General

What is it that the CUSTOMERS want

“What exactly are they looking for?”

In order to be a successful one, a business needs to touch its customers in a way no other business can. Customers are the primary stakeholders in any and all businesses. Why so?

  1. Organizations are extremely dependent upon their customers. In case they fail to develop customer loyalty and satisfaction, it is very likely they will lose their customers, which translates into failure.
  2. … Because without customers, the organization would not have come into being.
  3. The main purpose of the organization is to fulfill the needs of the customers and satisfy them.
  4. The customers make it possible to for the organization to achieve its aims and objectives.

Thus, the ultimate success lies in listening and responding to the customers’ needs. Therefore, the importance of Customer Relationship Management cannot be stressed enough. It is essentially an important part of the overall business management.

Following are the steps that possibly all organizations must go through in order to build fruitful customer relationships:

  • Determine which of the customers’ needs and/or goals coincide with those of the organization.
  • Establish and maintain a bond with customers through effective communication
  • Develop positive feelings between the organization and the customers so that they know who to turn to.

However, during the course, the organization must not deviate from another one of their primary objectives – making a profit and moving forward. And on the other hand, customers want great quality for a reasonable price. Therefore, these two somewhat contradicting points must be very intelligently managed and a balance must be created.

The CRM can influence the organization in many ways – for starters, the main focus of the organization moves from their product to their customers (which, is pretty much the same thing but a little more specific). Additionally, this means restructuring the offer to cater to the customers’ needs, and not what the organization can make/offer.

It goes without saying that an organization’s success is governed by two things – customer satisfaction and making profits (as previously indicated). These two have an interdependent relationship – providing a better service to your customers than your competitors is likely to bring handsome profits. What makes CRM so effective? CRM is known to not only improve the service to customers, it also should also reduce costs, wastage, and objections and complaints. Moreover, a good CRM will also reduce staff stress significantly, this is a result of the reduction in attrition.

Through CRM, instant and extensive market research becomes possible since you are now open communicating with your customers, which helps you study the patterns in the market, much better than any market survey could give you.

It is obvious how great CRM also helps you develop your business: customers stick to you for all their needs; customer mix-up rates go down, recommendations to recent customers from increasing numbers of satisfied customers to help make them take decisions; and overall the organization’s service flows and teams function more competently and more merrily.

Top +10 effective fat-reducing exercises to do in bed

Some women do not start exercising, because they think that it requires a subscription to the gym. And their busy lifestyle prevents them from going to this place. We want to say that this opinion is wrong. If you have motivation and desire, you can exercise even at home!

Today we would like to present you with a list of 15 easy fat-reducing moves. They are very easy to perform, but at the same time very effective.

Look at these exercises and choose the most suitable ones for yourself by adding them to your workout routine.

These 15 simple but effective exercises hit all fitness levels, giving you an overall shape-up.

Do you doubt? Then try them!

Exercise #1: Leg Circles

Along with the core, single leg circle strengthens the quadriceps and hamstrings. It also promotes a healthy hip joint. It’s a great opportunity to work the abdominals while keeping the Pilates principles of centering, concentration, control, precision, breathing, and flow in mind. Like most Pilates moves, this exercise combines stretching and strengthening of major muscle groups on both sides of the body and promotes balance and improved overall function in your hips.

Steps:

1. Lie sideways with your hip bones aligned one on top of the other and your legs stacked on top of each other.

2. Lean your legs forward a bit so they are slightly in front of your torso. Point your toes.

3. Step 2 Lift your top leg to hip height and make small circles with your leg.

 

 

 

Exercise #2: Superman

This exercise is one of the easiest and it is the most effective way to improve core strength in the lower back and obliques. It primarily targets the erector spine, which surrounds the spine from your hip to your head, and flexes and rotates the spine and neck.

The hamstrings and gluteus maximus also come into play while the muscles of the upper back (deltoids, trapezius, and splenius) stabilize the motion.

Steps:

1. Lay face down on a mat or flat surface, with arms outstretched.

2. Keep your hands and arms straight throughout the exercise.

3. Raise your hand and legs 4-5 inches off the ground.

4. Hold for 5 seconds, then return to starting position.

 

Exercise #3: Leg Raise

The leg raise is a strength training exercise which targets the iliopsoas (the anterior hip flexors). Because the abdominal muscles are used isometrically to stabilize the body during the motion, leg raises are also often used to strengthen the rectus abdominis muscle and the internal and external oblique muscles.

Steps :

1. Lie on your back, legs straight and together.

2. Keep your legs straight and lift them all the way up to the ceiling until your butt comes off the floor.

3. Slowly lower your legs back down till they’re just above the floor. Hold for a moment.

4. Raise your legs back up. Repeat.

 

 

 

Exercise #4: Glute Bridge

The glute bridge mainly targets its namesake muscles in your booty. But this butt exercise also improves your core stabilization. The glute bridge is important because it strengthens the muscles in the posterior chain—your whole backside. And it’s an especially important move if you sit all day long.

Steps :

1. Lie face up on the floor, with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Keep your arms at your side with your palms down.

2. Lift your hips off the ground until your knees, hips and shoulders form a straight line. Squeeze those glutes hard and keep your abs drawn in so you don’t overextend your back during the exercise.

3. Hold your bridged position for a couple of seconds before easing back down.

 

 

Exercise #5: Crunches

The crunch is one of the most popular abdominal exercises. It involves the entire abs, but primarily it works the rectus abdominis muscle and also works the obliques. It allows both building six-pack abs, and tightening the belly.

Steps:

1. Lie down on your back. Plant your feet on the floor, hip-width apart. Bend your knees and place your arms across your chest. Contract your abs and inhale.

2. Exhale and lift your upper body, keeping your head and neck relaxed.

3. Inhale and return to the starting position.

 

 

 

Exercise #6: Windshield Wiper

This exercise helps to regain normal range of motion of the hip joint. strengthens and tightens the core and tones the abdominal muscles.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back, keeping your back flat with no arching of the spine.

2. Extend your arms out beside you at shoulder level, with your palms pressed firmly to the floor. Your upper body should form a “T” shape.

3. Raise your feet off the floor by bending your hips and knees to 90 degree angles. This is the start position.

4. As you exhale, rotate both your thighs to one side until the outer thigh touches the ground or until you feel a stretch in your abs and lower back.

5. Pause briefly, then rotate to the other side without pausing in the start position.

6. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

 

Exercise #7: Reverse Crunches

This exercise will activate your major abdominal muscles, including the external obliques on the sides of the abdomen. It is good for developing an appealing stomach musculature as well as strong and functional abs.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back with your knees together and your legs bent to 90 degrees, feet planted on the floor. Place your palms face down on the floor for support.

2. Tighten your abs to lift your hips off the floor as you crunch your knees inward to your chest.

3. Pause at the top for a moment, then lower back down without allowing your lower back to arch and lose contact with the floor.

 

 

 

 

Exercise #8: Scissor Kicks

The scissor kick exercise works your core muscles, glutes, quads and adductors. Engaging your core muscles is what allows you to “flutter” your legs up and down. The core muscles include the rectus abdominis, obliques, transverse abdominis, and the hip flexors. .

Steps:

1. Lie face up on the floor. To support your lower back, either tilt your pelvis and engage your abs to press the lower back to the floor or place your hands under your tailbone.

2. Extend your legs straight up into the air. Slowly open your legs out to the sides so you form a V with your legs.

3. Pause and then slowly bring your legs back together.

4. Repeat the opening and closing 10 to 12 times.

 

 

Exercise #9: Outer Thigh Lift

The goal of the outer thigh lift is to strengthen the hip and outer thigh. The movement requires moving the leg away from the midline of the body.

Steps:

1. Lie on your right side with right arm extended out straight, head resting on arm.

2. Place your left arm in front of your chest for support.

3. Lift left leg up and out from hip socket.

4. Lift out for 2 counts and lower for 4 counts, resisting as you lower your leg to starting position.

 

 

Exercise #10: Toe-Touch Crunches

Toe-Touch Crunches takes your standard ab crunch and adds in a nice hamstring stretch and isometric hold for your hip flexors. They’re very simple to do and can be worked into any “Ab Day” routine!

Steps:

1. Lie on your back, and lift your legs and arms up so they are extended toward the ceiling.

2. Lower your legs toward the floor while reaching your arms overhead, keeping your shoulders off the mat and lower back pressed into the mat.

3. Repeat the crunch motion to complete one rep.

4. Perform 10 reps.

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise #11: Single-Leg Stretch

The resisted single-leg stretch is a Pilates-inspired exercise that increases strength and stability throughout the core including the lower abdominals.

Exercise Steps:

1. Lie on your back with both knees brought toward your chest.

2. Extend one leg straight in front of you as you press your hands into your other thigh.

3. Lift your head and shoulders off the floor as if performing a crunch.

4. Drive your knee toward your chest as you continue to press into it with your hands.

5. Hold, then return to starting position.

 

Exercise #12: Jackknife Sit-Up

Jack knife sit ups are a great low-impact exercise for strengthening the core muscles. They are a great way to tighten the lower abs. Jack knife sit ups will give your abs challenging workout, but the basics are easy to master!

Steps:

1. Lie on the floor, keeping your hands extended behind the head.

2. Fully extend your legs and ensure that the toes are pointing forward.

3. Exhale and raise your legs and arms to meet in a jackknife position. Bend at the waist while lifting the legs at a 35-45 degree angle so that your back is raised from the floor at the top

4. Lower your arms and legs slowly while returning to the starting position. Control your movement while coming down.

 

 

Exercise #13: Forearm Plank

A forearm plank is a core body exercise that strengthens all of the muscles of the core, gives you a stronger low back, and teaches your body stabilization.

Steps:

1. Assume a push-up position but bend your arms at your elbows so your weight rests on your forearms.

2. Tighten your abs, clench your glutes and keep your body straight from head to heels.

3. Hold as long as you can.

 

 

Exercise #14: Star plank

Star Plank strengthens your obliques and entire core and also help your firm stand. Star Plank not only builds strength in your shoulder and arm, but deep contraction in your oblique muscle and hip. If you learn how to do Star Plank you will have a great new isometric core strength move.

Steps:

1. Begin in a side plank position with right arm straight below right shoulder and legs long with feet stacked.

2. Reach top arm and leg up and hold, squeezing abdominals.

3. Stay for desired amount of time and switch sides.

4. Repeat.

 

Exercise #15: Tabletop reverse pikes

The tabletop reverse pike targets and trains your arms and core and improves your overall strength and stability. This exercise also engages your shoulders, glutes, and legs, giving you a great full-body workout.

Steps:

1. Sit on the mat with your knees bent, your arms extended back, your fingers facing the body, and your feet hip-width apart.

2. Lift your butt off the mat, coming into a tabletop position.

3. Lower your hips, straighten the legs and lengthen the spine.

4. Raise your hips, lift your torso and return to the tabletop position.

The steps that will lead to an efficient CRM

 

A company will not survive without a proper customer service. But in present days, Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, replaces the traditional customer service, by proposing more efficient ways of treating the company’s clients. Is this the first time you ever heard about CRM? Then keep on reading as you are about to find out the steps that will teach you how to implement CRM successfully. But why should you choose CRM? Because this method is focused on maintaining solid relationships with your customers and helping your business make more profit. A great number of companies already adopted this method. So perhaps it is time to join them as well.

  1. Establish a clean and clear strategy for customer experience

You should be aware that creating a mere slogan for your brand and company is not enough. Many businesses do that but fail in following their slogan with an initiative. You must know very well that are the values and mission of your company, and develop your strategy accordingly, and in a way it will not come in conflict with other strategies you adopted. Also, once established, make sure you communicate it through proper methods to the department in charge with customer care.

  1. Compose your team out of the right persons

The team that should take care of the CRM subject should be people motivated to work with people, regardless of conditions. These people should have the correct attitude, more than skills and other abilities, which can be learned in time.

  1. Keep your people motivated and invest in their development

Even if you have the best people in your CRM team, you still need to constantly reinforce them and offer them your best support. Also, invest in trainings that are meant to develop an excellent personal service, watch the acquired skills and provide feedback once in a while, keep an eye on their performances and make periodic measurements, and offer rewards for the greatest achievements and performance.

  1. The service delivery process should be efficient

It’s not enough just to have customer interaction. You should also make sure that the procedures and processes involved can also retrieve an effective delivery of the service. A customer will always expect for his issue to be solved in the fastest way possible. So your team should know at all times what to do to be efficient.

  1. Keep progressing

An error is something that can occur anytime and anywhere, regardless of how trained and experienced your team is. Never lay back thinking that your team is the best, and nothing can go wrong. Your team may be the best, but things may go wrong. So do spend some time and effort in periodic development and improvement.

  1. Be an ensuring manager and you will make the right changes happen

As a manager, you have the power to make things or even break them, according to the case. Don’t hesitate to get involved in the CRM process, together with the rest of the managerial team, to observe how things go and where improvements can be made. Offering your team reassurance for the job they do can be a great motivation.

A comparison between the available types of CRM software

We live in an era where technology and its related software are helping us in our daily tasks. So, the customer relationship management makes no exception from this rule. Being an important aspect of every existing business, CRM should not only be present but also done in an efficient manner. Thus, many CRM software solutions were developed over time. Which are the most appreciated? Just keep on reading as several comparisons, between some of the most well-known CRM software solutions, will be revealed. You will find out all the essential information you need to know about them.

Salesforce is by far the most used and appreciated software solution. Why? Well, because it is the only one offering a feature that the rest don’t have. It is a cloud-based platform, which means that the storage and maneuverability space is extremely large. Another advantage is that it can offer working features for a broad range of enterprises, starting with the small ones, and going up gradually, by servicing the mid and large ones as well. Thus, it is extremely versatile as well, by not having to change your software in case your business grows in time. It is no wonder it is so well reviewed.

Infusionsoft comes in the following place, although it is by far as rated and appreciated as Salesforce. Still, it is a widely used software for CRM. It is extremely suitable for small businesses, as it was designed having their needs in mind. And considering the high number of enterprises that try to make it on the market, the existence of such a software solution is much needed. But even so, Infusionsoft offers features that respect the latest trends. Having state-of-the-art tools and marketing automation, together with other tools for e-mail and media, it will keep the proper level of customer engagement.

TeamSupport is another software that promises to eliminate any miscommunication between the company and the customers, and to improve the customer support team. It has a complex set of features that can be used by an entire team of customer management. It promotes collaboration since all team members can have access to all issues and created tickets, as entries in the software. All customer problems will be able to be thus managed swiftly and in a short time frame. The “ticket” feature is unique to this software and words can be used as tags, so that more important matter can be prioritized. It is something that sets this software apart from the rest.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM isn’t among the leaders, as many would have expected, but it is still one of the most used CRM software solutions. Could it be because of the price? Its complexity, the way it was built and the price will not recommend this software to small businesses. It is specifically made for mid-range companies and large enterprises. It is very flexible when it comes to the provided features since it can cover the needs of a broad range of activities. The latest released version of the software has 41 different languages available, making it suitable for companies worldwide. Also, it has a better user interface and the same efficient data management. So it is a great acquisition for many businesses that are a bit larger.