Archive for March 13th, 2008

United States video game sales jump 34 percent in Feb

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO - United States sales of video game hardware and software hit $1.33 billion in February, up 34 percent from a year earlier, with Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 topping Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 for the second month in a row.

United States advisers: Restrict Amgen, J&J anemia drugs

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

GAITHERSBURG, Maryland - The widespread use of anemia drugs sold by Amgen Inc and Johnson & Johnson should be sharply restricted for cancer patients amid serious safety concerns, a United States advisory panel has said on Thursday.

Regulators unveil plan to revamp mortgage rules

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

WASHINGTON - Financial regulators pledged on Thursday to toughen rules for mortgage brokers, lenders, and credit agencies, to try to restore investor confidence and prevent a recurrence of credit-market problems that threaten to slow the economy.

United States airlines hedge less, let fuel exposure grow

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

CHICAGO/NEW YORK - United States airlines, battered by stratospheric fuel prices, are even more vulnerable to oil spikes now than they were a year ago as most have let their hedge positions erode.

Stocks end higher as S&P view eases credit fears

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

NEW YORK - United States stocks rallied on Thursday after a major credit rating agency has said the end to subprime-related write-downs is in sight, causeing a rebound in financial shares.

Stocks end up; S&P slightly calms credit fears

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

NEW YORK - United States stocks ended higher on Thursday as financial shares erased earlier steep losses after a major credit rating agency has said the end to subprime-related write-downs is in sight.

Call Statistics Packages And How They Help Your Business

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

Derek Rogers

If your business is absolutely dependent on the calls you receive every day, you should smarten up and ask your telephone company for their call statistics or call reports system. Not all companies have them, but you’ll be pleased to find out if your telephone company can actually offer a call statistics package that you can use to track the calls you receive and analyse them to improve your business.

What is a call statistics package? It is a tracking system that administers data on how you receive and handle your calls. This kind of information is very important to determine several conditions that can help you understand and ultimately improve your business. Through a call statistics package, you will receive these different kinds of reports:

Daily report - This report tells you the flow of activity during your day of business, including the peak hours at which you receive calls, and later, in compiled reports, when is the busiest day of the week, month, quarter and so on. With the daily report, you will also be able to tell how many calls you receive during your set work hours and how many you may miss after you’ve closed shop. With a daily report, you can plan how many people in your staff should be assigned to answer calls at specific times.

Target summary report - This notes the number of calls that are received and left unanswered. You can also tell by this report if particular people call back over a specific time frame, and some telephone companies have call statistic packages that record the number of unique calls. This can help you determine exactly how many people are trying to call you. This means that you would know whether different people called your firm or just one person repeatedly hitting redial.

Day/Evening/Weekend summary reports - Some telephone companies offer these reports, which break down the daily report into an even more in-depth one according to peak and off peak hours. This will help you determine how much you spend, or how much your caller is willing to spend if you do not use a free phone line.

Simultaneous call reports - This is useful if you’re using more than one phone line for your business. It records the number of simultaneous calls made, the number of simultaneous calls received, and those that were busy to begin with, as well. With the call report, you are able to find out how many phone lines you actually need.

With these reports, you will be able to improve your business with all the information provided. For example, some companies who find the call statistics package particularly useful are those who are running several advertising campaigns at once and need to test which campaigns are bringing in the best results. Or you could use the data to simply regulate your calls, determine the efficiency of your staff, allow you to intelligently cut costs, and maximise what you spend on your phone line. It would be advisable to ask your telephone company if they have a call statistics package on offer.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who represents a number of UK businesses. For telephone services, he recommends Telecoms World, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of call statistic packages.

End in sight to subprime mortgage writedowns: S&P

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

NEW YORK - Standard & Poor’s on Thursday has said subprime write-downs for large financial institutions are likely past the halfway mark, but they could still hit $285 billion.