The recent decision Marks & Spencer took to stop playing music in its stores may be met with mixed feelings. Some might welcome the peace and quiet as they shop, but it could be the death knell for stores that are already too quiet.

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In store music: setting the mood

There’s no doubt that music can influence our mood, and our mood influences the way we behave. Various studies suggest that music influences what people buy, along with how much they are willing to spend.

An expert in the psychology of music, Professor Adrian North, explains how music influences the way people shop. Classical music will encourage customers to spend more money, he says, while slower-paced music will influence them to spend more time browsing. Behavioural scientist Patric Fagan explains how people can be primed by music. The most obvious example is that by playing Christmas music, people will be more likely to by Christmas-related products.

Peace and quiet

However, an M&S spokesperson said that the decision to cut the music was a result of some extensive research, in addition to feedback from staff and customers. A separate study undertaken on behalf of Action on Hearing Loss found that more than four in five people who have hearing difficulties said that they were frustrated by background music, and as many as a third of people generally didn’t like background music.

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Companies specialising in providing background music for stores such as https://moodmedia.co.uk/in-store-music-for-business/ know that using music to intentionally create a controlled experience for customers is a skill in itself.

It takes skill to find the appropriate music to deliver a customer experience that will maximise revenue, but there is also a skill in knowing when silence is the best background. Julian Treasure, the chairman of Sound Agency, a designer of sound for brands and retailers, says that stores aimed at a specific type of customer, such as a youth fashion outlet, benefit from playing specific types of music. However, finding the right music for stores like M&S, where the client base is broader, is more difficult, and silence can be a better alternative.

In its efforts to turn around its recent lacklustre performance, switching off the music may not be as bad a decision for M&S as some may think.

Everyone with a website will understand the importance of high-quality SEO to drive traffic to the site with the aim of increasing visitor numbers and, hopefully, conversions. SEO can be either ‘white hat’, which means that it is approved by Google and other search engines, or ‘black hat’, in which loopholes are exploited to ensure favourable results through a variety of processes which the search engines most certainly don’t endorse.

Now a new black hat technique is becoming more commonplace in the form of negative SEO. Here, rather than trying to boost their own website, the focus is directed at a competitor’s site, using a variety of methods to drag their site down in the rankings. Effectively, this means using black hat SEO techniques on your competitor’s site, causing them to lose both their visibility and their credibility in the process.

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Is It a Real Thing?

The idea of negative SEO has been around for a few years, but it’s only recently that the subject has begun to be taken seriously, and the search engines themselves are said to be still in denial. According to Entrepreneur, Google claims that its systems are too sophisticated to be duped by an attempt to sabotage a website’s ranking through negative SEO, but admits that negative SEO is something that they are aware of. The fact that Google addressed the subject of spammy links in the Penguin 4 update, no longer including them as part of its criteria for rankings, shows that negative SEO has certainly had an impact on the way the company ranks websites.

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How Does Negative SEO Happen?

There are lots of different ways in which a website can be deemed to be in breach of guidelines and marked down on search engine results. These include spammy links pointing to a site, fake social media profiles spreading misinformation, duplicate content and unrelated links from other sites.

If you’re worried that your site might be a target for negative SEO, there are steps you can take. Whether you’re based in Loughborough or London professional SEO services, such as https://www.elevateuk.com/seo-services/, can overhaul your website’s SEO to check that all is well with your SEO campaign.

Keep your site safe by checking your site statistics regularly, and take action immediately if there is a sudden fall in rankings or visitor numbers.

In the opinion of many industry watchers, you will be switching to VoIP, it’s just a question of when. By digitising telephony to use computers and computer networks, you’ll gain the ability to extend and manipulate its features in ways that were unthinkable with old-style analogue lines.

Here are just six of the reasons businesses of all sizes are flocking to VoIP.

Costs

VoIP technology is cheaper to run; it shares your existing broadband and network connections instead of requiring an additional telephone infrastructure. Exchanges and call-recording services can be created in software without the need for physical accessories and wiring.

Businesses that are heavily telephone-based or make lots of long-distance and international calls enjoy significant cost benefits from VoIP.

Larger companies can negotiate wholesale VoIP termination rates and even participate in the global market in route trading that underlies the VoIP infrastructure. Sites like https://www.idtexpress.com/ offer more details.

Hosting

Like ordinary computer servers and networks, VoIP networks can be hosted in-house or outsourced. For larger businesses, it is worth hiring personnel and equipment to run your own routers, switches and software, but smaller businesses can leave the technical details to a reliable provider. Switching to VoIP is as simple as swapping your handsets and plugging them into a different socket.

Security

Businesses have many reasons to be concerned about the security of their telephones. Their reason might be as mundane as preventing employees from running up bills on private calls or as serious as ensuring compliance with provisions of the GDPR’s new privacy and data protection regulations; see https://www.pcworld.com/article/221118/is_void_secure.html for more information.

With a VoIP system, automatically vetting calls is relatively straightforward. Companies with enterprise management software will find them easy to integrate with existing compliance control strategies.

Mobility

Desktop phones and smart mobile phones can be linked to the company’s VoIP gateway. It should then be simple to move to an office miles away and continue connecting from the same numbers.

Productivity

Incoming calls that go unanswered in one office can be escalated to another. Calls can also be forwarded to personnel out on the road. Don’t miss vital opportunities ever again!

With additional software, voice recognition and AI can analyse calls and forward or respond to them intelligently.

Service quality

Advanced VoIP features reduce queuing, missed and misdirected calls, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and boosting your company’s image.

There are many things that are involved in running a company. You will not be able to handle everything on your own. It is sometimes a good idea to get some input from outside consultants who can give their honest assessment about how your company is currently being operated. There are consultants in many different areas that will be able to help improve the overall profitability of your company. Hiring a reliability consultant can benefit your company in many ways. Here are the most crucial qualities that you need to look for when you are in the process of hiring a firm that offers reliability consulting.

1. The reliability consulting firm you hire should have a minimum of 10 years of experience in the industry.

You need to be sure that you are hiring a company that has been offering reliability consulting services for many years. This level of experience will ensure that you are getting the highest quality of advice. This is important because the consultant will be providing input regarding arc flash hazard analysis and other sensitive areas of your business.

2. You should only hire a reliability consulting firm that has an impeccable track record and a high Better Business Bureau rating.

Look into the background of any firm you are seriously thinking about hiring. You need to be certain that you know everything there is about any consultants who will be giving you advice. One of the best ways to determine if you should be doing business with a consulting firm is to find out the rating given to them by the BBB. This will say a lot about the reputation of the consulting firm as a whole. You should also speak to current and former clients of the consulting firm to get their opinions.

3. The consulting firm should charge rates that are comparable to competing firms.

You should compare the prices being charged by reliability consulting firms. This will allow you to see what all of your options are. Never pay more for a consultant than you need to.