One of the most important aspects of customer service is to collect data through the use of surveys. Collecting online surveys from customers can really give you some solid feedback about what is working for your business and what doesn’t work.
Zoomerang is one of the strongest brands in the online survey market. About 70 out of the Fortune 100 companies use the service to collect feedback from customers. The company has creaed and sent over 100 million online surveys that include customer and employee satisfaction and market research surveys.
For those who are not willing to pay any up front costs, there is a basic Zoomerang service where users can create easy online surveys. Advanced Pro features cost about $199 per year with a 100% money back guarantee within the first 30 days of purchase if you are not satisfied.
Zoomerang is continuously innovating their services. Some of the newest features include open-ended question analysis using tag clouds and the ability to display graphical survey results on your blog or website. Those two features are only available for the Pro accounts.
There are many other features that Zoomerang is capable of. Users have the ability to import web contacts from Yahoo!, GMail, and LinkedIn. Any surveys that you create on SurveyMonkey can be imported into Zoomerang. Results can be downloaded to Microsoft PowerPoint and PDFs. Within the service there is quota management, skip logic, survey reminders, and report analytics.
If you are interested in creating online surveys, make sure Zoomerang is your first stop.
Its been a good year for Best Buy Co., Inc (NYSE:BBY). The biggest win for the company was that their top competitor Circuit City went out of business and liquidated all of their stores. On top of that, Best Buy reported a 10% sales increase in the fourth quarter with a profit that was higher than expected. This happened in an economic environment that doesn’t favor retail companies.
“We prepared for reduced consumer spending, and we were pleased when the quarter finished stronger than it began,” stated Best Buy CEO Bradbury Anderson.
Best Buy had plans to expand upon their European business, but they will postpone this until later. The company’s home-office division had an 8.1% gain. Their mobile phone business had triple-digit store sales gains too.
What makes Best Buy an attractive place to work for at the corporate headquarters is their results-only work environment (ROWE). This philosophy still seems to be working well for them.
In 2007, MTV’s Rock Band franchise launched. Now the franchise as a whole has hit a major milestone, $1 billion in sales. These numbers are based on the North American market. The numbers were released in a press release this past Thursday. Rock Band players have also downloaded more than 40 million songs from the DLC selection.
Even though Rock Band 3 has not been announced yet, there will be a Beatles version of the game for the PSP coming out soon. Electronic Arts is the distribution company of the game and it was developed by Harmonix.
There are about 600 songs available for download to add to the game. It took Guitar Hero about 26 months to hit the same milestone whereas it took Rock Band about 15 months. The complete version of Rock Band costs almost $200.
New Sony mylo 2 phones are no longer available. They can only be purchased today in refurbished form. During the past holiday season, Sony lowered the price of the phone by a couple hundred dollars. The refurbished model is selling for $149.99, all the new mylo’s are seen as out of stock, but would sell for $50 if it was available. What we don’t know is whether Sony plans on scrapping Internet Device units going forward or if we’ll be seeing a mylo 3 in the near future.
All living species generate sources of mechanical energy. They do this by stretching muscles, walking, running, heart beats, and blood flow. Scientists at Georgia Tech hooked up a piezoelectric nanowire to a hamster in order to convert biomechanical energy into electricity. Zhong Lin Wang, a nanotechnology expert at Georgia Tech stated that nano-devices require so little energy that power from sound waves and muscle twitches could power them.
Wang took the nanowire from the hamster and connected it to an oscilloscope. As the hamster ran, it generated 70 millivolts of power. The energy stopped for a second when the hamster licked itself instead of continuing to run on the wheel.
Researchers could build all sorts of tiny sensors using this concept. They could use the sensors to monitor the environment, check the body for cancer and excess insulin levels. However monitoring all of these activities requires very reliable power supplies.
The nanowires are made out of zinc oxide. Energy flows through those wires when they are stretched and compressed. When the hamster ran, the nanowires were bending and that sent electrons through the wire and to the power meter.
Anyone that owns an 8.9″ Acer Aspire one netbook should beware of blasting their music at full volume using the built-in speakers. On the HardwareCult forum, it was found that anyone using this type of netbook and a standard hard drive could be vulnerable to finding their hard drive having errors and data loss. The vibration from the right speaker and magnetic interference is the cause of the flaw.
On the forum, someone posted that they discovered this problem while playing Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me at maximum volume by U2. That instantly gives U2 credit that their music is so intense that it can kill netbooks.
Amazon.com is shutting down three distribution centers (DCs) soon. This is the first time Amazon.com has closed a DC since 2006. The closures will take place in Munster, Indiana, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Red Rock, Nevada.
The 215 workers at the Amazon.com DCs will receive pay up until May 25 and receive benefits up until May 31. The employees will receive 3 weeks of severance pay and will get a chance to transfer to other distribution centers based in the U.S.
Amazon.com reportedly has dozens of fulfillment centers around the country, but their website claims that they have 12 fulfillment centers in 12 U.S. states and 8 other countries.
In order to get some experience in the field, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos worked at the fulfillment center in Lexington, Kentucky for one week. The Munster, Indiana facility is shutting down after only being open for 18 months.
Blender Magazine is a music and entertainment magazine. With so many alternatives available online, the company has no choice but to shut down their print publication. Blender.com will be maintained by the parent company Alpha Media Group.
“We went as far as we could in a difficult environment,” stated Nora Haynes, a spokeswoman for Alpha. About 30 people will be stepping down as a result of the print shutdown.
Another Alpha company Maxim magazine will be combined with Maxim.com. This means that there will be staff changes there too. Editor in Chief at Blender Joe Levy will become editor in chief at the combined Maxim and Maxim.com. Current editor in chief at Maxim Digital Jay Woodruff will become chief content officer of the whole operation.
Blender has been in print since 2001 and it features music reviews and a column called “greatest songs ever.” The advertisements on Blender fell 31% in 2008 to 522 pages.
Even Condé Nast had to shut down a couple of publications. Domino and Country Home from Meredith both ended their print publications.
Alpha Media Group used to be called Dennis Publishing before a private equity firm bought them out. Stuff magazine was folded into Maxim after the buy-out.
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