Using Employee Engagement Surveys to Boost Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

If you need to increase your company's competitiveness and profit, where should you start? Should you focus on your employees first, or should you start by focusing on your customers first? In reality, you need to do both. 

It is almost always best to start by focusing on your employees first. Highly satisfied and engaged employees are essential for achieving high levels of customer satisfaction, retention and long-term loyalty. Start by listening to your employees and taking action based on their ongoing feedback. 

Conduct an employee survey / employee engagement survey to gather information, suggestions and insight from your employees. Ask them about what it is like to work for your company and what can be done to help them do their jobs more effectively and to do a better job of taking care of customers. Include questions about the effectiveness of internal communications, business processes, teamwork and how employees feel about your company's direction. 

Make sure your employee surveys / employee engagement surveys also include questions about effectiveness of supervisors and managers, empowerment, ability of employees to make suggestions, effectiveness of rewards and recognition, fairness of compensation, adequacy of employee benefits, treatment of diverse groups and fear in the workplace. Include questions about quality, customer service and ways to increase productivity. Ask questions about anything that may be positively or negatively impacting employees' and customers. 

Don't be surprised if you end up identifying a very large number of challenges and opportunities. If challenges and problems exist, you need to know about them, prioritize them and take action. There is no single silver bullet. Identifying and addressing the top three problems is not enough, especially when there are many more problems that are impacting your employees and customers. 

It is important to do a thorough and objective job of analyzing the survey findings. It is then equally important to create a comprehensive action plan and to do a good job of getting everyone involved and executing the plan effectively. This requires communicating the results of surveys so that employees know that you listened to them and that you are committed to making needed changes based on their feedback. 

Your goal should be to use the employee survey results to achieve large-scale increases in employee engagement and satisfaction, with a much greater focus on your customers and meeting or exceeding their expectations. 

To ensure that you are achieving success, conduct employee attitude surveys annually to measure progress and to identify any new challenges and opportunities that surfaced since the previous employee survey. Your focus on and commitment to continuous improvement will ensure continued customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Once you start to achieve positive results, you should also conduct customer surveys to assess customer satisfaction levels and to see how your customers feel about your company, your employees, your products and services and other key issues that drive customer satisfaction and retention. Don't be afraid to ask customers about things you know you are not doing well. You need to learn about how customers feel. Guessing isn't good enough. Your customers are probably also buying from your competitors. It is important that you learn first-hand how they compare your company, products and services with those of your competitors.

Get Your Blog Up And Running In Less Than 3 Minutes

Starting your own blog has many benefits. Whether you already have your own blog already or are considering launching one today, you'll find that blogging has many benefits. Not to mention that starting your own blog is now easier than ever with the help of blogging websites and tools. Once your blog is up and running, it can serve many roles from helping you express your views to generating revenue. 

You may not know about sites like Blogger and WordPress but these online tools allow you to quickly and easily produce your own blog. The best way to start is to research these sites and start the registration process. Once you register you will be able to choose a blog template. These sites offer a variety of templates but oftentimes you can find additional templates to be uploaded elsewhere on the web. After you choose a name for your blog, you can then start posting and managing blog elements. 

Many individuals who blog like to do so on a daily basis. Others choose to update their blogs once a week. Whether you are updating your content once per week or daily, it's important to focus on a single theme. Decide what you want your blog to be about. Within your theme you may cover a variety of concepts or ideas but make sure to keep content consistent to build a loyal base of followers. 

Start your blogging today by choosing a free blog site to register onwith. Once you've chosen a site the next step is consider the specific goal of your blog. Are you going to be making posts daily or less frequently? It's essential to layout a plan that you can adhere to over time. 

Determine how you will monetize your blog. If you want to use your blog to generate revenue, there are a few basic ideas you can apply depending on which platform you're using. One of the most popular methods of monetizing your blog is with the help of Google AdSense. This is a popular option and very easy to add to your blog. Not only does it generate a small amount of revenue for you on a weekly basis, but it also provides relevant links based on your posts. 

A great way to start making money quickly is with the help of a link list. Link lists are essentially text link ads that you post to your blog for a fee. This can be done manually by placing a recommended sites section on your blog. You can also automate this to some extent by using a service like text-link-ads. Using a service really simplifies the process and allows you to start earning based on a network of advertisers. If considering a manual listing, be sure to research ecommerce options. 

Many individuals are monetizing their blogs by using pay per post or other blogging network. Essentially, advertisers search for bloggers who are willing to write a post to promote their product and services or brand. You can sign up for one of these networks quite easily and be contacted when advertisers feel that your blog would be ideal for distributing a message. You write a blog post and get paid for doing so. 

One thing to consider is that the success of you blog is based on a number of factors. I believe that having a targeted blog that offers original content is ideal. You will build a large following. This is essential because most of ways you can monetize your blog is dependent upon having enough traffic to make your blog appealing to advertisers as well as blog readers. 

Blogging Traffic - Strategies To Attract Blog Visitors

Anyone can have a blog. It takes a lot of commitment and research to have a successful blog. You should learn the strategies that can get your blog higher in the rankings and hopefully will make you more money. It doesn't happen overnight, though. It takes research and commitment. If you use the tools that are available to your advantage, then you should have a much more successful blog. You will make more money in the end, which is what you really want. 

Blogging is actually a fantastic way to make money online if you know how to do it successfully. You first need to right content on your blog. That takes some research. You not only need to know the subject that you are writing about, you also need to know what people are interested in reading. If your content on your page is really worth reading, you will end up making more money in the end and getting a lot more traffic to your blog. 

You can actually get more traffic on your blog just by advertising a little bit on the Internet. You want to find visitors that really want to read your blog and are interested in it. This will help you to get more repeat customers rather than one time visitors. 

Another way to get more traffic is to do a lot of blog commenting. The more you comment on other blogs, the more people are going to see your link and go to your site. Make sure that you comment on blogs that are similar to your niche on your blog. 

Most blogs will want you to leave your blog address and even your email address. This is important if you want your readers to be able to get a hold of you. The comments that you leave should have valuable information that those individuals will want to read more about. 

There are also many websites that offer services to help you get more traffic. You just need to pay them a few dollars a month and they guarantee you a certain amount of traffic. This can be very valuable and it can also be a great way to get more visitors with little work on your part. 

You can also take advantage of article marketing. It is a great way to help you get more traffic to your blog. It is free and not too difficult to do. All you need to do is write article that pertain to your blog niche that are around 400-500 words and submit them to article directories. There are many online and they are free. Within the articles you can put a link back to your blog so you can get better page rank and also you can get more traffic. 

Be certain that you are constantly posting blogs- at least daily. This keeps your readers coming back and it keeps your blog current and strong. You will see a difference right away if you use these tips. These tips have been proven to work over and over and all of the most popular blogs use them. 

How to Grow Japanese Red Maple Trees from Seed

Most Japanese Maple seeds ripen in the fall. Watch the tree and wait for the seeds to turn brown. The seeds are ready to be harvested when they are brown and can be easily removed from the tree. 

The seeds are attached to a wing, it’s best to break the wing off before storing or planting the seeds. Japanese Maple seeds have a very hard outer coating as do many ornamental plants. Under natural conditions the seeds would have to be on the ground for almost two years before they would germinate. All that happens the first winter is the moisture softens the hard outer shell, and the second winter germination is beginning to take place. 

In order for all of this to happen in the proper sequence so the seedlings actually sprout at a time of the year when freezing temperatures or hot summer sun doesn’t kill them, takes a tremendous amount of luck. 

You can improve the odds by controlling some of these conditions, and shorten the cycle. Once you have picked the seeds and removed the wing just place them in a paper bag and store them in a cool dry place until you are ready for them. You don’t want to plant your seeds out in the spring until the danger of frost has past, here in the north May 15th is a safe bet. 

If May 15th is your target date you should count backwards on the calendar 100 days. That will take you to about February 5th if my math is correct. On or about the 100th day prior to your target planting date, take the seeds and place them in a Styrofoam cup or other container that will withstand some hot water. Draw warm to hot water from your kitchen faucet and pour it over the seeds. Most of the seeds will float, just leave them in the water overnight as the water cools down. 24 hours later most of the seeds will have settled to the bottom of the cup.   

Drain off the water. Place the seeds in a plastic bag with a mixture of sand and peat or other suitable growing mix. Even light potting soil will work. The peat or soil should be moist, but not soaking wet. Poke some holes in the bag so there is some air circulation, and place the bag in your refrigerator for a period of 100 days. 

After 100 days you can plant the seeds outside. If you have timed it correctly, you should be at or close to your target planting date. 

To plant the seeds just sow them on top of a bed of well drained topsoil or
sterilized potting soil, and cover with approximately 3/8” of soil. Water them thoroughly, but allow the soil to dry out completely before watering thoroughly again. If you water them frequently, not only do you stand a chance of the seeds rotting from being too wet, but you will also keep them cool, which will slow down the germination process. 

Once they start to germinate provide about 50% shade to keep the sun from burning them. Snow fence suspended about 30” above the bed will provide about 50% shade. Japanese Maples will tolerate some shade so it isn’t too important to transplant them too quickly. 

Depending on how close together they are, you might be able to leave them in the same bed for one or two growing seasons. Don’t transplant until they are completely dormant.

Learn How To Choose The Best Diet To Lose Belly Fat For Women

Focusing too much on the stomach area itself is a mistake that a lot of people make. For one thing, the stomach is notoriously one of the most difficult areas to train. Exercising the stomach area exclusively is terribly inefficient, and while you might achieve more mass and definition in your stomach muscles, because not much fat is burned, the layers of fat continue to remain to make it difficult to see how well you have progressed in your stomach workouts. Women also have different dietary requirements compared to men, and as a result, need a diet and exercise program that meets their needs. You can try a variety of different weight loss programs that will guide anyone needing information on the diets but choosing the best diet to lose belly fat will be crucial to any success Coupled with an effective workout plan, you will soon be losing that excess weight.

The typical diet these days incorporates a lot of processed foods and empty calories. However, if you are looking to change your dieting habits, you should know that what you eat is just as important as how much of it you eat. A lot of fad diets have a tendency to force people into making dramatic changes to their eating habits, which is a big mistake. Although results are achievable, these programs are hard to adhere to because of the sheer difficulty of the program. One particularly effective diet is the metabolic diet which effectively turns the body into a more efficient fat burner. Only small changes are made to the kind of food that one would be able to eat, making it easier to adhere to this diet. It has also been designed for real people who want real results. While it is true that some diets and workout plans can have you losing a significant amount of weight in a short of amount of time, some have found that it is better to sustain weight loss over a longer period of time, even if the actual weight loss isn't all that much.

Overall weight loss can benefit your efforts at training your stomach area because it makes results much more evident. Training your entire body lets you lose belly fat, allowing your toned stomach muscles to show through. And of course, training your whole body has many more benefits than simply training to achieve only a set of six pack abs. Increasing your metabolism becomes more important as you diet, maximizing your weight loss efforts as a result. It doesn't necessarily have to be an extreme workout where you push your muscles to failure. Light workouts will suffice, so long as you burn whatever calories you consume.