This is the end of another busy Holiday Season and there is no more fitting time to say “Thank You” and to wish you a Happy Holiday Season and a New Year full of good health, happiness and prosperity. We want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for making 2Checkout a part of your business, and in some small way, a part of your life.
I’m pleased to announce that this year’s 2Checkout Employee of the Year is Mike Robinson. Some of you will know Mike from his work in Customer Care. His knowledge, dedication, and general helpfulness has been an asset to the company for the past five years. Along with some very nice prizes, the Employee of the Year gets the best space in the parking lot – I’m sure Mike will put that to great use! Congratulations Mike, you absolutely deserve this!
In our work as Duct Tape Marketing coaches, we see some of our clients struggling while others continue to do well. How are these companies different?
Some businesses are positioned to thrive in a challenging economy: if you sell wood stoves, car repair, maintenance, home renovation or business coaching, rejoice. You have likely been doing well as people switch their buying habits from “buy new” to “make do”.
Well-placed businesses have put some strategic tools in place long ago, such as a robust lead-generating infrastructure and products and services that prospects can easily recognize as different from the run-of-the-mill.
If you are not in this happy position, there are steps you can take today that will work for you. Here they are:
This is it. We have reached the end of the tunnel and find ourselves at the last step in becoming PCI compliant. So let’s take a look at what we need to meet the final PCI DSS standard…
Requirement 12: Maintain a policy that addresses information security
This part of the standard lists more policies we have to implement and more procedural documentation to write. A complete list of specific policies and documentation we need is here. Given the scope of this requirement, I can give some general information about complying with this standard, but I cannot cover every portion of the requirements. Some examples of policies that require documentation are:
Get Elastic has an article about how consumers use Social Media. This prompted me to think about how businesses and customers communicate with each other. The article and the study it cites brings some insightful statistics showing how important your customer’s experience in communicating with you really is.
“74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer-care experiences shared online.”
Press releases can be a free way to promote your business and to get press coverage. But that’s not the only reason to write a press release. Actually, the old practice of writing a press release and sending it out to EVERY reporter in America is quickly becoming the LEAST important reason to write one. Currently, most reporter’s public E-mail addresses could be better referred to as ‘”spam ovens”- They direct the thousands of unsolicited press releases they get daily and search their E-mail box when they are looking for a release about a story they are writing anyway. So unless your release is particularly topical, don’t count on it ever being read.
This week, we move on from creating our secure network and start to develop a system to monitor the network, alert us if there is any suspicious activity, and regularly test our security procedures. We have moved on to two parts of PCI compliance that need to continue through the life of our company. These categories are more involved both technically and administratively than requirements that we looked at in past weeks. These requirements address the fact that as new applications, operating systems, and technology develops, new ways around existing security measures will also develop.
Requirement 10: Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
Requirement 11: Regularly test security systems and processes
One of our partners will be performing routine maintenance this evening for 15 to 20 minutes beginning at 7:00 P.M. EST US, December 10, 2009.
During this time, currency transactions may be impacted, however sales will not be affected. Our partner hopes to have this maintenance completed as quickly as possible to ensure there isn’t an interruption in sales.
We have received news that 2Checkout has made the list of semi-finalists in Tech Columbus’ annual Innovation Awards held on Feb 4, 2010. We are very pleased to be among this year’s semi-finalists in the Outstanding Service (more than 50 employees) category. This award recognizes local individuals, companies, and technology teams who have made strides in technology innovation in 2009. Given the list of nominees this year, it is truly an honor to even be included. Best of luck to everyone!
Lean has been an accepted practice in manufacturing for over 20 years. It also has become an accepted practice in Supply chain, Office Environments, and Healthcare. In marketing, people shy away from processes like Lean, Six Sigma, and Project Management but there is so much to gain. What makes Lean so practical to get started with is the tool set that comes with it. However, that tool set comes with some terms that make it seem initially difficult. However, 99% of Lean definitions and teachings can be applied to marketing with little modification.
Most of marketing is in processing, similar to a lean office. So a process can be identified and improved upon. But what are you processing? It’s the flow you work on and so in marketing, the items that you are processing are prospects, customers, or data. Now, don’t get sensitive that we are getting to clinical. We are looking at improvements in the marketing process and relying on some great information that is already written. This how we adapt to it:
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