In a technical sense, two words that have a common origin
are cognates. Most often, cognates are words in two languages that have a
common etymology and thus are similar or identical. For example, the English
"kiosk" and the Spanish quiosco are cognates because they both
come from the Turkish kosk.
Cognates often have a similar meaning, but in some cases the
meaning has changed over the centuries in one language or another. An example
of such a change is the English word "arena," which usually refers to
a sports facility, and the Spanish arena, which usually means
"sand." They both come from the Latin harena, which originally
meant "sand" and came in time to also refer to an area of a Roman
amphitheater that was covered with sand. Spanish retained the meaning of
"sand" (although the word can sometimes refer to a sports arena), but
English expanded the word's meaning to include facilities something like the
Roman amphitheater.
In a popular and less technical sense, the term
"cognate" also is used to refer to words in two languages that are
similar but have no common origin, such as the Spanish sopa (meaning
"soup") and the English "soap."
Also in a popular and not technical sense, the phrase
"false cognate" is used to refer to cognates that have different
meanings, such as the Spanish parar (to stop) and the English
"pare" (to trim). A more precise term to use for such word pairs is
"false friends."
Also known as: palabra afÃn, palabra relacionada or palabra cognada in
Spanish
Examples: Cognate pairs with similar meanings number in the thousands
and include "azure"/azul, "committee"/comité
and "morphine"/morfina. Spanish cognates that are false
friends include asistir (which usually means "to attend," not
"to assist"), contestar (which usually means "to
answer," not "to contest") and sano (which usually means
"healthy" rather than "sane").
WHO SHOULD USE COGNATE: Everyone who has
a trademark that has not been federally registered with the US Patent and
Trademark Office. Even people who are thinking about using a mark in the near
future can register that name under an “intent to use” application. Everyone
who is hoping to start a business, or exploring different business names should
conduct a search on Cognate. We have hundreds of thousands of names that are
not in the USPTO database.
HOW DOES COGNATE BUSINESS WORK: Easy. First
create an account on Cognate website: https://cognate.com/signup. Creating an
account is free and fast (just name, email address, password). Then, register
your business name. You will fill out a registration form similar to those used
by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and individual states for
business name registration. Your business name is then entered into our
database alongside hundreds of thousands of other names, including federal,
state, and common law trademarks. Most importantly this creates a public record
in a centralized, specialized database that you claim ownership of trademark
rights in your company name or mark – literally for the whole world to see. It
also gives your business an increased online presence, and a SEO boost.
WHAT AREA DOES COGNATE REGISTRATION
WORK: Assuming your Cognate registration accurately
reflects your common law rights, it is limited to the geographic region in
which you use your mark, similar to a state trademark registration?
IF I HAVE A WEBSITE CAN CONGNATE BUSINESS WORK: Yes. Registering your
business name on Cognate will improve your chances of being found in trademark
searches, while putting potential infringers on notice that you claim rights to
your mark. Having a website helps in this regard, but you are passively hoping
to be found in trademark searches, and likely won’t be found at all unless
someone knows of your company or is searching for your exact mark. Take a more
active approach by registering on Cognate, which puts your name into our
centralized, easily accessible database alongside over a million of other
federal, state, and common law marks. Not to mention creating another online
presence for your brand, giving it more authority, and boosting your SEO
efforts.
The
functional areas of business organizations are:
Examples of
functional areas include:
1.
Client
services
2.
Operations
3.
Finance
Human Resources
Human Resources
4.
Marketing
Administration and IT Support.
Administration and IT Support.
Functional areas within the business
Organisations are structured in radically different ways ranging from
relatively fixed structures with positions, rules, and established chains of
communication to dynamic structures in which people belong to teams that are
continually being formed and reformed for the duration of a project.
Typical ways of organizing people are:
1. By function - dividing the organization up into groups
with similar specialisms e.g. marketing, finance and accounts, human resources,
etc.
2. By product - grouping people together according to the
product they make. For example, BIC has three main divisions - pens, lighters,
and razors.
3. By process - grouping people together according to the
processes that they are carrying out. For example retailing organizations like
Argos, Dixons, and Travis Perkins will group employees according to whether
they are involved in packing and display or customer service.
4. By geographical area - most large companies are widely dispersed. Companies like BIC, Gillette, Kellogg's, etc have European and North American divisions.
A further way of organizing organizations, which is very popular today,
is in a matrix pattern. A matrix is often two dimensional but can have more
dimensions. In a matrix system an employee can be in two or more structures at
the same time - e.g. a team in lighter production, and a team in marketing at
the same time. Matrix structures allow considerable flexibility because
employees can shift to different teams within the overall matrix structure.
Organizations can also be highly centralized or largely decentralized.
In a highly centralized structure control will be tight from the centre or Head
Office of the organization. In contrast, in a decentralized organization power
will be passed down to the various project managers and teams. Organization and
control
People are organized in different ways in different organizations
depending on factors such as:
- the size of the organization
- culture of the organisation (typical pattern of doing things in the organisation)
- nature of the industry
- managers preferred structures etc.
Organisations structure
A basic distinction can be made between tall hierarchical
organisations, and flatter teamwork structured organisations. A tall
organisation will have several layers of command. In contrast team structures
will be based on cells of team members working together, often belonging to
several project teams which form and reform as projects start and finish. The
term span of control is the number of people that an individual manages or
controls. In tall hierarchical organisations an individual employee may have a
wide span of control. In contrast in a teamwork structure the span of control
may be narrow or may not exist at all.
Four Functional areas of a Business organization
There are four functional areas in a business organization – marketing,
production, finance and personnel. Production is the basic activity of all
industrial units. All other activities revolve around this activity. The end
product of the production activity is the creation of goods and services for
the satisfaction of human wants. The production activity is nothing but the
step-by-step conversion of one form of materials into another either chemically
or mechanically. This is done in factories which house manufacturing processes.
The basic inputs of the production processes are men, machines, plant, services
and methods. The products of the mine, farm, sea and forest are used as raw
materials on which the processing is done to create or enhance the form utility.
It should be noted that the finished product of one manufacturing unit does not
always furnish a readymade product for the ultimate consumption. In a chain of
manufacturing activities, the finished product of the processor sometimes
becomes the raw material (or component) for the other manufacturing firms
falling next in the sequence.
Meaning: The meaning of the term “Production” and “Production
management” should be noted carefully.
Production involves the step by step conversion of one form of materials
into another through chemical or mechanical processing to create or enhance the
utility of the products or services. According to economists, production is an
activity through which the form utility is either created or enhanced e.g. a
piece of wood has no doubt, some utility. However, when it is converted into a
chair with some mechanical processing, the utility of the material (i.e. a
piece of wood) would enhance substantially. According to E S Buffa, production
is a process by which goods and services are created.
These days therefore both manufacturing and service organizations fall
into the scope of production management. Thus production management which was
formerly considered as manufacturing management only, now after inclusion of
services into its services into its scope, is broadly known as operations
management. Many non- manufacturing organizations providing services like
hospitals, banks, transportation, farming, warehousing etc are now covered by
operations management.
‘Operations’ by formal definition is a process of changing inputs into
outputs, with the creation or adding of value to some entity. The process of
alternation or transportation or storage or inspection or any combination
thereof to add value to an entity is rightly called operations. The growth of
service industry has brought with it the term operations management. It is a
general term these days.
‘Operations’ in the services organizations has some unique features,
different from those which has manufacturing base. These are:
1.
Non-inventoriable output of service, since generally no stock is
produced.
2.
Variable demand
3.
Labor intensive operations mostly.
4.
Location of service is dictated by the location of the users.
The word production management arrived first with the emergence of
manufacturing industry and the necessity to manage it as such. The meaning of
the term production management is clarified in the following definitions:
Production management is the process of planning, organizing directing
and controlling the activities of the production function. Production function
is the conversion of raw materials into finished products.
The objectives of production management: Production is an organized
activity in a manufacturing organization. Each organized activity must spell out
its objectives so that its existence can be justified on the basis of the
degree of they attainment of these objectives. Moreover, such identification of
the objectives increases the consciousness of the personnel working in the
respective organizations in checking their efforts by verifying whether they
are in conformity with the stated objective of the organization. The objectives
of the production function are classified as under: (1) Ultimate objectives,
(2) Intermediate objectives.
Ultimate objectives: The primary responsibility of the manufacturing
activity is to produce a product or products at (1) pre-established cost, (2)
according to the specified quality, and (3) within the stipulated time
schedule.
Thus the ultimate objectives can be sub classified as under: (1)
Manufacturing costs, (2) Product quality, and (3) Manufacturing time schedule.
Manufacturing costs: The unit cost of the product should be estimated
carefully and every effort should be made to stick to the cost standards. For
this purpose, the efforts should be made to segregate the costs into two direct
costs and variable costs.
Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. According to Turban et al. (2002),[1] "Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation."
The importance of customer service may vary by product or service,
industry and customer. The perception of success of such interactions will be
dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of
the guest,"[2] according to Micah Solomon. Customer service can
also refer to the culture of the organization - the priority the organization
assigns to customer service relative to other components, such as product
innovation or low price. In this sense, an organization that values good
customer service may spend more money in training employees than average
organization, or proactively interview customers for feedback.
From the point of view of an overall sales process engineering effort,
customer service plays an important role in an organization's ability to
generate income and revenue.[3] From that perspective, customer
service should be included as part of an overall approach to systematic
improvement. A customer service experience can change the entire perception a
customer has of the organization.
Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service
representative), or by automated means. Examples of automated means are
Internet sites. An advantage with automated means is an increased ability to
provide service 24-hours a day, which can, at least, be a complement to
customer service by persons.[5]
Another example of automated customer service is by touch-tone phone,
which usually involves a main menu, and the use of the keypad as options (i.e.
"Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish", etc.)
However, in the Internet era, a challenge has been to maintain and/or
enhance the personal experience while making use of the efficiencies of online
commerce. "Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to
them), so it's easy to shortchange them emotionally. But this lack of visual
and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal,
human-to-human connection in the online arena."[6]
Automated means can be based entirely on self service, but may also be
based on service by more or less means of artificial intelligence.
An
automated online assistant with avatar providing automated customer service on
a web page.
Examples of customer service by artificial means are automated online
assistants that can be seen as avatars on websites.[5] It can avail
for enterprises to reduce their operating and training cost.[5] These are driven by
chatterbots, and a major underlying technology to such systems is natural
language processing.
Functions
of cliet server
Recently, many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow
them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, National
Express has invited passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus.
This has been shown to be useful, as it allows companies to improve their
customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely
that the customer will return next time.[7] Technology has made it
increasingly easier for companies to obtain feedback from their customers.
Community blogs and forums give customers the ability to give detailed
explanations of both negative as well as positive experiences with a
company/organization.
A challenge in working with customer service, is to ensure that you
have focused your attention on the right key areas, measured by the right Key
Performance Indicator. There is no challenge to come up with a lot of
meaningful KPIs, but the challenge is to select a few which reflects your overall
strategy. In addition to reflecting your strategy it should also enable staff
to limit their focus to the areas that really matter. The focus must be of
those KPIs, which will deliver the most value to the overall objective, e.g.
cost saving, service improving etc. It must also be done in such a way that
staff sincerely believe that they can make a difference with the effort.
One of the most important aspects of a customer service KPI is that of
what is often referred to as the "Feel Good Factor." Basically the
goal is to not only help the customer have a good experience, but to offer them
an experience that exceeds their expectations. Several key points are listed as
follows:
- Know your product – Know what products/service you are offering back to front. In other words, be an information expert. It is okay to say "I don't know," but it should always be followed up by "but let me find out" or possibly "but my friend knows!" Whatever the situation may be, make sure that you don't leave your customer with an unanswered question.
- Body Language/Communication – Most of the communication that we relay to others is done through body language. If we have a negative body language when we interact with others, it shows that we don't care. Two of the most important aspects of positive body language are smiling and eye contact. Make sure to look your customers in the eye. It shows that we are listening to them and hearing what they are saying. And of course smiling is more inviting than a blank look or frown.
- Anticipate Guest Needs – Nothing surprises your customer more than an employee going the extra mile to help them. Always look for ways to go above and beyond the expectations of your customer. In doing so, it helps them to know that you care and it will leave them with a "Feel Good Factor" that we are searching for.
How do I Define Good Client Service?
 |
| Learn ways to provide good customer service in your business. |
Businesses function when they have customers or clients, and businesses
survive and expand when they have good client service. Good client, or
customer, service is a hallmark of respected businesses, to the extent that
several organizations, including the Customer Service Institute of America,
give annual awards to companies that provide excellent service to the people
who keep their business going. Defining good client service is largely a matter
of placing the customer first and making business decisions that allow the
company to respond to market changes and provide customers with the best
service possible.
Step 1
Provide customers with the best service you can in a timely manner.
Bear in mind that your clients do not want to be kept waiting. If you promise a
product or service within a certain amount of time, be sure to provide it
within that time, or offer the customer something to apologize for the time
extension. The word will spread about a business that keeps its promise to
deliver on time.
Step 2
Place the customer needs first by listening to what the customer needs.
Companies that listen to their customers are more likely to hear what the
customer wants and thus be able to respond effectively. Listen to the client’s
needs, and respect any requests or recommendations of the client. Doing so will
show the client that his needs are your first priority.
Step 3
Include a guarantee with the product or service that you sell. Show
your customers that you stand by your product or service, and that you are
willing to guarantee its quality. Be willing to provide corrections or
replacements if the product or service is not what the customer wants. Doing so
can actually bring you further business, when the word spreads that you work
hard to please your customers.
Step 4
Add new technology where appropriate. The latest and greatest
technological advances are not necessary for every business. But some elements
of technology can prove to be very useful in providing excellent client
service. For instance, specialized software can help you keep track of customer
orders better and locate products from your inventory that customers need.
Apply technology where it will help you service your customers better.
Step 5
Respond immediately to client questions and comments. Provide a stated
turnaround time for all client communication; for example, promise that your
business will respond within 24 hours. Although some wait time might be
necessary, be sure to keep the wait time as short as possible to demonstrate to
clients that you take their communication seriously.
Step 6
Let your customers know that you appreciate their business. Send
thank-you notes, or keep a client address list to send out cards at the
holidays or birthdays. Doing so places a human face on your business and
creates a family atmosphere for the company.