Outsourcing Blueprint

CODERS AND PROGRAMMERS
You may wonder why you would ever need a website coder or programmer if you
just have a regular business and are not planning on creating computer programs
for people
There are actually a lot of good reasons why you might want to use this kind of
service.
For a very affordable price, you can hire someone to create widgets and devices
on your website that will engage your customers and give them a reason to come
back for more.
Here are some examples: if you have a website that caters to dieters, you could
have a little program created that lets dieters enter their weight, create an avatar,
and show the avatar losing weight. Or a widget that calculates how much activity
an exercise burns off based on weight, sex, age, and level of fitness.
That would encourage customers to come back for more again and again!
For a pregnancy site, you could have a widget which shows the size and development
of a woman’s baby as her pregnancy progresses.
It generally doesn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars to have these types of
tools designed for your website, and it gives visitors a reason to come back again
and again.
Also, if you are involved in any kind of ecommerce, you can have a coder or programmer
design your e-shopping cart system so it suits your business perfectly.
Here’s another way that you can use programmers and coders: you may have an
idea for a program or application which would sell well, but you may lack the
skills to design a program like that yourself.
Once you have been in business for a while, you certainly know what tools you
wish you had to make your life easier.
For instance, programs to automate article submission or blog post submission
are becoming increasingly popular. The people who sell those programs aren’t
always the ones who designed them; they simply spotted a need on the market
and hired someone to do it for them.
It would be very expensive to have a programmer on your staff full time, but there
are programmers and software engineers and software developers all over the
world who are eager for work and who can work for you quite affordably.
Again, sites like rent-a-coder, scriptlance.com. elance, and guru.com are perfect
places to find them.
CHAPTER SIX: VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
In any business it’s inevitable that customers will have questions or the occasional
problem and they will need to talk to someone about it.
If a customer has a question or concern it is vital that it get answered right away.
If they don’t get an answer about a product, they are likely to leave and buy the
product from someone else. The last thing you want to do is alienate a customer
who is standing there with credit card in hand, ready to order, who has just a
simple question that they need answered.
And if a customer has a problem, that TRULY needs to be addressed immediately.
At the very least they need to be able to tell someone about the problem and
be assure that their problem is very important and is being worked on immediately.
That’s the difference between a mildly annoyed customer and a very angry customer
who starts blogging about how rotten your company is and who starts filing
disputes all over the place.
However, it’s very time consuming being there all of the time to deal with customer
service issues.
That’s where virtual assistants and outsourced customer support come in.
Customer support service centers can handle tasks for you such as:
•Taking orders
•Providing technical support for people who call with glitches
•Taking messages
•Prioritizing messages and passing along any messages which are clearly urgent
•Handling any support issues necessary, via help desk outsourcing
You can also opt for live online chat for your websites, or live online order takers -
much better than those automated online order takers.
If you use these types of services make sure that you test them. Have a friend
call up the service and pretend to be a client. Have them report back to you
about the quality of their experience.
Also call the service yourself and pretend to be a client.
It is very important that you ensure that your potential clients and customers are
receiving quality care, if you want them to become repeat customers.
Virtual assistants are also becoming increasingly popular. They can assist you in
numerous areas, much as a personal secretary could - but without the full time
expense and only when you need them.
Here are some things that a virtual assistant can do for you:
•Find service providers for tasks that you need, such as website designers, writers,
etc.
•Submit arti