Info Bites
Tips and Advice
Bite sized nuggets and quick tips for you
to take away.
Nuisance Faxes?
If you're bothered by junk faxes, you can register
with the
Fax Preference Service (FPS). This may not stop them altogether,
but it will reduce the number.
Since May 1999 it's been illegal to send unsolicited sales and
marketing faxes to individuals (includes consumers, sole traders
and partnerships) without their prior consent. Businesses can also
register for the service now. You can register on the same site
to stop direct mail (MPS) and telephone (TPS) sales calls too.
If you are using telesales or sending direct mail and fax messages,
then you can find out more about what
you should do, to comply with the law.
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Late Payment Problems
The average invoice in the UK is paid in 53 days! If you
suffer from late payments, then you should take action
before it's too late. New legislation to combat the problem enables
you to claim statutory interest on late payments and has particular
benefits for SMEs. Find out more at the Better
Payment Practice, and use your rights.
Driving Web Site Traffic
A little known secret - negotiate reciprocal links
with other web sites to boost your search engine rankings, and attract
more visitor traffic. Many search engines now look at the number
and quality of inbound links you have as part of their ranking assessment.
The more links from popular web sites the better.
There's many other actions you should take to promote your web
site, but this is simple and often overlooked.
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Client Churn is Expensive
The average business loses half its customers every five
years. But the cost of finding new customers can be many
times that of keeping existing ones happy. It really pays to work
on a customer retention strategy - for example, give incentives
for repeat business, keep in regular contact, solicit feedback or
set up a customer satisfaction questionnaire (and act on it). Also
use your existing customers to find new ones, by asking for referrals.
Data Protection Scam
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of businesses
targeted by bogus data protection 'agencies' recently. They send
notices using threatening language on official-looking headed paper
and request sums of between £85 and £120 to register
businesses under the Data Protection Act 1998. The actual fee for
notification is just £35 a year, and you can do it yourself
online.
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