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5 Indications You’re Cut Out for a Job in Customer Service

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Customer service|5 Indications You're Cut Out for a Job in Customer ServiceContrary to a common misconception, customer service is not merely hearing complaints and speaking politely to customers; it is a critical component of any successful business operations. By ensuring high-quality customer service, any organization can build a favorable reputation in their industry, attract new customers, and keep a loyal client base.

Given its relevance, it is not surprising that customer service jobs have always been in demand in the Philippines. If you are interested in entering this industry for career advancement opportunities and financial gain, know that this sector is not for everyone. You need specific skills, personality traits, and qualities to succeed.

To ascertain if you are cut out for a position in customer service, below are several signs that you may want to consider. If most of them ring true to you, then there is a good chance that you will thrive in this field of work.

You Have a Way with Words

Although communication skills are necessary for customer service, the job entails more than merely speaking fluently and calmly. Customer service representatives should be able to relay awkward things or give unpleasant news in a way that does not upset or irritate the clients. However, it is worth noting that having a way with words is not about lying but packaging the message in a more palatable manner.

For instance, instead of giving an outright refusal to a customer request that is against company policy, you can tell the client that you will see what you can do about the issue and inform them about the result the following day. In the interim, make sure to see what else you can do to help the customer that may not be violative of your company policy. When you call the next day, the client will most likely be receptive whether you’ve found another way to help them or your reply to the original request is unfavorable. Either way, this will send the message that you tried your best to resolve the issue.

You Are Cool as Ice

Answering calls, addressing different concerns, and dealing with frustrated people all day can be taxing and emotionally draining. That is why customer service representatives should be patient enough to deal with all types of individuals and concerns without taking things too personally.

Think about how you deal with friends and acquaintances and the different circumstances in your daily life. Are you easily irritated when things do not go your way? Do you tend to lash out at others when they act rudely?

If you answer affirmatively to the above questions, you probably need to develop the value of patience before seeking a position in customer service. Take note that unless you have the ability to remain calm and unperturbed in any situation, you will probably have a difficult time staying and growing in the customer service profession.

You Have a Positive Outlook

One study published in the Journal of International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences found that more than 50 percent of customer service representatives in Metro Manila are high in cynicism due to the nature of the work environment. The finding is understandable, considering that individuals working in this sector are getting beat down by bad-mannered and frustrated customers on a daily basis. It is easy to believe the worst in people if you encounter the not-so-nice ones regularly.

That said, a customer service representative should have a positive outlook to remain happy and satisfied in their work despite frequent interaction with unpleasant clients. Positive people focus on the good things, are inherently grateful, and do not dwell on things they cannot control. They are proactive and see opportunities in all circumstances. If those around you often comment on your positive energy and optimism, you will probably be effective in assisting frustrated customers and keeping the spirit up of those around you.

You Are Highly Adaptable to Change

Customer service work is unpredictable. Apart from the system continuously evolving, there is no way of knowing what types of calls a customer service agent will receive throughout the day. There might be a downtime for a certain period followed by multiple phone calls nearing the end of office hours. Even work schedules can be erratic.

How do you usually react to changes and instability? Perhaps you are hardly bothered by surprises, or you are thrilled with the idea of not knowing what to expect. If that is the case, working as a customer representative could be a good fit.

You Maintain Long-Lasting Relationships

As mentioned above, effective customer service is about making clients feel valued by the company. That is why people working in the industry should be genuinely interested in people and build customer relationships. Doing so means remembering client names, being sensitive to their needs, and addressing their concerns in the most efficient manner.

To determine if you have this ability, you may want to assess your personal relationships. If you make friends effortlessly, get along with everyone, and maintain long-term friendships, then you might be suited to work in the customer service sector.

The items discussed above are just some of the essential indications that an individual is well-matched for a job in customer service. Ponder on them to see if they speak to you. If your desire to pursue a position in the field becomes stronger, or if the job becomes even more interesting, you should seriously consider joining the customer service industry today.

Advice for Setting Up Your Home or Mobile Video Studio

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Advice for Setting Up Your Home or Mobile Video StudioNot too long ago, producing and broadcasting videos could only be done from a professional film or television studio and required a lot of expensive, specialized equipment. Nowadays, though, anyone with access to a few items of modern technology can make and transmit videos over the internet, and even arrange permanent home studios of their own. Follow these tips to set up yours for the first time.

Consider Your Situation

The first step to setting up your mobile or home broadcasting studio is to think about what you’ll be doing with it. There are a few pieces of equipment that everyone making video feeds needs, such as video and audio recording equipment and lighting, but many of the options are geared towards specific roles. Will you be sitting inside at a desk doing a video podcast, standing up doing a task for an instructional video, playing an instrument for a music video, or moving around outdoors? Will you be broadcasting or streaming live, or will the video be edited and uploaded to a website later?

You should also consider your environment. What kind of lighting do you have, and will it be difficult to make you look your best or even be seen? Is there noise pollution from outside, or is the room full of echoes?

Write down specifically what you’ll be doing and where you’re going to do it so you can plan for what equipment you need to accomplish your goals.

Purchase Your First Equipment

When purchasing your initial equipment, if any, your budget is a huge factor in determining what you need now and what you can get later. If money is not an issue you can set up your entire studio all at once, or you can choose to purchase items one by one. Either way, everyone who intends to make videos needs five basic things: a way to record video, a way to record audio, a source of light, a tripod to hold the video device so it doesn’t shake (and your hands are free), and finally, a way to upload that video to the website or social media of your choice.

With lighting sources, keep in mind that you should ideally have three sources of light pointing at you at different angles for viewers to see you at your best.

As far as video goes, many people including professional broadcasters use a smartphone or tablet to record both video and audio and upload it, because they already own one and don’t have to purchase extra equipment. Smartphones and tablets are also extremely portable, so you don’t have to lug around expensive or heavy items if you’re broadcasting on the go. Alternatively, you can purchase a dedicated camera, usually a DSLR or broadcast camera, if you want to go really pro and don’t mind spending a lot on your equipment.

If you’re looking to set up a home broadcasting studio, either to interface with television or to stream live events, you may also need some sort of teleprompter. This can be either a smartphone app or a device that hooks up to your phone or tablet to show your cues and lines.

If you’re not using a smartphone or tablet, you’ll need a microphone, especially for video podcasting. Some mics can link directly to the camera or computer, while others must go through a mixing device that syncs the audio and video.

Finally, you can certainly upload your videos directly from your mobile device. However, if you want to do any serious editing, a laptop or PC is necessary, and you’ll need one with a fast processor, high-performance video card and a large hard drive. A fast internet connection is also useful for uploading large files or streaming high-quality video.

These days you don’t have to break the bank to set up your own home video studio. With the right modern equipment, you can start producing professional-looking videos to post or stream anywhere online.

Finding the Best Stock Photos for Your Book Cover

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Stock Photos |Finding the Best Stock Photos for Your Book CoverAn adage tells us not to judge books by their covers, but that’s just what everyone’s going to do anyway, especially when talking about actual books. If your name isn’t quite enough to sell the book on its own, the cover design might be. On the other hand, a bad cover might drive away from the otherwise interested buyer.

It doesn’t matter whether you are planning to sell your book online or in a brick-and-mortar store or even as an audiobook. Front cover, or its thumbnail is the first thing a potential buyer will see when browsing the book section. And yes, the reports of the death of printed books have been greatly exaggerated. While the number of bookstores has been declining, printed books remain the most popular medium with audiobooks gaining popularity and e-books losing some of their charm lately.

So, the design is essential. But a good plan costs a lot. Well, not always. But before talking about the cover images themselves, let’s talk about the general design guidelines and current design trends a bit.

We won’t go into too much detail about the cover typography here, but good typography is essential and should match the overall design. Handwritten or big bold sans serif fonts for fiction and clean and crisp fonts for non-fiction are popular choices.

You may have seen the words “Millennial pink” and “Gen-Z yellow” thrown around. They aren’t witty comebacks to “OK boomer” but popular contemporary design colors. Millennial pink is a dusty pink color popular in fashion magazines, Tumblr, and books aimed at the young and millennials. Celebrities like Beyonce and Kendall Jenner popularized Gen-Z yellow, and it remains a popular color for dust jackets and book covers. Trends change fast, and we don’t know what will become popular in 2020. Pantene color of the year is always a trendsetter, so maybe we’ll see Classic Blue in bookstores this year. But keep in mind that using something that doesn’t have real staying power can make your design look outdated fast.

What about the actual cover images then? First, think about your genre and audience. Each style has its stereotypical theme. Fantasy novels have knights, swords, and dragons. Planets, androids, and spaceships are ubiquitous in science fiction. They might be cliches, but that’s partially what the buyer is expecting to find. Don’t always aim for the least common denominator, though. Floral background and a shirtless beefcake on the cover signals a romance novel but may drive away everyone except the lovesick and romance hungry.

When you have the theme in mind, you need to think about the style you wish to go for. Making an exceptional design takes some experience, but there is one affordable shortcut that takes advantage of already proficient designers: Stock photos. There are stock images of almost every theme with many different styles, so there should be something for every need. So how to find what you need? Dreamstime employs a powerful search engine where any search keywords can be filtered with different modifiers. You can limit your search to only images with people, choose pictures that haven’t been used before to avoid using the same image as someone else, apply desired color composition, exclude undesired keywords, and so on. Choices are almost endless. For inspiration you can check the editor’s choice section for some of our popular images.

Finally, a couple of useful tips: Choose a few different covers and run them through a test audience. With stock images, this won’t be prohibitively expensive. Also, I would avoid the so-called “free stock” sites. Any good public domain images are probably already in use in a million different places. You would want your book cover to be unique.

When you have decided on your cover image, make sure you get the correct image license. There are licenses for every need, from online publishing to printing.

Business, Investment, and Charity

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Business, Investment, and CharityThe joy of any business is the Return on Investments (ROI). Also, the money you will accrue from the investment can go far in doing great charity in society today. However, before starting a business or investing, you might want to ask yourself how viable the business or investment is. That is when you should start thinking about a community-oriented charitable project. Therefore, if you are lucky enough to meet someone like Fred Baerenz, you might not want to miss the chance to pick his brain on how he seamlessly gel business, investment, and charity. By the end of the conversation, you may be an idea away from being wealthy as you desire.

What should you look for in a business investment? 

Business and investment are not easy, but you will be smiling your way to the bank once you do it right. It is practical to know that you will not always get it right as desired, but the journey is worth the cost. Before considering a business investment, there are many factors to consider. The world of business is dynamic and tying it with investment makes it even more dynamic. However, with the right team and tools of the trade, you will scale high in business as an investment. The research on the market will be a good place to start. The opportunity and niche presented should be sustainable enough at last for your capital.

Charity investment

Business flourishment will bring activities such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Everyone has responsibility around the community of their establishment, if not the world. Considering activities such as children’s funds and supporting climate change are just a few of the CSR charity investments one might consider. Building a sustainable CSR goes hand in hand with building the business. Charity investment comes with its share of challenges and benefits.

In conclusion, the desire to build wealth is admirable and takes too much patience and strategy. Either through business or investment, success is a journey that takes resilience. The moment you will find yourself in magazines such as Forbes and your name all over Wall Street, you might want to consider joining AOG Wealth Management to secure your future. The billionaires club has its privileges but maintaining the status is what matters. Therefore, learning how to stay on top of your business, investment, and charity is important in any cooperate world.

How The Real Estate Healthcare Sector Is Changing With The Trends

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StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |Real Estate Healthcare|How The Real Estate Healthcare Sector Is Changing With The TrendsThe global pandemic has affected almost all the business sectors across the world. Healthcare is also one of them. This brought a reason for every provider to give a thought about the economic terms of their lease or mortgage. Regardless of these challenges, the healthcare real estate market has remained resilient. This is because of the stable occupancy, minimal default rates, and long-term leases.

One of the most positive impacts in this post-covid market is the desire of the landlords to work with tenants and healthcare buyers. Do you know who is one of the most sought prospects for a landlord or seller? The answer is medical providers. Why is this so? Let us take a look!

Change in the healthcare industry Post-covid

The Healthcare industry is booming as far as real estate investments are concerned. Why? Because healthcare offices invest heavily in their spaces. Moreover, they invest for a long time, usually, more than eight years, which is advantageous for both – tenants and landlords. Due to this, landlords offer good concessions, which was not so common before the pandemic. In this way, medical providers get better lease terms.

Stability in the long term and low default rate are the main factors why the commercial real estate market favors healthcare providers. What are the further optimization techniques that you can use in healthcare real estate? Let us find out!

Create space for the services in high demand: Preventive care and healthcare services are never going to lose their charm. A proper physical and virtual space should be provided to them to fulfill the needs of the patients.

Assess your assets – Diagnostic tools and appraisal assets are a must in the medical field. If the tools are not up to the mark with post-pandemic care, you can always outsource them to strategic partners or can sell them.

Risk mitigation – Owned and leased health properties are often subject to certain regulations like STARK, which is Physician Self-Referral Law. As per Medical/Dental Tenant Representation in Washington D.C., a well-trained agent is essential in all real-estate transactions because a right or long lease can have a drastic impact on your business. Hence, take this into consideration while communicating with the leasing team, accounting team, legal department, and property management. Legal departments hold the key importance so that you do not face any costly settlement.

The future of healthcare

The spending in this sector is bound to rise over 2 trillion US dollars in the next ten years. It is estimated that it will reach a projected 19.7% of Gross domestic product in 2026. Keeping all these figures in mind, it becomes vital to deliver safe and effective care as much as possible. And real estate plays a major role in creating a more efficient and accessible health system.

To sum it all up

We do not know when the situation is going to be normal. But as far as this industry is concerned, the trends are reporting an upward growth. And if you are looking forward to investing in this industry, then you are going the right way.