A business brand wants to stay highly productive; it needs to monitor and evaluate employees’ engagement at regular intervals by using employee engagement surveys.

The performance of a company depends on how well-engaged its employees are. Employees with a below-average interest in the company’s goals will record lower productivity ratios. And no employees want that.

In general, the majority of employees send a resignation notice because they are not satisfied with how the company is running or because they aren’t paid sufficient time off.

Any other reasons could be so insignificant that the company’s management overlooks them. Any such issues could lead to the loss of valuable workers.

And therefore, for such reasons, you really want an employee engagement survey to gauge the commitment level of your employees.

Making a successful, effective engagement survey using survey software, however, requires more than just writing down a few sentences with question marks.

Here in this article, we have mentioned a few valuable steps that need to be considered while drafting your survey and how to appropriately boost the data information.

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What is an Employee Engagement Survey?

An employee engagement survey consists of a series of questions that are aimed at collecting data anonymously from your workers. Generally, these questions include all those factors that influence the work productivity of your employees. A few of the things to be considered are:

• Whether your employees understand their role or not?
• Whether they are ok with their work environment?
• What relation do they have with other workers?
• Whether or not your employees are able to easily communicate with your company’s management?
• Are your employees getting the recognition they deserve after achieving a feat?
• Will they recommend their colleagues to join your company?
• Are there any company practices that need to be changed?

These are a few of the factors you need to look at when creating a survey and determine how satisfied and aligned your employees are. The important thing is that the information that will be gathered will help you fix some vital gaps between your workers and encourage a comprehensive perspective on the organization.

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How Does an Employee Engagement Survey Help Improve Company Culture?

An employee engagement survey is the important first step to understanding and improving your company culture. It provides an aerial view of your company’s strengths and areas of opportunity and feedback that is important for identifying where you should focus your attention and action.

An employee engagement survey, when conducted using a survey tool, likewise gauges how much your representatives feel motivated and energized by their work, your organization, and its central goal — and where you can make changes to develop organizational culture further.

A Simple-Step Plan to Create an Effective Employee Engagement Survey

It is very easy to write some arbitrary questions and have them printed out for your employees and ask them to answer those. However, if you want to create a survey that would benefit your company, you must follow the steps provided below:

Set Up A Goal

Before you start creating a survey, you must characterize your expectations from the information you have collected. Only this will help you set the right benchmark, you will have to include the proper questions and prioritize sections that are even more important today.

Try not to overpopulate your survey list with various types of why and how questions. Put forth your boundaries and know the specific data you plan to gather from your employees. You ought to fixate your survey objectives on your organization’s vision and values. Trust, respect, alignment, fulfillment, transparency, and communication are fundamental qualities to consider.

At the point when you have organized these qualities, set a benchmark that will direct the consequence of the survey. Follow through with something like this:

Respect: If something like 75% of our representatives say they feel appreciated working, then we have a high worker respect score.

Satisfaction: If something like half of our workers feel happy with their compensations and additional advantages, then, at that point, we have a high satisfaction score.

Notice the utilization of the if-then statement and how it permits you to make relative determinations. You really want to set explicit rates to facilitate the assessment of the data gathered.

Have Discussions With Top Executives

The commitment status of workers in your organization is the sole worry of both the inside and outside stakeholders. You want to talk about the review content and goals with the top leaders to form a successful strategy.

You ought to include supervisors, group leads, and such, as it additionally helps how they might interpret the data you eventually collate. An aggregate effort in making and breaking down the review result is exceptionally helpful for devising enduring solutions for the areas where they are needed.

At the point when you include the top leaders in your organization, it shows that you esteem their viewpoints — and will pay attention to their ideas. This is an effective method for building compatibility and, what’s more, trust between the workers and the administration.

Moreover, remembering them for the interaction provides them with a superior comprehension of what goes into an engagement survey and what it can mean for the organization overall.

Create Relevant Yet Interesting Questions

To receive honest feedback from your employees, you will have to give them relevant questions and direct questions depending on the values you curated. This step is another important reason why involving the executives may be a good choice.

Now, creating questions that are not generic to your employees can be a hassle. And this is where AI will come in.

You can try utilizing Jasper AI (a leading GPT-3 tool) to develop questions related to your company’s values. All that you have to do in the interphase is input your topic, crowd, and tone for the simulated artificial intelligence to generate relevant poll answers and questionaries for your company.

Prior to recovering the questions, you can, in any case, change the input outputs to steer Artificial Intelligence in the right redirection.

You can cautiously examine the brief I gave it – “Produce some captivating Employee Engagement Survey Questions for a software HR firm.”

Continue to produce an ever-increasing number of questions, and later you can pick just the best ones to remember for your survey.

As opposed to thinking about what to incorporate, figuring out what to utilize is a superior spot to be in.

Keep the Survey Short and Share it With Employees

The main thing here is that you need to make a short study that keeps up with significance and anonymity. However, keep in mind that the surveys must not take more than 10 to 15 minutes.

Once you have completed doing the employee engagement survey, the time has come to impart it to your workers using survey software.

You must give your workers adequate time to process and answer these surveys. A one–week time with a deadline from the date of distribution would be a good start. If the submission time is too short, then there’s a high chance of getting insincere results. But if the submission deadline is too long, the survey might lose its relevance.

In addition to this, you could offer rewards based on the completion of the survey. However, you must be very careful with this because the majority of the representatives could answer the survey with important data just to guarantee the award.

The End Note

The majority of companies fail to understand the importance of good employee engagement. However, there will be a considerable increase in the productivity of your company if the engagement level is relatively high. Moreover, you will be able to find it easier to retain your best workers.

Conducting an employee engagement survey is one of the most outstanding ways of deciding how engaged your workers are. This will give you in-depth knowledge of what really matters to your representatives and how you can aim for improvement.

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Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author. Pexels; Thank you!

Related Post: Best Productivity Tools of 2023

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Starting a business can be a daunting task. Even if you do have a business idea — it is only one of the first steps to starting a new business. A lot can go wrong if you do not plan well and implement the plan even better. But, as long as you follow certain basic steps to a T, you should be well on your way to starting a spanking new and successful business from scratch.

So, without further ado, here are the basic steps to starting a new business from scratch:

1. Put Effort Into Research

Any business begins with an idea. So, if you are someone who already has some inkling about what kind of business you want to build, you already have the first basic step taken care of. But don’t rest easy yet. Chances are there are a billion and one brands out there selling the exact product or service you have on offer. So, what is it about you, your brand, and your product that sets you apart from the crowd? This is where the research comes in.

If you have a business idea, it is time to start researching it. Market research and competitor analysis are arguably one of the most important steps to starting a new business. So, remember to put effort into it. Look up which brands are selling the same products and services you are and see what they are doing, what demands they are meeting, and which demands they are missing out on. If you can cover that gap that your competitors are failing to, you have your unique selling point (USP for short). And the moment you have your USP, know that you are officially part of the game. 

2. Set Your Goals

You know what your idea is. You hopefully also have your unique selling points. Now it is time to note down the who, what, how, and why of the business plan. Who is your target demographic? Knowing your target customer base is the most important bit of information you will need while choosing your location, deciding your budget, and planning your marketing campaign.  You already know what you are planning on selling and how you are going to sell it (which is basically the USP of your product or service). Finally, settle on the why. Why this business idea? What is its purpose? What gaps does it fill?

Once you answer these questions, you will have your business goal.

3. Write Down the Business Plan in Detail

You have already done your research. You know the why, how, who, and what of your business plan. Now it is time to get it all together, jot it down on paper, and give it structure.

As part of your business plan, you will decide the vision of your business i.e. what are your goals? Where do you want to be in 5 … 10 years? Write this down before moving on to the mission. The mission is where you note down in detail the features and functionalities of your product and service, the details of the demographic you are planning on targeting, the unique selling points that you discovered in the previous few phases, etc.

Next comes the pricing. How are you going to price your items? The product prices need to be competitive enough so customers feel inclined to choose your brand over the competitors’. And it also needs to be able to help you profit off of it. The target here is to hit that sweet spot between affordable and profitable. The final few sections of your business plan should focus on market promotion, aims and objectives, and action plans. Once you decide how and where you want to market your product, the business milestones you want to hit, and the actionable steps you plan on taking to achieve the same — you have your business plan.

4. Design a Budget

Creating your budget is again one of the more important steps to starting a new business. It lets you understand what you are getting into. Your budget should ideally be part of your business plan and include all the estimated charges — from the cost of production, marketing, overhead, etc. 

5. Plan the Structure

This is the step where you work on the nitty-gritty of the business — from choosing a name to deciding on a business structure. Is it going to be a single-owned business? Do you need partners? This is also where you register your business, get the appropriate licenses, and buy a website domain.

6. Work On Your Funding

How are you going to fund your business? If you do not have enough savings to spare, you will need to work on getting your business funded by investors. Your business plan will come in handy here. Include an estimated budget — with production costs, overhead, marketing, etc. — and start pitching your idea to investors.

7. Find a Location That Works

This may seem like a no-brainer but, if you are investing in physical stores, put effort into researching your location before finalizing on it. Getting the appropriate permits and license to have a store at a particular location may prove far costlier than others. But then those same locations could be prime ones where a large section of your demographic shops are. If you are lucky and if you put effort elbow grease into it, you may just find a location that is not just affordable but also extremely underutilized.

8. Create Prototypes

One of the basic yet most important steps to starting a new business is knowing that nothing is more important than feedback. Customer feedback will not only let you know what you are doing right but what you are getting completely wrong. But do not fret if your product seems to have more flaws than you expected. This is what the beta testing stage is for. 

Before you settle on the final design of your product or service, create prototypes of the same and hand it out for beta testing. This part of the market research is extremely important because it can point out problems in your product — if any — before you have officially invested all your dollars into the final version of the product. Collect the data from the feedback you receive from beta testers and use it to cover the flaws and failings in your business plan and product design before deciding on the final version. Chances are, this stage will not only help you recognize problems, but also certain product USPs you were not previously aware of.

9. Work on Your Online Presence

The world has moved online and brands are doing all they can to keep up. The digital world — with its million eCommerce platforms and social media channels — can help decide the fate of your business from the moment of its conception. So, work on creating an online presence for your brand — from Instagram accounts, Facebook pages, to dedicated websites that put forward in clear and concise detail the tone, style, and standing of your brand. Remember, your brand’s online presence can create an indelible image of your brand in the minds of prospective users. Use social media channels well and you may just find your business going viral from the day you first throw open your doors.

10. Invest Into the Marketing

There is a reason all brands — big and small — have a separate fund for promotions and marketing. The quality of your product is secondary. What is primary is the image you create of it in the minds of prospective clients. And marketers can help you build just that. They can predict market trends and help you build USPs — creating a market demand for your product from nothing more than a simple Instagram carousel post.

Image Credit: Pexels; Provided by the author; Thank you!

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If you haven’t yet started planning your email marketing strategy, now is the time to get started. Done right, email marketing can contribute to as much as 20% of all your orders over any festive period, and any event dates. If you want to know how to target your current audience, and gain new leads. Here is the quick guide to event email marketing campaigns.

Essential Parts of an Event Email Campaign

The number one thing you should include in your festive email campaign is personality. This is what draws people to your brand. Aside from this, there are other things to include to improve your conversions and click-through rates. Such as:

Noticeable Subject Lines: The first thing a potential customer sees with your email campaign is your subject line in their inbox. As well as connect well with the prospect, it needs to be personal, to improve click-through rate, transaction rates and revenue.

Mobile Compatibility: Most people read their emails on the go than at their desktop at home, which is why your emails must display correctly on both mobile and other devices.

Social Sharing: Brands can benefit from improved visibility when they are shared on social platforms. So — don’t forget to include links to the most popular ones from your campaigns.

Interesting Design and Content: Firstly, be sure your email is centered around an appropriate event theme, then pay attention to your copy, making sure it is engaging enough for customers to read. This tends to be a winning combination, especially when trying to target customers who are seeking festive discounts.

The Right CTA: The call to action is the link between the email and your website. It needs to encourage customers to complete this action as much as possible. The color of the button should stand out against the background. The text should be catchy but not pushy, and only one CTA per email should be used.

GIF’s: Using a couple of GIF’s can add excitement to your campaign and even help improve click-through rates. Don’t overuse them, though, as some customers find them annoying and confusing.

Discounts and Offers: Customers automatically want discounts and offers around Christmas so they can get ahead on their Xmas shopping. While things like BOGOF can improve sales, don’t go overboard. People appreciate honesty and consistency, which, in turn, help improve loyalty and conversions for you.

In addition to the above, why not get inspired by these creative ideas as well?

Types of Campaigns to Try

While throughout the year, you can send virtually any type of email campaign out, it’s slightly different over the event or festive period. Here are the emails that matter when it comes down to Event campaigns.

1. Welcome Emails: There are lots of benefits to sending welcome emails. As well as making the prospect feel welcome and comfortable, they help create an excellent first impression as well. If they include vouchers or discount codes, they can also help build brand loyalty.

2. Promotional Emails: People love offers and discounts, which is why many people like to receive promotional emails. Sending promotional emails to your prospects and customers can improve conversions, but such emails need to be constructed well. Only include offers you think could be successful, and also consider using countdowns, sliders, or GIFs for that added sense of urgency.

3. Announcement Emails: Similarly, emails showcasing offers or unique event or typical celebration-type arrivals also tend to be successful. Customers love discounts and for brands they love, often eagerly anticipate them arriving in their inbox. Set the offer to be valid for a limited time only, as this only increases customer urgency further.

4. Cart Abandonment Emails: Because more and more people are shopping over the months running up to an event or holiday — abandoned carts seem to be higher around this time. Fortunately, this can be counteracted by sending a customer a personalized email containing a persuasive offer to win them back and make a purchase.

Make the Most of the Run Up to ANY holiday or event Sales.

The busiest time of the year for online retailers tends to be the period between Thanksgiving and the New Year, with events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday being particularly lucrative opportunities. Think Valentines Day, Easter, 4th of July, etc. To make the most of them, and improve your revenue, reach out to your customers with different types of emails. But keep in mind — every holiday — every event– is an opportunity for your retail sales.

Don’t forget these Events this year. Make Your Campain Plans early.

1. Thanksgiving Emails: As one of the major holidays in the US, Thanksgiving usually produces excellent sales for online retailers. They should make the most of this lucrative period by setting up relevant offers and discounts. Or, you might even want to set up automatic email campaigns to say thank you to customers who made a purchase.

2. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Emails: With Black Friday and Cyber Monday being perhaps two of the busiest days of the year for online retailers, it’s essential they promote all their key offers and deals with prospects and existing customers for the best chance of success. As many as 92% of customers fish around the internet to try and find them. So why not make their life easier and land them right in their inbox? It’ll work wonders for your revenue as well.

3. Christmas & New Year Emails: Christmas and New Year are always popular times for shoppers, so online retailers should capitalize on this. Emails are one way to reach out to customers during this crucial time. Just remember to keep it festive-themed, both visually, and with products being promoted. And include offers which encourage customers to make a purchase, like gift vouchers, free shipping, or decent discounts.

8 Steps in Making Your Event Email Campaigns Successful

1. Take care with subject lines. Done right, they help improve open rates by 41%, which further enhances revenue per email.
2. Ensure that your emails are responsive. Most people now check emails on their phone.
3. Don’t forget social links in emails. The more people share offers, the better chance of you boosting your revenue.
4. Use an appealing theme and catchy text to improve engagement.
5. Offer things the customer cannot refuse, like discounts and promo codes.
6. Use call-to-actions in the right way to improve click-through rates and sales.
7. When customers abandon their cart, win them back with great offers by email.
8. Up your ante when sending emails between the biggest holidays and events.

The post The Quick Guide to Event Email Marketing Campaigns appeared first on ReadWrite.

In the past two decades, the world has made tremendous advances in technology and has affected many aspects of human life. Dental health has also benefited from technological advances. The intelligent toothbrush, virtual reality, laser technology, and 3D printing have fundamentally changed the dentistry landscape.

The next big topic in dentistry will be the use of artificial intelligence in diagnostics and treatment.

How is AI Currently Being Used in Dentistry?

In dentistry, AI is used for a wide variety of applications. For example, it is used in voice commands such as DEXvoice.

DEXvoice, created by Simplifeye and DEXIS is the “Alexa” for the dentist. DEXvoice is able to pull up things like x-rays, patient records and charts. The DEXvoice solution creates a “hands-free” approach and can ultimately speed up the work of a dentist, as the technician or assistant does not have to constantly try to find documents, x-rays and diagrams on the computer. It also makes the work area cleaner and safer as there is no need to put on and take off gloves to use the computer.

Anyone who has been treated for tooth decay by the dentist knows how painful the process can be. Isn’t it great if artificial intelligence can help make the treatment fast and less painful?

Interpreting X-rays

Interpreting X-rays and properly planning treatment are some of the most important skills a dentist must master. Still, they remain some of the most difficult skills to develop, especially because much of the images are not clearly visible with the naked eye. At the moment, AI is helping with caries detection.

ParallelDots, an AI company, launched a cloud-based AI application to detect cavities on dental x-rays. They named this new clinical device Dentistry.AI. The device contains thousands of X-ray images that serve as a data set.

The AI ​​algorithm is trained to recognize patterns from this large amount of data. Another Industry 4.0 technology, blockchain, guarantees this data’s immediacy and validity to all the system participants.

AI enables better identification of tooth decay by analyzing bone density.

The correct interpretation of X-ray and 3D images requires a lot of experience, and the AI ​​assistant makes work a lot easier, as millions of images have already been evaluated. The artificial intelligence algorithm, trained with thousands of X-ray images, achieves a high degree of accuracy in predicting tooth decay.

The AI ​​has also brought us a smart assistant – the ChairFill program developed by MMG Fusion – that can help optimize dental practices schedule by contacting patients to coordinate treatments that have not yet been completed.

On the one hand, it is about finding out which types of patients dentists need at what times to fill the calendars as best as possible, on the other hand, it is about contacting and coordinating these patients.

The program works like an intelligent assistant. It can also be connected to the marketing system to start new patient marketing campaigns. Profit maximization strategies and algorithms are examined to determine which campaign is running and who it is aimed at.

Is Artificial Intelligence Already an Ally for Dental Health Care?

While these advances in dental care provide an outlook on what may be possible in the future in this area, some experts in the field such as Dr. Sunali S. Khanna and Prita A. Dhaimade, members of the National Academy of Medical Sciences in India, noted that advances still have many drawbacks and challenges to be overcome. For example, the high initial investment costs.

AI Recognizes Tooth Decay Better than Humans

Jaroslav Bláha reported that a group of dentists found only about 50 percent of caries cases in X-rays than AI. He was also able to show that AI is better able than humans to detect orthodontic landmarks on X-rays.

In some cases, AI systems already outperform humans. And even if the quality of AI were only as good as humans, its speed is already significantly higher today. By saving time and the associated cost reduction alone, AI systems will play an increasingly important role in dentistry in the future.

AI-Assisted Dentists

In addition to acquiring factual knowledge about diseases, a strong focus should be placed on the use of AI systems to support decision-making in dentistry. The aim should be to train the next generation of dentists to learn the basics of how decision support systems work in order to be able to understand their decisions and, if medically indicated, to counter them.

Looking Into the Future

The use of AI in dentistry has the potential to introduce solutions with personalized diagnostics more quickly. It will improve communication between doctors and patients and allow for an accurate analysis of patient tests.

The AI ​​platform offers much more suitable alternatives for diagnosing patients. While the existing orthodontic CAD is performed manually by an operator according to the orthodontist’s instructions and may involve human error, the AI-based analysis will have an accurate setup with a precise diagnosis and prognosis before and after orthodontic treatment.

Personally, I hope that with the advent of artificial intelligence in dental health, visits to the dentist will in some ways, become more pain-free and stress-free.

I myself am the son of a dentist and already have experience with painful orthodontic treatment that lasted a total of 3 years. I know that dental visits that go wrong can have lasting psychological effects for many patients, children, and adults alike.

But it’s also exciting to think about the positive results that artificial intelligence and dentistry may have for dental health care in the future.

Conclusion

While AI systems are becoming more and more involved in people’s everyday lives and represent a meaningful and homogeneous addition to life, some challenges are associated with them.

People are afraid of change – including artificial intelligence. In this context, it is, therefore, essential that users always know why a particular decision was made. Understanding the reasons for decisions ensures not only transparency but also increases acceptance.

Another challenge of the future concerns the “distortion” of the data. The artificial intelligence-based on machine learning – can arrive at neutral findings, the output data must also be free of any kind of distortion.

In ethical and legal issues, in particular, we still have a long way to go before we can count on the use of strong artificial intelligence. According to Kreutzer, global agreements are necessary for this – but in view of the geopolitical situation, this seems to be a utopia.

The post The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry appeared first on ReadWrite.

Trademark rights in UAE are based on the trademark’s use. Prior to using a mark in identifying a specific product or service, there’s a need to perform a clearance search. A clearance search or trademark search determines whether there’s an existing mark. If there is an existing mark that is already registered — it’s likely similar or the same as to what you want to use. Here is how to conduct a trademark search for a business startup in UAE.

Similar to a trademark in the US — a Trademark search in UAE is also referred to as due diligence search. It’s a systematic search of unregistered and registered trademarks that:

• Are being utilized anywhere in the world or country, where applicable;
• Are similar or the same as the trademark that you plan on using or registering;
• Are being utilized for similar or the same products and/or services;
• Are likely to confuse consumers with regards to the source of the products and/or services

It is very essential to keep proper records of the progress and process of the trademark search (in UAE — farahatco dot com; a trademark searching service).  The date that the search has been conducted should also be noted as well as the words, codes, and terms that are used in the search. Also, don’t forget to record the database that was scanned and the trademarks that have been found from the search.

Make a Trademark.

Brainstorm a name for the mark or sketch a logo design. It is an excellent idea if you generate several different logos or names just in case the first choice is in use already by another person or entity.

Provide a Description for the product or service that will be covered by the Mark.

When applying for UAE trademark registration which is done with the UAE Ministry of Economy, you will need to identify products or services that are covered by the mark.

Utilize the resources available in identifying acceptable terms which describe certain products and services.

Highlight all the Related Products or Services.

To make the most use of a mark, related products and services are also to be identified. Products and services will be considered as related by the authorities if they are:

• Used together – hockey sticks and ice skates;
• Sold together – underwear and socks;
• Made with similar materials or ingredients – butter and cheese

Identify Design Codes.

Design codes are identified for marks that have design elements in them. If the trademark incorporates a logo or design, the trademark search should include a search for designs that are confusingly similar.

Utilize the resources available (e.g., the services of a local or international trademark specialist) to identify appropriate codes for every single prominent design element within your trademark.

You will also want to carefully review all guidelines for every one of the codes.

To give you an example, if the trademark has a penguin that is sporting a bow tie, then the search codes must be identified for penguins in costume, bow ties, ties, silk scarves, etc. You should carefully watch these design elements whether in the U.S. or any other country. Respect whichever country design codes you are implementing.

Scour Registries for Registered Marks and Pending Applications.

Choose a trademark database, then search the specific works in the mark you plan on registering. Look out for exact matches, then move on to expanding your search with the use of words which sound like your trademark. Don’t forget to include spelling variations and similar meanings.

Scan results you uncover for trademarks that are already registered for the same or similar products or services that you are or will be putting on the market.

You can also conduct a combined mark search using the mark and the products or service terms. The search may also include international class code. Especially if the mark has design elements in it, the search for design codes as mentioned earlier.

Review the Trademark Status.

For every relevant mark that you have uncovered along the way, check the ownership information and current status. You may catch a trademark that has already expired and is not in use any longer by the trademark holder. These elements or trademarks, you may be able to use or acquire depending on the lapse of status.

 If Possible, Expand the Search.

A comprehensive trademark search includes common law marks or unregistered trademarks, as well as trademarks that are registered at state or provincial levels.

Resources that you can scour include:

• social media sites
• internet search engines
• domain name registries on the internet
• yellow pages
• business directories
• national trademark databases
• business name registries
• e-commerce sites
• product catalogs
• trade publications
• trade associations
• local shopping malls
• newspapers
• magazines

There is a need for a vast scope of search and accuracy to make sure that a trademark search performed is effective.

The trademark specialists in Farahat & Co can help ensure that your search results are reliable as they utilize several different strategies and technology in conducting a thorough search.

Expand your brand today.

The post How to Conduct a Trademark Search for a Business Startup appeared first on ReadWrite.

Whether you have a small business or a big one, or you run a non-profit organization, a customer survey is the most effective methods to gain insights. A survey will reveal your customers’ likes, dislikes — your survey will detail a customer’s needs. While you are stuck at home during the COVID-19 quarantine, take some time and build a fantastic survey to catapult your business forward.

Providing a survey will be the quickest way to expose the loopholes of your business strategies.

Customer surveys allow businesses to provide astounding customer experience. However, to achieve this goal, you have to know how to use your customer feedback tool properly.

Here are the 10 amazing tips you can use to create an effective customer survey for your business.

1. Clarify Your Survey’s Objectives.

   When you are creating a customer survey, the first thing that you need to do is establish what you need to find out. The objective of your survey will regulate your questions, as well as your target audience. If you do not have clear objectives, you would not get clear results. While creating questions, you must keep your target audience in your mind. This helps the audience to relate to the answers to the questions and give the perfect response.

2. Use the Preferred Channel of Your Customer.

   Determining the preferred channel of your customer is a crucial factor. The preferred channel of your customer depends on the requirements of your survey. That is, whether the survey requires a formal response or a casual one. For example, a formal channel is when a customer directly reaches out to a specific service to explore. Whereas, a casual survey is a comment on a Facebook post. The most popular channel will provide you with the best results.

3. Write Straightforward and Clear Questions.

   Your survey can be highly disliked by your customers if the questions are poorly formed. You must ensure that you use clear questions that are not hypothetical, do not contain difficult concepts, are not leading, and free from bias. You can start with neutral and meaningful questions that are easy to respond to. After that, you can gradually move towards your main goal.

4. Send Surveys for Different Purposes and at Varying Intervals.

   The purpose of your survey will determine its frequency. If you want your survey to succeed, then you need to send them with different purposes at irregular intervals. You can use the post-contact survey. Here, the customer generally agrees in receiving the survey at the end or start of a methodical touch-point. Hence, you get the chance to personalize your customer experience by looking through customer history. Use periodic surveys if you are launching a new product or service.

5. Stay Focused on the Point.

   Keeping the survey short and sweet is the best way to minimize the abandonment rate. Ensure that your survey does not explore multiple matters. Only ask 10 to 12 questions. However, if you want a more detailed survey on a topic, then send your audience a follow-up survey. Provide your audience with the estimated time of completion and the number of questions before the survey begins.

6. Keep it Concise and Relevant.

   The perfect way to increase your response rate is by keeping the survey concise and relevant. Make the response in a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ form so that your audience does not feel stuck with your survey. You can also formulate the survey in the form of rapid-fire to keep your customers engaged.

7. Analyze Surveys by Department and Agent.

   It is always advisable to collect as well as analyze your survey data by departments and agents. Through this, you can streamline the utility of specific departments. This also helps in narrowing down the problematic areas so that more targeted solutions can be used for resolving the issues. Whereas, analyzing on agent level helps in identifying an individual’s performance issues. This way, you would be able to train your agents better and make the customer support programs finer.

8. Contact Audiences with Low Satisfaction Rates.

   Make your agents contact those audiences who have low satisfaction scores. A more humanized approach will make your customers feel appreciated. This will make them feel that their feedback matters and is taken seriously. Even customers facing minor issues should be contacted to improve the performance of your brand.

9. Send Personalized Acknowledgements.

   This is the most effective tip that you can use. Always ensure that you thank your respondents as well as acknowledge their feedback in a personalized manner. Addressing the respondents by their name and sending them a simple acknowledgment message would help you to build a relationship of love and trust between you and your customer.

10. Be Smart with Timings.

    If you want to get more accurate responses, then you have to send out surveys at regular intervals. This helps the targeted audience to recall the quality and experience they had with the recent interaction. Hence, try to send surveys when you are still fresh on their mind. Sending a survey every 24 hours is the perfect window of time.

A customer survey can make or break your tech business. Incorporating any of these tips on your next customer survey will help you to get the required insight on your customers and provide them with better services or products

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The concept of customer satisfaction has prevailed since the beginning of commerce. In other words — customer satisfaction is certainly not a new concept. However, the way feedback is being gathered to improve customer satisfaction level has totally changed. Here is how to turn your customer satisfaction survey results into action.

Many businesses conduct customer satisfaction surveys, sadly, a very few of them actually are capable of leveraging the results into real-time applications. As a result, it is a waste of time, resources, and workforce. But here is the thing; it is not that tough to turn those survey results into an action plan.

Every business, regardless of its size, market focus, and type can be benefited from the customer satisfaction survey results conducted to identify customer needs and expectations.

Surveys reveal actionable insights.

• Market demand for products and services of your brand.
• What do your potential customers prefer: basic or value-added?
• Grounds where you need to work on your products and services.
• Changes required in your current service delivery business model.

Once you have these data, now is the time to make action plans, work on them, and turn them into fruitful results. And for that, let’s understand how you can develop your action plan based on the results you have received from visitor satisfaction surveys.

Analyze the Results

This is the first step that must be followed while leveraging the results from customer satisfaction plans. It can be really useful to provide you with strategic as well as tactical road maps for carrying out implementation works. By analyzing these results, you can enhance or modify your existing products or services to meet market needs.

Additionally, you can also develop some new products or services reflecting the demands of your customers. Customer experience surveys also set the ground for you to identify as well as cultivate new horizons of target markets depending upon identified patterns. Align your decision-making according to the purchase behavior, preferences, and characteristics of users.

Comprehend the Experience of Your Customers from Their Perspective

Many companies develop various perceptions about the experience of their customers while using their products and services. In order to improve one thing, they tend to lose another and it again hampers their customer satisfaction.

Some companies when getting negative feedback about their high prices reduce their prices drastically and end up giving less training to their other teams and sales force. Ultimately, it results in poor customer support.

The catch here is to never compromise on providing a good customer experience. You have to think from the perspective of your customers and ten make your business plans.

Unleash the Value of Satisfied Customers

If your survey results reflect that you have good numbers of satisfied customers, don’t just sit back. At this time, use those happy customers for strengthening customer satisfaction more by further monetizing it. For this, you can turn the results of customer experience surveys into something tangible and then use it in marketing.

For instance, if you have found in the survey that 85% of your customers like recommending your brand to their friends, share the same information in your marketing campaigns. Furthermore, you can also ask those customers to give you testimonials and then use them on your marketing campaigns, company brochures, and most importantly, on your website.

Identify the Reasons for Issues

When you get negative feedback about something, the first thing is to fix it as early as possible. And once you have fixed it, try to understand the ground reasons behind those issues so that such things would not happen again.

When you can identify those actual issues, implement plans to overcome them by setting new and innovative methods. Thus, when you operate at the molecular level, you can expect good changes in the overall satisfaction levels of your customers.

Convert Unsatisfied Customers into Potential Resources

The way you handle negative feedback says a lot about your business. Apologizing is good, but you have to walk extra miles to win those customers back. But it is true that you can convert your unsatisfied customers into potential resources. It might seem tough, but it is a great opportunity for you to establish your credibility again to those customers.

As unhappy and angry customers are more honest while giving feedback, you can use them as your marketing weapon. For this, you need to listen to them patiently. You can send them an email immediately with more information on the inconvenience caused. Besides, you can also do variations such as a coupon code, apology letter from your CEO, and a survey asking more details regarding the issue, and so on.

Final Words

A customer satisfaction survey is vital for every business these days, given the huge competition in the market. In such a scenario, you cannot leave any loopholes from where you can lose your customers. Instead, make a good implementation strategy to leverage your survey results in order to win back your unhappy customers and boost the numbers of more happy customers.

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The question about whether Real Estate or Stocks are your best options for a return on your investment may become a moot point shortly after the big toss the last couple of weeks. Here is real estate vs stocks and which has a better return.

Most people are clear nowadays that you need to have an investment strategy that fits your budget as well as your needs. You have to plan for your retirement — it doesn’t just happen on its own. Are you saving for a college fund? Do you want to earn residual income? These are essential life and lifestyle strategies and decisions.

Investing in stock sounds like an easy option and it’s a common investment option. Another standard and lucrative investment option is investment real estate.

If you have invested in the right circumstances, real estate investments can turn out to be a low-risk strategy, offering greater diversification and yielding equal, if not better returns.

Many development companies can give you the right price for your investments. Let us have a look at both these investment options to see which one is the right option.

Investing in Real Estate

When it comes to buying real estate, you are investing in physical land or property. Some real-estate options cost you money each month until the property is paid off.

When purchasing or investing in real estate property, you’ll want to maintain the property in order to get a good resale value. As with any investment, you have to spend some money out of your pocket in order to maintain your property.

That being said, many real estate properties are cash-generating as well. If you invest with the right real estate company, you can find some properties which can generate some good chunks of profits for you.

If you invest in an apartment or buy a shop in a commercial complex, you will receive monthly rent for that. You can pay the expenses and keep the difference as a profit.

Pros of Investing Real Estate:

Let us discuss in brief the pros of investing in real estate:

1. The majority of the people are familiar with investing in real estate.
2. The real estate investment is tangible, and you can use and keep this investment it for yourself if you want. Some people buy and hold land and property and use it for personal needs.
3. Real estate serves as an inflation hedge.
4. The risk of fraud is less when it comes to investing in real estate.
5. Debt or leverage is more secure with real estate when compared to stocks.

Cons of Investing in Real Estate:

Investing in real estate has some cons as well along with pros. Let us take a look at them as well:

1. Investing in real estate requires a lot of work when compared to investing in stocks.
2. Recurring costs may be incurred to maintain a real estate investment.
3. There is often little or no scope for short term gains when it comes to investing in real estate. You’ll want to purchase your property and hang on to it for a time.

Investing in Stocks

Investing in stocks means buying a piece of a company. The company can be in any industry. The investor is entitled to a share of profit for every share, which is owned by them.

You will likely not be able to merely look at a stock and be able to see its worth, and then purchase it. Investing in stocks needs a knowledge base of the “how-to.” Most often, stock traders have many years of school and experience.

Stock businesses have studied the trends in the market. Some feel there is a higher percentage of gambling or speculation in stocks. But any investment has some risks. Caution is required when it comes to investing in stocks.

Stocks are always subject to economic cycles, monetary policies, tax rules in each country, and state, as well as under the ruling of each government, which is currently in power.

Pros of Investing in Stocks:

Here are the pros of investing in stocks:

1. Investing in stocks means owning a part of the business without having to do the work.
2. If the investment in the shares in a company which gives you regular dividends then this price increased every year.
3. Stock investments can be easily liquidated. For most stocks, you don’t need to wait for a long time to sell them.
4. Fewer formalities exist when starting to invest in stocks.

Cons of Investing in Stocks:

Let us have a look at the cons of investing in stocks:

1. Volatile markets and thus no guaranteed returns.
2. Influenced by a lot of pre-existing factors.
3. Risk of fraud is more significant.

It seems clear that both options of stocks and real estate have their own pros and cons. All care should be taken when making a decision about either investment. Learn to understand the situation, the financial institution, and the business person you are dealing with.

If you are keen on investing in real estate — every country in the world has wonders to behold. My favorite place in the world is Hyderabad, India (BBG India dot com). Beautiful people, city, university, and more.

Any city and country in the world will have various projects per your budget requirements. Consider the beauties of my country and a place for investing in property, or stocks, and for building business opportunities.

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Employee experience software enables enterprises to gather continuous data on their work culture and environment through staff surveys that provide feedback on the organization. This solution differs from performance management tools that firms use to track company, division, group, and individual goals. Here are the top industry players in employee experience software in 2020.

Employee satisfaction software has become popular.

The type of employee satisfaction software that has become popular in companies is because of the need to retain staff — as attrition costs are enormous. It’s become imperative for organizations to boost employee retention to succeed.

The Gen Z and millennial generations are laying stress on corporate purpose and culture as they seek fulfilling jobs and careers.

Finally, people analytics has risen in importance as modern enterprises are increasingly making data-driven business decisions.

Employee feedback software permits organizations to maintain their finger on their company’s pulse to know how employees are meeting key objectives, and which staff members and managers need extra training for their roles.

These tools allow people analytics and HR leaders to learn about their workforce’s needs and ambitions.

The tools can provide the necessary means and resources to help their staff members perform their tasks efficiently.

Now, let’s take a look at the features and benefits of 5 leading employee experience software solutions available today from which you can select a fitting one for your requirements.

piHappiness

piHappiness is a widely used customer and employee satisfaction software product that is ideal for firms of all sizes. It presents capabilities, such as action- management, sentiment analysis, live alerts, trend analysis, feedback management, survey management, and more.

With this software, you can use emoticons to gauge customer and employee satisfaction levels. Its central dashboard shows the NPS (Net Promoter Score).

piHappiness offers a customer demographic feature that enables you to gather and store user details, including name, contact info, age, gender, and email address.

Also, the application provides customized analytics and reporting functions. You can access this system remotely using an Android or iOS device.

Key Functionalities of piHappiness

• Use the survey builder to produce attractive, customizable surveys.
• Collect staff and consumer feedback on multiple channels, including the web, Android and iOS devices, and automated kiosks.
• piHappiness supports more significant than 90 languages and 22 Question Types.
• It enables you to create customized reports to facilitate easy information comprehension.
• The software presents robust analytics that delivers deep insights into employee satisfaction and experience.
• Lastly, piHappiness can efficiently analyze data and suggests areas for improvement to help you boost employee and customer happiness.

BambooHR

BambooHR is an HR and employee feedback software that helps you obtain honest answers regarding staff engagement. The platform presents applicant tracking and on-boarding tools to make staff hiring, recruiting, engagement, and new-hire training smooth and effective.

Other features like a useful mobile app, reporting, performance management, time-off tracking, and e-signature help HR professionals to work effectively and competently.

SalesScreen

Motivate and engage your workforce with real-time competitions, leader boards, rewards, and TV celebrations. SalesScreen enables you to celebrate your staff members on mobile app, web, and TV when they complete essential tasks.

Close winning deals, submit new project designs, create attractive promotions, and offers for customers.

This software can help your firm to skyrocket workplace culture and engagement. The platform is fully customizable, integrates with leading CRM tools, and assures an increase in staff motivation and performance.

Let’s Buzzz

Lets Buzzz is a social recognition and rewards solution designed for organizations of all sizes. It helps to boost engagement and empowers companies to improve their office culture, the staff experience, and key business metrics related to the bottom line.

The system translates company objectives/values into behaviors and offers a platform to help employees include these behaviors in their daily routines and tasks.

People Element

“People Elements” helps enterprises to retain and engage their personnel effectively. It is a survey solution combined with specialized coaching that makes it simple for you to capture, analyze, and act on staff feedback.

The vendor provides support services and innovative tools to help your firm gain the needed insights to make positive and meaningful improvements in your company’s work environment and achieve the desired business results.

piHappiness remains one of the industry leaders in the employee experience software field.

I’ve been pleased with piHappiness as they provide an affordable and cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes. Contact them today to install their platform in your company to efficiently obtain and act on employee and customer feedback to boost their satisfaction and happiness levels.

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In any business or organization, the customer is the king. Anything and everything starts with the customer and ends with them. And so, it is necessary to have a satisfied customer base for increased brand loyalty and trust. For this very reason, almost all businesses today rely on technology. The technology helps companies to interact with their customers. Businesses must know a customer’s opinion in the form of feedback about their products or services. Here is the need for feedback software for the Ministry of Army and Defense.

The type of software that is used for feedback is called customer feedback software — often used in the form of an app.

The feedback software allows businesses and service providers to understand their customers and clients better. Such software is not only a need of the hour but a tool for a successful corporate life. The moment you put your customer at the core of your business, you’re already a step closer to success. And this feedback in today’s diverse era isn’t easy to get and retrieve without the help of Customer Feedback Software.

What is Defense Feedback Software?

Today a customer is not limited only to business. Every organization has a customer in its varied stakeholders. For instance, for a school, the staff, the students, the helpers, and the teachers are all part of their customers. And proper feedback from them can help make things better. Similarly, in the army and defense, a proper Feedback Software is required to know whether or not the defense personnel and civilian employees in the Ministry of Army and Defense are happy and content with the service they receive.

A Defense Feedback Software is a new technology being adopted by almost all the world’s leading armies like the Defense Department of the United States of America has launched the 2016 Morale, Welfare and Recreation Customer Satisfaction Survey Software, for knowing it directly from the personnel, whether or not they are receiving the best of services for their families, training, equipment, food, etc.

Need for an Army Feedback Software in the Ministry of Army and Defense

The need for a Customer Feedback Software in Army and Defense Ministry has a huge amount of reasons behind it. It is not only needed but even advantageous for the ministry. Below are some prominent reasons why we need it in the Ministry of Army and Defense.

• The Defense Feedback Software will help the authorities know for sure about the opinions of the military personnel from varied departments like the Department of Defense Morale, Welfare, Recreation, and Resale Policy Office.
• This feedback helps to make major decisions in investment in equipment. It helps to know the need for certain equipment by the personnel which they require on-field and those which are in excess already. Wiser decisions in equipment purchase can help the army officials to not only defeat the enemy but save their lives too. The US Defense Department used its Defense Feedback Software to invest more than $1 million in equipment upgrades.
• The feedback helps to improve the various training and fitness facilities for the personnel. The officials believe that improvements in fitness programs and facilities, outdoor recreation programs and single-service-member programs were a direct result of the Army Feedback Software.
• The software provides the spouse of the personnel to take part in the survey and feedbacks with the Defense Feedback Software. In the US Defense Department, about 200,000 members of the military’s active duty, National Guard and Reserve components, along with their spouses, participated in the feedback programs.
• The Defense Feedback Software helps to improve services designed to enhance the quality of life of the defense personnel and their families.
• The participation in the surveys by the Software is voluntary and on the will of the employees and military personnel.  Also, all the responses are confidential and respondents can be candid in their responses.
• Such software in the Ministry of Army and Defense not only focuses on meeting the needs of the military members but also that of the civilian employees by promoting quality services.
• Such feedback will help to make a decision regarding the continued or discontinued use of a particular service provider.

Conclusion

Understanding the need for defense feedback software, its inculcation in army systems should be highly appreciated. piHappiness is the most helpful and highly accurate provider for such software. Having a source for military usage is essential for the quality of services used for the defense department. The Ministry of Army and Defense has long needed a source for feedback purposes.

With ensured accuracy and analytical precision, the Ministry of Army and Defense will be able to provide ways to be the best in the field and a way to prove that its methods have worked for the benefit of their military personnel.

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Customers in today’s marketplace have high expectations whenever they engage with a business. Time is a commodity in today’s world, and if anyone spends this commodity by engaging with your venture, their satisfaction, and providing them with a good experience becomes the utmost priority. Customer experience software is becoming an essential possession for every enterprise. Incorporating the core foundations of serving your customers for excellent customer experience, is hence, what makes or breaks the success of your venture.

Here are the 10 core foundations you need to incorporate in your process to provide an excellent customer experience:

1. Reflecting Customers Identity
   

   Customers prefer to engage with brands, businesses, or ventures that reflect their identities or beliefs. Taking the extra step of showing awareness to the customers’ identities and reflecting them when they are engaging with you not only reinforces their confidence with you but also makes them a loyal customer.

2. Aiming for Higher Objectives
   

   As Theodore Levitt once said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole in the wall.” Understanding the end-game of the reason the customer is engaging with you will help you serve them better. This functionality can be improved by taking feedbacks from the customers through a customer feedback app, which can tell you if you succeeded in helping them attain what they were aiming for by engaging with you.

3. Say No to Chances

   Prioritizing a handful of important or high-level customers over the regular customers, and leaving the regular customers’ journey to chance won’t help you grow in your field. Looking beyond serving only the high-level customers, a lot of doors open for you to serve and delight your regular customers, the trajectory of which can be recorded through a customer feedback software.

4. Setting and Meeting Expectations
   

   Use advertisements, slogans, and marketing to set expectations of your customers. Meeting those expectations is, now, the most crucial part of your venture. Through a customer experience app, you can actively record if the customers are facing any issues which you can heed to, or if their expectations are being met.

5. Seeing Time as a Commodity
   

   Yes, the customers are investing their valuable time with their engagement, but so are you. Being precise and improving the convenience of the customers by incorporating digital services like AR can significantly assist you and your customers, hence, enhancing their customer experience.

6. Being Crystal Clear
   

   The one thing that every customer hates is getting stressed out due to their engagement with any venture. Avoid these stressful situations by making the customers’ choices easy, keeping them informed about their journey and options, and attending to them whenever they seem confused or are dissatisfied with your services. Dissatisfaction can be tracked through good customer experience software.

7. Indulging Customers’ Primary Senses
   

   The main reason why customers engage with your venture is that they seek satisfaction. This satisfaction is sensory, and only comes in when they have an engaging and fulfilling experience that satiates any of their five primary senses. The senses can be calculated and assessed by taking feedback from customers through a customer feedback app, which can help you chart out good plans for enhancing the customer experience.

8. Engagement
   

   Cultivating personal relationships with the customers and making them feel welcomed and needed is often overlooked by ventures. Engaging with the customers and being friendly encourages them to return to your venture. This aspect increases customer loyalty and improves your brand image.

9. Autonomy and Control
   

   Autonomy and control is a psychological aspect of every human being. Feeling free and in control makes the customers feel a sense of grandeur, and increases their satisfaction. Letting them decide what products they buy, how much they spend, and how much they need the product enables them to be in their happy zone. The “happy zone” or comfort will ultimately improve your customers’ experience.

10. Validating Customers Emotions
    

    Customers are often very willing to give their feedback after their engagement with a business, especially if they are satisfied or disappointed. Through customer feedback software, you can track which customers were not satisfied with your services, and work out why they faced issues with validating their feedback. When you validate your customer, they will not only return, but they’ll feel their emotions were considered and worked upon, improving your brand image.

Conclusion

Enhancing the customer experience has become essential in today’s market. But these foundations don’t incorporate themselves. A good customer experience software should be engaging, modernized, and rewarding. The growing use of customer feedback software in this regard is noteworthy as it provides a direct and personalized link with the customers.

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