Natalya Bucuy

Is landing a live chat agent job something you’ve considered? If so, you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to discuss everything – the good, the bad, the happy, and the sad. So, in the words of Al Green, Let’s Stay Together as we explore this career path in detail.  Why Do Customer Service … Continued

Ahhhh, the 90s…The era of punk rock, rollerblades, and “the Rachel” haircut. While nostalgia brings some of these things back from time to time – welcome back, fanny packs! – some things should really stay in the 90s. That includes waiting on hold.  Frankly, there are few more annoying things for a customer than being … Continued

What does outsourcing customer service entail? Naturally, business owners may hesitate to let other people step in to help handle the client load. After all, the quality of service can make or break relationships with customers. Good customer service can facilitate unbreakable loyalty from customers. 89% of consumers are more likely to make another purchase … Continued

“I’ll know it when I see it.” Even though Supreme Justice Potter Stewart said that famous phrase in relation to obscene adult-content films, we can easily apply it to bad customer service. Even if we don’t know what specifically makes it bad, we definitely know when it’s bad.  And bad customer service negatively affects business … Continued

“I wish to be useful even after my death…in forming and advancing other young people who may be serviceable to their country.” – Benjamin Franklin  This is quite an admirable quote from one of our most famous founding fathers. Little did Benjamin Franklin know that two hundred years after his death, these words would not … Continued

Ah, window shopping! What a fun activity, isn’t it? Whether it is browsing through the storefronts of New York City or checking out the mom-and-pop shops in your local town, sometimes the mere fix of looking at items on display is all you need.  Did you know that window shopping has been around for a … Continued

Ah, the moment when you, as a small business owner, sign on a new customer!  You go through the onboarding process and get the client set up and settled in. You get excited about the upcoming opportunity. Maybe you share a round of high fives with your team or celebrate with a happy dance in … Continued

Setting up Google AdWords is an efficient way to enhance your marketing efforts and reach your target audience, but only if you do it right. So, what if you’re new to this and you don’t know where to start? Or you’re worried about a limited budget? The truth is, you can still achieve excellent results … Continued

Today I dug out my high school yearbook.  Here is what my 12th grade advanced Physics teacher wrote in it. “You have a great mind. I was always pleasantly surprised when I graded your tests. You always did so well, while sleeping so much.”  Ahem… Well, to defend my napping habit I could use the … Continued

“Dream big.” This piece of advice seems to pop up throughout our lives time and again. And as small business people, we do. We dream big. We reach for the stars. And we do what we love. We build business ventures, we find our audiences, and we try to serve our customers the best we … Continued

What matters most to online shoppers?  According to a recent study by Google, it’s the lowest price and free shipping. This is where giant conglomerates like Wal-Mart and Amazon have everyone beat. So, does that mean smaller companies have little chance of winning customers?  No, it does not. And here is why.  While customers who … Continued

How do you want to come across to your followers on social media? Fun, wise, trustworthy? With a suitable Instagram strategy, it’s exactly what you can achieve. For a long time, travel bloggers and fashion brands were the most popular Instagram profiles, but things have changed. Now, more and more B2B businesses are discovering how … Continued

Let’s play a little game of word association. Summer: vacations. Workplace: cool coworkers. The year 2020: complete and utter craziness that disrupted everything under the sun, including the two things mentioned above. Even if your first two word associations were different, it’s safe to guess that we had similar ideas on the last one. And … Continued

“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (The Velveteen Rabbit … Continued

“Never trust anyone who didn’t bring a book with them.” ~ Lemony Snicket. Video might have killed the radio star, but it will never kill books. Even in the age of everything digital and many things automated, when it comes to real advice, people still turn to books. In the year 2019, 72% of adults … Continued

Mindfulness activities: Why do we need them daily?  Procrastination is your brain being a whiny toddler.  As we discussed in our recent article, How to Stop Procrastinating by Winning the War in Your Brain, when we procrastinate our brains turn on their pre-evolution instincts to avoid danger and unpleasantness.  Some scientists call it the lizard … Continued

Hi, there. Do you need a tissue after watching this?  I sure did.  I’m sorry to make you emotional. But I felt that was the best way to start an article about psychological strategies in marketing.  Duracell there employed one of the great marketing principles – emotional marketing. The connection between parents and children is … Continued

It’s 7 pm on a Friday and I’m going into panic mode. I’m pacing my living room floor, biting my nails and trying to calm down the feeling of a thousand butterflies in my stomach. What am I going to do? There is no time! I need to submit a story for peer review to … Continued

This is a story about how website with live chat made one man very happy. Beauford was having a busy Monday. It all started, as it usually does, with an alarm clock. (Beauford was an old-fashion kind of guy and liked to use an old-fashion alarm clock. None of that new generation mumbo-jumbo) And so … Continued

In the mid-1960s a man walked into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s admissions office.   “I’m here to study electronic surveillance technology,” he said.  The statement caused some confusion since MIT had no record of the young man ever applying to the school. The fact that he also didn’t have a matriculation certificate complicated the matter.  … Continued

Who would have thought that physical contact between humans would become a major obstacle to running a business.  Yet, this is the reality in 2020. The dangers of COVID-19 changed the way people live, work, and do business. Perhaps not just for the time being, but for the long run. The home office switch was … Continued

Who are we? Customers! What do we want? Answers! When do we want them? Now! Well, while there might not be an actual customer rally, that’s the gist.  Customers in 2020 are not a patient folk.That’s especially true when it comes to connections online. In fact, studies show that a website only has eight seconds … Continued

Small business reopening has been on everyone’s mind as the United States nears the second month of COVID-19 quarantine.  With some states lifting restrictions and others preparing to do so in the near future, small business owners everywhere ponder on reopenings. Safety of operations and financial viability become major issues in all cases as the … Continued

A toothache is no joke.  The dullness of the pain and the fact that it’s constant, can make it comparable to childbirth and kidney stones. It is, then, understandable that state governments deemed dentists as essential during the COVID-19 lock down. Even though they are allowed to stay open under certain circumstances, dental practices must … Continued

The year 2020 will go down in history as the time of change. And rapid change, at that.  The global COVID-19 pandemic forced people to adapt to new ways of working and living. In doing so, some technological and social innovations that had only been used sporadically before, now got full attention. The forced experiment … Continued

Virtual business communications have a longer history than one may realize.  Pre-colonial Native American tribes used smoke signals to deliver messages. Europeans transmitted information between cities using a visual telegraphy system in the late 18th century. And once Samuel Morse patented the telegraph in 1844, the virtual communications rapidly gained speed on the information-sharing highway.  … Continued

It’s honorable to be essential. Everyday millions of essential workers show up for work to keep the world going amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. Healthcare, food, transportation and other industries must continue operations to ensure public health and safety. However, in these unprecedented times, many find themselves risking their own safety, health, and lives. As essential … Continued

“Here we go, again!” Lily sat at her dining room table with her laptop still open. Following a few weeks of complete uncertainty, it was nice to at least hear something from Jack.  The famous Hotel of the Future which Lily has been managing for a few years now, temporarily closed its doors. Similar to … Continued

It is in crisis that we get to know ourselves more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the world rethink its habits, and quickly. People are now forced to stay inside, avoid, public places and change their routines.The coronavirus outbreak altered the way people work, play, and, importantly, the way they eat. As it … Continued

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,”  Winston Churchill said those words more than 70 years ago. But there is no time like right now for them to ring so true.  With COVID-19 sweeping the globe. It’s hard to find a business that is not feeling the effects of the pandemic. A business owner … Continued

Like many of her friends and classmates in their senior year of high school, Lily Ogletree was excited for 2020. Set to graduate from Central Bucks East High School in June, she spent the winter looking at college options. She applied to various schools, and visited campuses in different parts of the country. She didn’t … Continued

Spring brings new beginnings. Spring 2020, however, brought some other things with it.  The coronavirus pandemic came unexpectedly and stopped the world in its tracks.   With it came uncertainty, fear, and anxiety to many American business owners. With social distancing measures and closures ordered nationwide, small business survival became a major issue. On a typical … Continued

In the midst of global COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to give into the panic.  Schools and business closures, grocery and supplies shortages, and announcements of new cases of the coronavirus daily have all of us worried. Uncertainty is upon us and it’s hard to tell what will happen tomorrow or even a few hours from … Continued

How to get your website visitors to give you those precious email addresses. Guest posts by Erica Sunarjo “Give it, give it, give it, please…” You can beg and plead for your website visitors’ contacts, but not everyone is willing to give out his or her personal info.  There’s one thing that can get your … Continued

Jingle Bell Rock Your Small Business Organization Through the Holiday Season It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go… Crowds of customers. A forgotten order. Lost delivery slip. Holiday discount confusion. Returned merchandise. Broken boiler. Christmas light fiasco. End-of-year paperwork… And everyone wants everything done, finished, and delivered NOW! via GIPHY The … Continued

A guide to creating effective call-to-action buttons on landing pages. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. You can lead prospective customers to your landing page, but you can’t make them click on your call-to-action button. What you can do is optimize the button so the prospect is more … Continued

Land. Watch. Convert. How posting a video on your website’s landing page can increase conversions. It’s 2019, and we are all very lazy. Our attention span is short. Really. Short. When we see long blocks of text, we scan through them. But, when we see a “Play” button, we press it to watch.    Humans … Continued