New York SBDC Research Network

Customer experience is becoming a huge focus across industries, and technology is playing a starring role in its evolution. Technology is making everything more computerized and automated; nevertheless, customers are feeling more and more that businesses are listening to their individual wants and needs. Why? Let's take a look at some hot trends in customer service. 1. Businesses are focusing on emotional intelligence to better understand and respond to customers Put simply, emotional intelligence is the ability to relate and empathize with others, ultimately enabling positive interactions. Read more from marketingprofs.com

When you're thinking about starting a company or first in the entrepreneurial trenches, any nugget of advice you can get from someone who's been there before is like gold. But as time goes on, you'll realize that some of those tips are better — and more applicable to your business — than others. So, to get you started on the right foot, no matter where you are in your startup journey, we asked 10 founders to weigh in on the absolute best advice they received as they built their companies. Take note of these (sometimes surprising) lessons for your own venture. More from MASHABLE >

Social media has become one of the most important outreach and marketing channels available to brands, which in turn means that it’s important to have a social media strategy as a core part of your overall marketing plan. Social media channels offer businesses a cost-effective way to promote their companies, to increase brand awareness, and to generate customer engagement. On the other hand, social media marketing is also still a very young discipline, and a rapidly changing one, which means that as a whole it is one of the hardest channels to consistently get right. Unlike TV advertisements or other types of advertising, there are no established rules and no real paradigms or laws that marketers can reliably follow. In this absence of rules, how do you know what to do? Read more from BPlans.com

There is no question that the way that social media has developed, images play a central role more YouTube enjoys over 4 billion views daily. Instagram has bypassed Twitter for mobile users. photographs on Facebook draw 53% more "likes" than those without. Pinterest is the 2nd largest referrer of social traffic. It grew by 50% in a year. These tools are driven by images and require (almost) no words. The fact that FaceBook was willing to pay the big bucks for Instagram is testimony to the importance of images. than ever before. There has been a dramatic shift towards visual marketing. Everyone needs to start thinking in these terms. As I visited the RN Pinterest Page I searched on "SBDC" to see the results and they were patchy. A quick visit to a few SBDC websites demonstrated very, very few images.We are often looking for good pictures from the various centers for different uses. Potential clients visiting our center sites would benefit from a glimpse at wha

Small businesses acknowledge the business effect mobile can have, but so far, they haven’t done much about it. In March 2015 polling by  Endurance International Group , 78% of US small-business respondents said their businesses did not have a mobile solution or app, despite the fact that 71% felt that having one would have a positive impact on business. SHARE THIS 0 2 0 4 0 Expertise, time and money all play a role in mobile’s low adoption. Among respondents who didn’t have a mobile solution or app, half blamed it on the fact that they didn’t know how to build one. Around one-quarter said they were too busy running their businesses to maintain an app, and spending itself was an issue, as a similar percentage said creating a mobile app simply cost too much. Similarly, 37% of respondents cited the time and resources required to enable mobile sales as one of the biggest mobile strategy challenges. - See more at emarketer.com

From CBS Sunday Morning : Meet the bulldog Zelda -- pampered, adored, and really spoiled by owner Carol Gardner. And why not? Gardener says Zelda changed the course of her entire life, which in 1997 needed changing. "I was recently divorced -- hence, depressed, hence in debt, and having a very difficult time," Gardner said. "And so a friend said, 'Sweetheart, you need to either get a therapist or a dog.'" So at 52, Gardner adopted Zelda, an English Bulldog, though she had scarcely the money to feed her. Then she learned a nearby pet store was having a contest: "The prize was 40 pounds of dog food every month for a year," Gardner said. All she had to do was design a holiday greeting card. So she did what anyone would: she put Zelda in a Santa hat and sat her down in a bubble bath.

From Everyman Business : Everyman Business offers a wealth of free business advice, training segments, articles and information on online marketing, labor laws, human resources, business software, technology and much more. EverymanBusiness.com helps business professionals save time and money by addressing real-world business questions and presenting practical solutions. Our site offers resources including: Management – Anyone who has ever worked under an inefficient or unorganized manager has experienced firsthand how it can affect work flow and productivity. Learn good leadership tips, proper business reporting, project management skills and more. Logistics - As an industry deals with technology, process and use of supply chain management. That is to say, how your product arrives to your consumers. Read about a variety of air freight options, drop shipping, trucking and warehousing options here. Equipment & Supplies – No office would be complete and functioning without o

What is it about a job that fans the flame inside you? The obvious answer is money—a healthy bank deposit at the end of the month is a primary motive for working. For others it’s about achieving something meaningful; helping society and feeling rewarded in passion, not pounds or dollars or whatever currency you get paid in. But what if you could have the best of both worlds? Social enterprises are an innovative way for entrepreneurs to build their own business and make a change in society, too. Getting a social business off the ground has never been easier. Before you get started, of course, you’re going to need the passion. Are you hungry for social change? Do you have the business head needed to run a company? Read more from BPlans.com .

It’s one thing to knowingly make decisions that hurt your credit score. We’ve all been there, and sometimes tough decisions must be made. But it’s an entirely different situation to accidentally wreck your credit. In some cases, we make decisions without realizing the impact on our credit. In other cases we may know that certain decisions can hurt our score, but we don’t appreciate the severity of the impact. Either way, maintaining good credit requires more than casual attention. MORE from Credit.com .

The crops growing on 1,000-acre Myer Farm in upstate New York have been used in products ranging from animal feed to tofu. On a whim, fifth-generation farmers and brothers Joe and John Myer decided to try their hand at distilling their wheat, rye, corn and barley into spirits. “Farming is in our blood,” Joe Myer says. “We put as much love and detail into distilling spirits as we do into growing crops.” In 2012, Myer Farm Distillers released its first bottles of vodka, whiskey and gin handcrafted from grains grown on the farm. The entire process from growing the grains to milling, mashing, fermenting, distilling and bottling is done onsite. The farm has devoted 100 acres to growing grains for its distillery and sells spirits from its tasting room and select retailers and restaurants in New York. Myer Farm Distillers also offers tastings and tours of the farm and distillery. “You can look through the tasting room window and see where the grains are grown,” Myer says. “It open

From BPlans.com : Do you have what it takes to become a successful leader? The best way to become one is to disregard it as your goal and focus on your learning journey. One of the most valuable skills I have learned is that if you want to be a leader, you need to be both focused and curious. These 15 tips come from experience, reading, and attending master classes.

Learn about  ConnectAmericas , the  first online community of companies in Latin America and the Caribbean dedicated to international trade and investment. Then  visit the ConnectAmericas website  to connect with over 15,000 business opportunities. Check out this map of  what exporting means to business in your home state .

From BPlans.com : A recent analysis from the World Green Building Council concluded that there is “overwhelming evidence” linking office design with productivity and wellness. But that’s nothing new, right? There has long been evidence to suggest that this is the case. We all know that our productivity levels drop when we feel uncomfortable—whether it’s the temperature, the atmosphere, or the noise levels, we need to be relaxed and comfortable to work at our best. With this in mind, it’s important that your office design is set up to be the best possible working environment it can be—to make your employees comfortable, relaxed, and productive...

Today, much of the sales process involves waiting far too long for signatures. Sometimes a deal can sit in limbo for weeks while all parties review, sign, and courier documents back and forth. This downtime causes serious risk of losing the deal, not to mention dramatically increases the risk of fraud—so what can be done to prevent that? The white paper explores how cloud-based e-signature technology can drastically reduce the time it takes to complete the deal making process and at the same time improve customer satisfaction, document security, and more. DOWNLOAD from CRM .

Did you know that the General Services Administration (GSA)  auctions off surplus government property , from office furniture to automobiles and industrial machinery? They even auction off real estate. It’s ideal for small businesses to get started, or for larger businesses to expand – at far less cost.