Monday, January 17 is set to be Blue Monday in 2022. What started as an ad campaign has evolved into an actual day of note, with psychologists and weather experts chiming in about why this day makes us so sad.
Since the dawns of humanity, people have used the cyclicity of time—sunrise/sunset, day/night—to make it measurable and easier to predict. Because when you know what follows, things are easier to deal with. Back in the day when people lived in caves, they used this known variation to optimize their hunting process. And then slowly, days turned into weeks, months and years. We invented work days and week-ends and now we know when to work and when to rest. Suddenly, at some point in history—most might not know it, but there is a perfectly logical explanation for this—the beginning of a new year has suffered a dramatic transformation. It swiftly became a threshold, a time when you leave the past behind, gaze into the future full of hope, and even make a resolution of some sort.
Since 2021 is reaching its glorious end in a couple of days, now it’s the perfect time for a wrap-up. Almost two years in, COVID-19 continues to affect how we work, live, and play. Lots of people around the globe are following strict social distancing rules or even are under lockdown, while many are still experiencing pandemic fatigue. As a society, we continue to challenge the modern workplace and come together to create healthier and safer social environments.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of employees to work from home. While some have returned to full-time office work, many people are still working remotely or following a hybrid schedule. Despite the mass transition to remote work, communication remains a significant challenge amongst workers and using solid communication techniques has become vital.
An IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is like a modern operator. Also known as auto-attendant or virtual assistant, it automatically connects to any call and it’s mainly used to streamline the communication flow. Even if the company has only a few departments, there are many reasons why it should have one.
Mindfulness has found its way into mainstream culture, but does it have a place in the business world? Research points to a connection between mindfulness and optimal work performance, specifically the practice of meditation.
For some people, working from home during the pandemic has been a dream come true. For others, not so much. According to Cigna, 61 percent of Americans reported feeling lonely in early 2020. Mental health experts believe that the number has increased significantly ever since due to prolonged social distancing and repeated lockdown. In time, people started losing their sense of community and became less engaged to their company’s life.
Customer service isn’t just a helpful feature for a business to have, it’s essential to grow and maintain profitability. According to this survey, 54 percent of consumers make buying decisions based on experience. Furthermore, 68 percent will pay more to shop at a company with good customer care. So this is just as important to small businesses as to large enterprises. However, many customer service tools are marketed to large companies only. It’s time to change that! Let’s start with the call center.
This is the third installment of our key messages series, analyzing cold calling. Read the first parts here: Crafting Key Messages that Sell (Part I) – Cold Email in Style and Crafting Key Messages that Sell (Part II) – Cold Messaging on LinkedIn.
Cold calling has an undeserved bad reputation among sales people. Yet it is one of the most used tools in sales, with a higher success rate than its non-verbal cold counterparts–emails and instant messaging. While cold calling isn’t easy, you can improve your results by doing it effectively. Follow this guide to learn the best practices for your next round of sales calls.
The weather isn’t the only thing that changes with the season. Your mental health and mood also fluctuate in response to this cycle. As the warmth of summer fades into the chill of autumn, you might start to notice an uptick in stress levels. It’s not your imagination, it’s autumn anxiety. After all, this is a hectic, fast-paced time of year.
