interaction styles by saying it’s just their personality and they can’t change.

Others feel their on-the-job training has been enough to get them to their current positions and they don’t need soft skills training to advance their careers.

However, smart individuals know that they can benefit greatly from continued training in the area of soft skills to complement their technical prowess. They know that reaching a plateau in their career can be frustrating and demoralizing. Hence they prevent it by proactively developing their soft skills.

If you wish to advance in your career, it’s crucial to start to develop soft skills now and practice using them at work on a regular basis. Your superiors will take note of your efforts, which will ultimately mean your name is at the top of the list when it comes time for promotion.

One way you can learn to improve or develop your soft skills while working is to take self-paced online courses in areas that involve soft skills, or perhaps even go back to school on a part-time basis for a degree in business management. In either case, you will be provided with valuable and effective tools for dealing with others and for self-management, which could help prepare you for ultimately moving to the next level in your career.

http://learnsmart.com.ng/individua-training

No one has control over the state of the economy. Now, the crude oil prices are low and the naira is devalued. Expectedly, companies and even individuals have pulled back and reduced overall spending. Times are indeed tough.

However, this is not the time to focus less on marketing … rather the opposite. In reality, reducing your marketing efforts in tough economic times is the last thing you should do. Rather, it is recommended that you change your approach by expanding your channels of marketing so as to increase reach without spending more.

Smart companies that continue to grow and prosper during tough economic times understand the value of multi-channel marketing. In this article, we will look at one marketing channel that is very effective yet underrated – the Email.

Comparing the usage statistics of email and those of social media, Facebook and Twitter have over 1 billion and 255 million monthly active users respectively while email, according to Radicati, has 3.9 billion as the total number of worldwide email accounts in 2013, and projected to be 4.9 billion by 2017.

Putting this in perspective, there are 3 times more email accounts than there are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined. In addition, the reach and engagement statistics show that email drives more conversions than other marketing channels.

So rather than doing only the traditional marketing or getting lured in by the hype of social media, we think that companies might find that email is a channel that’s worth a lot more of their time than they think.

Email marketing goes beyond using office email system to send marketing campaigns to prospective clients. Effective email marketing involves using an email marketing software to create valuable personal touches at scale.

Considering its features and benefits, here are 5 reasons why email marketing is vital in tough economic times:

1. Low-cost
One of the most obvious benefits of email marketing is its lower cost compared to mainstream marketing channels. There are no print or postage costs and no fees paid in exchange for exposure on a certain billboard, magazine, newspaper, or television channel. The email marketing software is not free but the cost is far lower than the cost of using other marketing channels.

2. Easy to create
Email marketing doesn’t necessarily require a huge team or reams of technical people in order to be successful. It’s certainly possible to beautify an email campaign with fancy templates, videos, images and logos. Yet, some of the most successful campaigns utilize simple plain text emails, suggesting that it’s the content of an email that is the most important thing.

3. Easy to track
Another key benefit of email marketing is that it’s easy to see where you’re going wrong. Most email marketing software will allow you to track open, click-through and conversion rates, making it simple to spot how a campaign can be improved.

4. Calls to action
Email marketing is great for taking advantage of impulse buying. There aren’t many other marketing platforms which allow customers to go from witnessing an offer to purchasing an item within two clicks of a button. With a tempting call to action and a link straight to the checkout, email campaigns can drive sales like no other channel.

5. Easy to share
Subscribers can forward brilliant deals and offers to their friends at the click of a button. There aren’t many other types of marketing that can be shared as easily as this. Before you know it, subscribers could become brand evangelists; focused on introducing your business to a new market.

Source: http://www.pls.com.ng/blog/?p=40

Have you ever known someone who is not only smart, but is also likable and easy to get along with? This ability to connect personally and emotionally with others is a sign of high emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence, also called EQ, is the ability to be aware of and to manage emotions and relationships. It’s a pivotal factor in personal and professional success. IQ will get you in the door, but it is your EQ, your ability to connect with others and manage the emotions of yourself and others, that will determine how successful you are in life.

We have all worked with and listened to brilliant people. Some of them were great and… well, some were not so great. The mean and the meek and all those in between can teach us more than they realize. When we look at the truly extraordinary people who inspire and make a difference you will see that they do this by connecting with people at a personal and emotional level. What differentiated them was not their IQ but their EQ – their emotional intelligence.

Source: http://learnsmart.com.ng/course-detail/NDkz

Keyamo

My name is Nkem Anigbogu. I am the founder of LearnSmart.com.ng and have followed this thread with interest. At this point, I would like to contribute, for record purposes.

I do not know www.lakeacademy.com.ng (and the owner). In fact, I learnt of it for the first time yesterday and took a look at the site. I also do not know Mr. Jarus neither do I know Mr. Seun except for the purpose of advertising on Nairaland.

I have a mixed background of technology and business but for some years now I have focused mainly on my passion which is capacity building, facilitating courses in areas of service excellence, management, strategy, and technology-driven marketing for companies. This I do through a Lagos-based training outfit - Complete Skills Learning (www.completeskills.com.ng).

LearnSmart was founded in order to fulfill the needs of some of our customers and potential ones who are not able to come to Lagos for training and those who would want to trade off the high interactivity of our classroom training for the convenience and affordability of self-paced online learning.

I was surprised to hear that I stole someone’s idea. I did not. I merely listened to the needs of our customers and potential ones and I am fulfilling them through a learning portal – www.learnsmart.com.ng.

Globally, there are many companies offering online learning services. It is not a new idea. Before building LearnSmart, I looked at various successful e-learning models in Europe and North America, not Nigeria, so if LakeAcademy was existing then, I was not aware. In addition, the sentences highlighted by the LakeAcademy owner on both websites as part of his evidence of ‘idea stealing’ are not even the same. Besides, the critical success factor (CSF) for this business is not a good website or services explanations/sentences on it.

Please let us be careful on the statements we make so as not to unfairly damage other people’s reputation. By implication, I have been called names by the owner of LakeAcademy with a mention of a lawsuit but I am not bothered. Business success is not a function of what the law court says, rather it is a function of knowing what customers’ needs are and effectively fulfilling them. Personally, I prefer to focus on the latter.