Want to Close the Deal? Try Chatting with Customers Online

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A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

E-commerce businesses, like their brick-and-mortar counterparts, face the challenge of converting browsers into buyers. But because the Web does not allow for face-to-face interaction, it has historically been much harder for an e-retailer to offer the same level of service that customers can find when they walk into a store.

A new Web-based service, ZaZaCHAT, allows e-retailers to provide live help to website visitors via online chat. The tool lets customer-service representatives communicate directly with customers, answering questions about products or making recommendations.

The service also provides website owners with tools to monitor their traffic and examine the demographics of their visitors in real time. When customers visit a site, ZaZaCHAT gives the retailer their location, IP, host name, and the URL of the site from which they were referred.

A beta-version of ZaZaCHAT is available for free. Once the product is out of beta, a limited version will be offered for free, while a PRO version will cost $24.99 per month per operator.

Online Retail Made Easy

For entrepreneurs who need help developing an e-commerce website, Verio recently released a new version of ShopSite, its Web-based shopping-cart tool.

ShopSite 8.1 enables retailers to quickly prepare their websites to complete transactions with customers using multiple payment-processing services such as PayPal, Authorize.Net, and WorldPay. Because ShopSite is compatible with Google Checkout, retailers can also accept credit-card payments without having to obtain a merchant account. ShopSite 8.1 can easily be configured according to the Payment Card Industry Security Practices guidelines, which ensures credit card and other information is kept safe.

The software also provides real-time FedEx shipping quotes and makes it easy for retailers to list the merchandise in their Shopsite store on eBay.

A basic version of ShopSite 8.1 comes preinstalled with Verio's Hosting2000 and Windows eStorefront hosting plans or can be added to other Verio hosting plans for $9 per month.

Track Your Sales Force

If one of your New Year's resolutions is to improve the level of service your staff provides, you might want to look into BlueService, a software package which helps businesses track, manage, and schedule their service teams and expenses.

BlueService, made by BlueFolder, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based software firm, lets managers view all employees' schedules at the same time and notify their team of new or changed appointments via text messages on their mobile phones. The software package lets users track and prioritize appointments, expenses, comments, and history for all service requests.

BlueService, also provides a customizable customer and contact database. Information about labor and other service expenses can be easily exported from BlueService to the accounting software QuickBooks.

In addition, the software lets a business create a customer portal, which allows customers to submit requests, receive e-mail confirmation, or check the status of their request directly from the business' website.

Monthly fees vary based on the number of users and features needed, but no annual contract is required. BlueFolder is waiving setup fees through the end of the year.

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How To Choose A Business To Start From Home And Start Earning Immediately

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A good business to start from home is the one for which you have the greatest conviction, talent and means. The choice should be uninfluenced by your friends or any commercial ad.

Following steps will help you decide on your choice of a business to start from home.

1.Evaluate your skills

Evaluate yourself for your strengths and weaknesses. For example, you may have an artistic nature or have good communicating skills, or you love to interact with children or animals. Your skills will be the basis of your successful home-based business. After assessing yourself, ask yourself, “With these skills, what type of home based business can I start?” Supposing if you have excellent accounting and managerial skills, you can have multiple home-based business ideas not limited to just payroll, submission of tax and returns, year-end accounting etc. This accounting talent further combined with other skills might as well open doors to various other related home based business opportunities. Don’t restrict yourself with a few home business ideas. Make a list of all your ideas at this juncture.

2. Take a test for your business idea

Now from this list, strike off those businesses which are difficult or simply not possible to run from home, like starting a manufacturing unit in a residential area. You also have to consider that you can’t run a home-based business, if it involves dealing with a lot of clients coming and going. Many people start a home-based business with the first business idea coming to their mind and they plunge into it. Don’t do this. You will ruin your precious money and time.
The success key to a home-based business is to go through the business selection procedure.

3. Profit and Business Plan Are Major Keys to any Business to Start from Home

The two important factors to be considered before starting a “business to start from home” is to calculate expected revenues and preparing a business plan. To make your home-based business a success, you got to take these factors into consideration.

4. Figure out the profit aspect

It is important to know how much revenue will be generated from your home-based business. You may be very talented, but if you are not able to sell your product or services, your home-based business will not see success. You have to assess if people would be prepared to pay for this product or service? Will you make enough profit as per your expectation? Business survives on profit, and you will have many bills to pay.

Go through your list of business ideas again and evaluate the profit aspect of each idea. If any business idea does not provide satisfactory answer to the profit aspect, strike off that idea.

You have to decide on the revenue figure you want to achieve. Many people run part-time home-based businesses to earn supplement their home income and are happy with that. But is that your motive to start a home-based business? If no, then you have to do a lot of groundwork to find out the profit-making ability of your business idea.

5. Prepare a business plan to evaluate the success aspect

It is imperative that you make your business plan. Your idea when put into black and white will help you spot lacunas and give you an opportunity to mend it. A business plan not only helps you gain certain clarity but helps you keep in touch with your vision and guides you while you manage your business. Remember that it does not cost you anything to write and rewrite your business plan. However, once you are in business, every mistake proves costly. Sweat more on this. It will ensure that you manage your business better.

By following the above steps, you’ll find yourself better equipped to choose a business to start from home that will stand better chances to be successful, earning you not only the money but lots of satisfaction too.

By: Harrold Swalve

Harrold Swalve is a much sought-after online home business expert and has already published several online home business bestsellers including his latest E-book "Profit Shockdocs" in which he teaches how to Make Money Online for Free. Find out now how you can find the best Business to Start from Home

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