How to handle an Employee With Bipolar Disorder

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It’s not surprising that work can bring special challenges for those with bipolar disorder. The stress and unpredictable challenges in the workplace can take a big toll. Managing bipolar at work — with the highs of mania and the lows of depression — is no small feat.

So the first step is:
Research the type of bipolar your employee has. A variety of online resources exist to provide information to people who know someone with bipolar. Find out what types of behaviors to expect and how to approach the specific type of bipolar.

Secondly, Accommodate your employee. Before assuming what he needs, ask him. The employee might request an office with a window, a later starting time, several short breaks throughout the day instead of one long lunch break. If the requests are reasonable and won’t affect productivity, meet as many needs as you can.

However, Offer broad encouragement, but don’t be a therapist. Employers often think their position of power gives them the right to bring up the disorder in the workplace, but it doesn’t. If your employee wants to talk about it, he will. However, always be positive around the employee, offering encouragement and asking if he needs anything from time to time.

Then again, watch employee progress. Despite being compassionate and encouraging to employees who suffer from bipolar, supervisors must still be concerned and watchful for the company. Take note of how your employee works with others, productivity, absences and special needs. If an area of concern arises, confront it directly and work with your employee to take care of it.

Okay, you should then give promotions objectively. Think of your best employee, regardless of mental disorders, and promote based on skill. If your top employee is a person with bipolar, gauge his performance, absences, relationships with coworkers and how much you’ve actually noticed the bipolar affecting his performance. If you avoid promoting a person with mental illness because of “what might happen” without proper evidence, you don’t have good enough reason. Promote fairly.

Useful Tip

  • Never disclose information about an employee’s mental illness to coworkers. If the employee wants people to know, he will tell them.

Cyber-security Tips for Entrepreneurs

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First we will like to explain what cyber-security means. It simply means
the practice of protection of computer systems from theft or damage or you say, defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from malicious attacks.

So here are three basic tips for getting started. :

  • Keep all of your software up to date to cut down on vulnerabilities that bad actors can exploit. 
  • Back up all of your files via a cloud storage service, external hard drive or — even better — both. 
  • Always turn on two-factor authentication, which incorporates texts and emails into the login process. Where you can, consider opting for three-factor authentication, which combines the use of a password, an item you have in your possession (such as a fob) and a characteristic that’s unique to you (such as a fingerprint or face ID). 

Understanding Your Customer Is the Key to Growth

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No matter the next big thing that comes along, truly understanding your customers is the key to giving them good service, it will always be a differentiator you can take to the bank.

Optimizing the customer experience is a great way to get new customers. It’s also one of the best ways of fostering customer loyalty.

Engaging with your customers in real-time has become more easily accessible thanks to new tools. Messenger is becoming an ever more popular customer service channel.

Getting your customers on the phone on a regular basis can help you go deeper into their pains, needs and challenges. You can schedules regular calls so you can fully understand what they love or dislike about your product.

As you work to keep your customers engaged during the first stages of the customer journey, think of your budding relationship as a two-way street. Encourage customers to share their thoughts and opinions by including a customer satisfaction survey into your email drip.

Do You Know Your Customer’s Lifetime Value?

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Increasing customer retention depends mainly on understanding your customers. If you adapt to their purchasing habits, you will see a rise in overall Customer value. Customer engagement is a must in e-commerce. Just to refresh your memory by definition, Customer lifetime value is the metric that indicates the total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account. It considers a customer’s revenue value, and compares that number to the company’s predicted customer lifespan.

Customer Lifetime Value also known as CLV can safely be called the most complete metric for analytics. New customer rates, costs per order, customer retention rates, conversion percentages and many more are important to your future revenue, but CLV combines all the important statistics of every individual customer.

It is simply the expected profit you get from each customer in your business. With proper calculations, you can easily grow your e-commerce business with this metric. You won’t be losing money, because you will know exactly how much you earn.

As you may guess, weaker client relationships equal fewer repeat sales. If you don’t have an engaged core of loyal customers, you are doomed to a low CLV.

Customer Service Power: 3 water companies face penalty after 2 million complaints

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Report has it that, CCWater’s annual report shows households made more than 2.1 million calls to resolve problems last year.

Three water companies have been warned by a watchdog to improve their customer service as almost half of providers in England and Wales reported an increase in calls to resolve problems last year.

The Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) has asked Bristol Water, Surrey-based SES Water and Southern Water to provide quarterly reports highlighting the action they are taking to reduce complaints following their “relatively poor” performance.

CCWater’s annual report shows households made more than 2.1 million calls to resolve problems last year.
Southern Water has been asked to provide quarterly reports for a third successive year despite reducing written complaints by a fifth.

Bristol Water reported a 37% increase in “unwanted contacts” from customers to resolve problems and a 52% increase in written complaints, while SES Water reported a 21% rise in unwanted contacts.
Nine out of 21 water companies in England and Wales reported an increase in calls from customers to resolve problems, while four companies reported an increase in written complaints.

These goes to show that you should learn to report an unhealthy services or bad product.

The first thing you need to do is go to the company website and write Customer Service a letter explaining what happened. Don’t go in expecting a lot, but if you received rude service they will probably apologise and offer you some sort of discount to entice you back in.  If there is no Customer service, write to the manager or CEO. Direct your complaint to whoever is listed on the site and let them know specifically what happened, when it happened, and where it happened.  Many times problems can be resolved without a lot of fuss.

Boy leaves teddy bear at hotel – and what staff do next is amazing

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So a mum shared sweet photographs of her little son’s missing toys after hotel staff sent the cuddly pair on a series of adventures.

The bear and seal, which were left behind at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa in Hawaii, have gone viral after British mum Anna Pickard shared their journey online.

After emailing the hotel to ask if cleaning staff had found the much missed duo, she was treated to a series of pictures of them receiving five-star care before their journey home.

Anna, who works as creative director at Slack, a business communication tool, posted the heartwarming tale on Twitter yesterday.

The Mirror

Man to produce ID before he can purchase a bottle water

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A 20 year old man, Joshua Tacey was asked to show his ID for a bottle of water at an Esso BP petrol station in Eastern England.

Joshua, pulled over at the garage at 1pm today to grab his girlfriend, Lizzie Turvey, a drink as she was feeling unwell.

But the cashier demanded he proved he was 18 in order purchase the water, Lincolnshire Live says.

The Mirror reports that Tacey in his narration said: “I walked into the BP garage to get my poorly girlfriend a Smart Water and then put in on the counter and she looked at me asking for my ID.

“I laughed and woman behind me laughed with confusion.

“I thought at first it was a joke but she was actually being serious, so I said: ‘you’re joking aren’t you?’ and said: ‘no, but I will let you off this time.'”

Mr Tacey was dumbfounded after his experience at the petrol station near Thorpe on the Hill, Lincolnshire.

The motorist, of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, continued: “I just find it ridiculous that you have to show identification for water.

“I have heard [about people being ID’d] about energy drinks but not water.

“It’s getting really pathetic now, What if we had the really hot summer like last year and a kid walks in asking for water but can’t because he or she isn’t the correct age?”

In summary he was asked to provide his ID because
Smart Water contains electrolytes, which are also found in energy drinks.

Dare to Care: Why You Can’t Script Sincerity in Customer Service

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It’s not that hard to notice when you’re dealing with a customer support rep who is less than sincere. Some people can fake sincerity, at least for a short time. Eventually the effort and pressure to be someone that they’re not will catch up with them, and can manifest itself in potentially angry behavior. That’s why some employees lose their cool. It’s not that these people aren’t nice. It’s just that their personalities don’t have the patience or empathy needed to deal with confrontational customers, especially if they are upset and acting unreasonable.

Obviously getting great people who are customer-focused is of the utmost importance.  The bottom line is that insincerity is a loyalty killer. And, while they may put up with it, customers shouldn’t have to deal with a customer support rep who is scripted, apathetic, and isn’t customer focused. How can a customer have a positive emotional connection to the company if the employees come off as fake or insincere?

So, how do we go about getting good, caring people? It starts before you even hire someone. The leadership has to define what good customer service looks like in the organization. Once defined, you hire good people who can support that initiative. Then you train them. Accolades from leadership for a job well done makes employees feel good, especially after handling complaints and problems on many of their support calls.

Are You Prepared for the Hidden Side of Social Media?

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There is no way we can deny that social media is a part of our lives in this age. Service excellence cannot be achieved in the short-term, nor can you ever truly say that you have ‘achieved’ excellence because it’s a journey not a destination; the quest for excellence will mean that you are constantly pushing the bar to get even better at what you do. This journey clearly requires a great deal of commitment on your behalf, but also from those who work with and for you.

With social media, nothing ever seems to die. Once a thread or conversation starts, you’re going to be battling it or handling it forever. Even if you manage to put a particular topic behind you, it can resurface at any time. The truth is,
If you’re trying to manage social media accounts, it’s a usually a nightmare as far as structure, management, and organization is concerned. The larger your online presence, the more problems you can have trying to keep your accounts straight.

Then when it comes to social media handles, everyone makes mistakes and everyone is human, but there seems to be a disproportionate number of armchair quarterbacks on Twitter, and Facebook than anywhere else. An individual can use abbreviations and butcher spellings for the sake of word counts, but try it as a business, and you immediately lose credibility

Get as close as you can to your customers

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This sounds like an obvious point but service excellence demands that you first know your customers’ needs and expectations better than anyone else.

Yes, some common needs are obvious, but needs by segment are less so. Even harder to discern are individual needs, but if you are serious about excellence then at the very least your regular or repeat customers will expect you to remember their likes and dislikes.

Practical things you can do here include: Define your key customer segments and attribute an overall value to each in terms of what they generate for the business. Which segments deserve most attention?

Hold regular focus groups with customers from these segments to better understand their needs. Conduct wider online/email surveys with larger number of customers to get a broader view of needs. Have effective feedback mechanisms, for capturing complaints, and for gathering general satisfaction data; analyse this information regularly in a meaningful way to identify areas for improvement.

Have systems for capturing and sharing the preferences of existing customers so that you can wow them with your tailored service. It is only by taking proactive action that you can get closer to your customers and if you don’t do so then striving for service excellence is impossible.

Okay let’s conclude this article with
John Russell, post: “The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.”