Online travel service ratings are being regarded as the backbone of travel and tourism service providers. The web travel and tourism industry has evolved quite dramatically in the past one decade. Today, an increasing number of people turn to search engines to plan their holidays and vacations, offering potential opportunities for online travel service providers to expand their business.However, your potential customers are more informed today and your competitors are even hungrier. In the face of intense competition in a rapidly evolving travel business, the web travel service ratings play a key role to help sustain your travel and tourism business.Therefore, it is imperative for the online tourism service providers to focus on the following points in order to boost their travel service ratings.Offer Attractive Vacation Packages: Your prospective customers are web-savvy and search the Internet for the best vacation packages before they book for their holiday online. They may not be looking for the exact vacation package you offer. Therefore, allow the customers to assemble their own trip by empowering them with customization. This will help improve the online travel service ratings for your business.Encourage After-trip Feedback:When your customers are back from their trip, encourage them to share their travel experience with you by offering valuable feedback. This not only allows your customers to feel privileged, but also offers you an opportunity to take your service quality further and build a bonding with the customers. This may go a long way to increase the online travel service ratings for your company.Introduce Coupons for Loyal Customers:Treating your loyal customers with care is crucial to building your online travel business further up. Make sure you offer special discount coupons to your repeat customers. This offers them a very good feeling about why they should use your website again and again.Build Long-term Relationship: Online travel service providers should foster a long-term relationship with their customers in order to ensure repeat business. You should stay connected to your customers round the year by introducing them new tour offers and special tourism packages based on their past vacation priorities. For instance, you can send news letters to your customers about any attractive tour discounts they may take advantage of. Again, this may add to the online travel service ratings for your business.Allow Customers to Write Reviews: In order to boost online travel service ratings, you should encourage satisfied customers to write reviews about your services. You can be sure that these reviews will further influence other people to sign up for your services. User reviews add credibility to your services since it is a direct reflection of the satisfaction of clients. Not only can they make your ratings go up, but they also invite other clients.Run A Travel Blog: When it comes to improving your online travel service ratings, nothing works like running a travel blog. It is essentially a fun way to interact with your potential customers and show them the beautiful side of signing up with your tour services.You can also allow your satisfied customers to contribute to your blogs occasionally as guests. This not only creates a sense of value among your customers but also adds to the credibility of your travel business among many other potential customers.Focus on Social Integration: Social networks are the epicenter of product promotion for online service providers, especially in the travel and tourism industry. Developing a powerful social presence via Facebook fan page, Twitter and LinkedIn is almost inevitable to promote your travel business online. When you allow your satisfied customers to write a review or share their tour pictures with you on your Facebook fan page, it works wonders for other potential customers.A dedicated approach to maintaining your social presence can go a long way in ensuring excellent customer satisfactions and online travel service ratings.
What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime
What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.
As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.
That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.
Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.
Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.
Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.
Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.
That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.
Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.
Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.
My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.
Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.
And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.
All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:
• Farm eggs
• Fresh vegetables
• Cow’s milk
• Freshly baked bread
• Coal for our open fires
Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.
Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.
Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.
Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.
My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.
The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.
Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.
Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.
People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.
In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.
Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.
• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.
• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.
• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.
On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.
Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.
We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.
Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.
My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.
Getting Certified in an Online Pharmacy Technician School
To become a Pharmacy Technician, a certification program at a State Licensed School is required. Some schools may require you to have a High School Diploma or GED, but most will only require you to take an entrance exam. This is to ensure that you are at the appropriate educational level.Pharmacy tech have more duties than a pharmacy aid and there are more opportunities in this case. This is another reason why more and more people chose to apply for pharmacy tech education. It is also important that when you complete the courses of a pharmacy technician school you also pass an exam and get your certification. This way it will be much easier for you than for other to get a job. This kind of work is needed because of the increase in population and because of the growing number of the hospitals.Certification with the National Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (NPTCB) can increase your pharmacy technician salary. Salaries will also vary depending on the work setting. For instance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that those who work in general medical or surgical hospitals will earn an average of $12.32 per hour, while those working in a department store pharmacy will make an average of $9.69 per hour.According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May, 2008, Pharmacy Tech earn $19,270 to $39,480. The median salary is $27,710. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), the average annual starting salary for a Pharmacy Technician is $19,000. For more information on Pharmacy Tech salaries, visit this link on the Bureau of Labor StatisticsEmployment for Pharmacy Technicians is expected to increase much faster than the average through 2016. Job opportunities are expected to be good. This is due to the increasing elder population who use a large amount of prescription medication. In addition, as scientific advances continue for treating conditions, more Pharmacy Tech will be needed to fill a growing number of prescriptions.How can I find a good online Pharmacy Technician school?*Compare programs at different schools and remember that programs vary in length depending on location, cost and course of study.*Consider visiting one or more schools and request free information.*Search online for Pharmacy Tech schools in your area using your zip code.*Consider studying online and completing your studies from home.For those pursuing a career as a pharmacy tech, coursework in biology, chemistry, health, and mathematics is recommended, but not required. Areas of study include medical and pharmaceutical terminology, pharmaceutical calculations, pharmacy record keeping, pharmaceutical techniques, and pharmacy law and ethics. Although not required, certification is offered through the National Pharmacy Technician Certification Board. Nevertheless if you graduated any pharmacy tech school you do not have the same chances to obtain a good job as you would have if you get a certification too.