TravelCent

Companies & Communities

When you’re starting to think about having your own hot tub in your own yard, there’s a sense of excitement that just grows.  You’ll be able to start considering all the fun details like the size, the style, and the special features, and then start to imagine where it might go in your house.  You can daydream about parties you’ll have, as well as the many hours you can spend in solitude, as well as with the ones you love, enjoying the water and the lovely massaging jets.  It’s a lot to look forward to, and there’s always more.

With choosehottubsdirect.com, you’re working with a company with a spectacular flair for excellent customer service.  Their focus is on your needs rather than promoting the products, so that you’ll receive excellent treatment that is very personalized.  Their reputation depends on your satisfaction, so it’s very important to them that they’re getting you exactly what you want, and they’re very skilled, and friendly, when helping you to find it.  They have patience and understanding, and part of their successes come from a willingness to take time to have conversations with the customer, and this helps every step of the process go much easier, and insures that everyone is getting what they want in the deal.

They also have a splendid record for giving back to the community.  Last year, after Hurricane Ike, they donated a portion of their profits to help the victims of this horrible disaster.  This means that you’re not only working with a company that understands hot tubs, they also have a sense of compassion for other human beings.  Being responsive, and willing to contribute, after a natural disaster, suggests a participation in the world that goes beyond the expected, and demonstrates real engagement with the community, and that’s an idea whose time has come.  It’s wonderful to be thinking ahead, and seeing how a hot tub might change your life, but it’s also a pleasure to know that part of the action you’re taking part in is also helping others to change their lives as well.

The Rules of Customer Service

Everyone remembers bad customer service experiences, much more so unfortunately than good ones.  But a great customer service experience will not only be remembered, the customer will keep coming back.  I just experienced this this morning.  For years I have had great service at Washington Mutual Bank.  Recently, they were bought out by Chase Bank.  I made my first transaction with Chase Bank this week, and I will be switching banks.

These kinds of things happen all the time, and companies must be aware of the effects of providing sub-par service to their customers, whether it is employees failing to be knowledgeable about goods and services, or whether it is being left on hold for an inordinate amount of time.  It is rare to find great customer service these days, but it is out there.  There are great companies that truly do put their customers first.

What to they do differently?  They commit to it.  Each member of the staff devotes themselves not only to the customer but to the company they are working for as well.  They go beyond what their customers and clients are expecting.  They know their products and they know their business policies thoroughly.  This creates not only a positive financial experience, but in doing so they gain the confidence and the trust of their customers.  They get to know their customers.  At Washington Mutual, not only did they remember my name, they asked about the paintings I was working on and how gallery sales are going.

When speaking with company owners like Steve Barbarich, one will learn that when treating customers with respect, and with courtesy, those interactions will make an impression that goes beyond marketing and advertising.  This goes for returning emails or phone messages promptly.  Even if there is a problem with something, when you respond immediately and efficiently, that customer will come back.  They know that they matter.  You are focusing on them, and not on making that sale.  These days it is more important than ever to create positive customer interactions, and it really is not that difficult or time consuming.  In the end, everyone is happy.

Making Happy Neighborhoods

Canada is one of the more remarkable places in the world.  Those who live here understand that there are splendid things here that are difficult to find in other places.  Our neighborhoods reflect the commitment and dedication of the generations that came before us, working to make sustainable places for our children to grow up in.  They had a sense of civic responsibility that is inspiring to us.  We at TransGlobe Property Management are working toward that level of commitment to the neighborhoods where you work and live.  Our record for excellent customer service is an indicator for us that we’re on the right track.

Our relationship with you, then, is one that we consider to be ongoing.  We have made it very easy, and even fun, to select possibilities for living and working on our user-friendly database, so you can start daydreaming about your new space right away.  We realize that moving can be a big hassle, and is one of the biggest stresses people have in their lives, and we like to do our part to make it easier.  We also know that there is a certain thrill about moving, when you start to think about the place you’ll soon be, how to decorate, where your belongings will go, and what the neighborhood will be like.

At TransGlobe Property Management, we’ve been working in the neighborhoods you’ll live, and doing our part to make changes for the lives of community members.  We like to participate in charitable functions, because it helps us to bring our team together, and it also gets us out there, and more connected to life as it’s really lived.  We love the neighborhoods here, and think it’s a truly special place.  For this generation, and the memory of those who lived here before us, along with the safety and health of the generation to follow, we’re working together to make happy neighborhoods.

How to get a business idea

So you have always wanted to have your own business. And now seems like the perfect time because the numbers of jobs in your original field are dwindling and fast.  Now is the time to think about where your real passion lies, or if you are not lucky enough to find passion, find something you can tolerate and do well. It’s time to take a bad situation and turn it around into something positive. It’s all about making the best out of it and looking outside the box for your next step, or venture in life.

When it comes to thinking outside the box, you can find ideas for making a successful business nearly anywhere. You should start out sitting down and making a list of all the times you were not satisfied with a service or a product you spent money on. Take the following example for instance.

Steve Barbarich was remodeling his home and had made his way into the bathroom. He ordered a bath tub for his home and thought it would fit perfectly in the space he had left for the tub. When the tub arrived it proved to be too big for the space. He bought to tub online, so he promptly contacted to company to try and get the situation remedied. The company was less than helpful. Barbarich, instead of just being an angry customer, turned his misfortune into a business venture. He started choosehottubsdirect.com and is selling hot tubs at great prices along with excellent customer service.

He took something that he saw was missing in the market and started a website to replace it and make it better. He ended up turning his bad customer service experience into an amazing business plan.

So if you are thinking about starting your own business, think about how you have been wronged in business, and maybe that could be your next business venture.

Projects to Manage and Balance

Sitting in a lobby in one of the hundreds of Singapore Hotels, Sandra watched the travellers in a constant flow of coming and going. She was waiting for her inspiration, her muse to show as so to spark a new poem or a new short-story. This was her favorite way to be creative, to rely on the world’s population to make her living for her, even though they do not know that that’s their purpose when they come into Sandra’s view. Even if they read one of her pros or poems, they would be unaware that they were the project managers of her work. Demanding she create a project that will enhance their portfolio of awareness and bring in a wealth of understanding.

Sandra is an accomplished writer and poet. But, she never let herself be addressed as a writer or as a poet. She would instead request when being introduced at a bookstore or lecture hall, to refer her as simply an employee of the world. This always gets queer looks of non-understanding from the announcer and many of the audience members hoping for a glimmer to making sense of her and her writings. Sandra is all to familiar with this look and she makes a note of it in her future projects notepad of how she needs to allow another completely different project manager to put on her desk the project she thought was complete. This suits her well, for if she can make one person understand that they are her employer, her project manager and that it is her job to bring to task the very nature of the projects existence, then she herself feels accomplished and to finish the task that of their necessity of living their lives all worth while. This is Sandra’s talent, to find the balance in the project and make the project itself become a medium of conscious awareness. Nothing more than that will she create for nothing more is necessary. So, she waits in the lobby, waits for her that next project in need of balance to be placed on her desk of imaginations.

Find Dining a must

My parents, no matter what their finances were, no matter if they were in a fight, always went out ‘Fine Dining‘  every Friday night. This is the one activity they would not give up. Even if they didn’t enjoy each others company for the evening, they enjoy the socializing with their favorite waitstaff, favorite Maitre’d and favorite bartender. My mom would tell them one of her new dirty jokes and my dad would flirt with all the females.

No matter where they were in the world, from Singapore Fine Dining to the obscure small towns like Harlan, Kentucky Fine Dinning, they would always make instant friends with the entire staff of the restaurant they were patronizing, by inviting the staff to come by the bar they would go to after eating and offering to by them drinks. My mother, when she and my father visited a friend in a small town in Germany, made instant friends with the Burgermeister who was dinning next to them at a Fine Dinning restaurant because she invited him to go for drinks afterwards at his favorite watering hole. Today, they still correspond back and forth via the mail.

It was a rare opportunity for me to be able to join them, when I was old enough, and witness how my parents transformed right before my very eyes from the disciplinarians of the house into the most wonderful and delightful people anyone would ever like to meet. My parents were fun to hang around with and truly a revelation I will always treasure along with my friends who were also invited a few times and treated to a night of dressing up to Fine Dine, drink and laugh all night long. Surprisingly, my friends always ask me how my parents are doing and if they’ll ever be invited to go out with them again. Surprising because they are what you’d call non-conforming agitators, but for some reason, getting a chance to dress up and go out for the evening with my folks made them forget about their resolve and just enjoy. I will forever be grateful to my parents showing me a side of life that I rarely get a chance to do, Fine Dine and for letting me see that they are some much more than my parents, they are a gift to treasure and enjoy.

Chicken crossed the Road Less Travelled

You know that old joke? “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.’ As a young girl in kindergarten, it didn’t get it. I didn’t get why that was funny or profound. To me it made perfect sense. Of course it crossed the road to get to the other side. Children, at that age, do take every statement literally. Sometimes I still do, and I get the weirdest looks from people. For example: I was staying in one of the Business Hotels Singapore for business. Earlier that day, in a business meeting with my clients, one of them say to get someone tonight to sign a document giving permission to access one of our online analysis statistics spreadsheets. I took that statement literally, maybe it was my jet-lag, but I waited until it was night to do this. I mean, I literally waited until dark! Needless to say, my client was very upset I took so long to get him access to this information. My boss, my colleagues and my client, in not so polite words, told me to reconsider my career.

I’ve actually been reconsidering my career, my life, my boyfriend, well every aspect of my life really. My career, well I’m just a glorified paper pusher. All my so called mainstream friends think I have a fantastic career; I get to travel across the world. I just get time in the other countries I visit for business to push more paper there.  That day, in Singapore, I made a decision, I decided to take that road less travelled. To quit my well paying job, sell my big house, pull out my 401K, buy a used beat up RV and see what I’ve been missing. My boyfriend will break up with me, my friends will not understand and for sure my folks will disapprove. But, doesn’t sound wonderful? To drop out of the rat-race and join in the joy of not living up to other peoples expectations.

Hong Kong Waters

Consumers in Hong Kong are urged to respond in action to a global call for access to clean water. With the exception of the Water Supply Industry, all major utilities in Hong Kong are owned and operated by Hong Kongs private enterprises. In terms of price, returns, and productivity, the water supply industry in Hong Kong compared unfavourably with privately owed utilities. The financial performance of the Water Supplies Department (WSD)  has been deteriorating in recent years, especially in the Public Rental Housing (PRH) arena. In order to improve the performance of the water supply industry, the Hong Kong Government should consider inviting the private sector to run the industry. Hong Kong can learn from other countries with regard to reforms made in the water supply industry

The travel industries such as the Best Hong Kong Hotels and Hong Kongs Technology Research Centers in a joint effort with the Consumer Council has collaborated with the Water Supplies Department to heighten consumer awareness of the importance and need of maintaining a high quality of water supply at the taps. Although the quality of treated water from the WSD fully complies with the World Health Organization guidelines for drinking water and that more that 99.9% of residence have government water supply in Hong Kong, discolored or dirty tap water remains a source of consumer grievance.

To arouse public awareness and help consumers in their choice of service providers, the Hong Kong Consumer Council has surveyed the market in the cleaning of water tanks. And today quality fresh water supply in Public Rental Housing blocks have a guaranteed certification from the Water Supply Department for Fresh Water Plumbing Quality Maintenance Recognition Scheme (FWPQMRS). The WSD encourage building owners to maintain their plumbing properly and to provide it’s tenants with good quality tap water. The public is further advised that the task of cleaning water tanks should be performed only by personnel with appropriate experience and supervised by competent personnel.

The Intention of Healing

When I was in my twenties and participating in a weekend workshop for actors being held at a Singapore Boutique Hotel, I learned about Script Analysis. In that workshop they taught us about how to dissect a script and find our characters intentions. We had to do this for every line in the script our characters had. This was my first time having to understand what an intention was. Being young and not too worldly, concepts came slow to me, but learning about how not only my character has ‘intentions’, but how I have intentions. This was a powerful moment for me.

Now, twenty years later, I’m seeing all kinds of books and movies being made concerning intentions, like ‘What the Bleep’ which is all about scientific studies on how powerful thoughts and intentions really are in our lives. The power of intentions is based on the principle of ‘like attracts like.’ Whatever we focus our minds on, we will draw to us.  for example, if we have fearful thoughts, we will attract fearful situations and people to us, or if we have thoughts of peace and have inner balance we will attract peaceful situations and peace balanced people. It’s because our thoughts have a powerful effect in the physical world.

All of us have this power, but for some reason as children we were conditioned, educated about our limitations, about the skepticism of us having our own powers. Because of this conditioning we forgot about our innate abilities to manifest what we want; we were taught that all power is outside of us. But, there are now documented studies proving that our thoughts, our intentions do have power.  In one study, half of the participants that actually exercised were able to achieve a 30% increase in strength. The other half who just imagined themselves exercising achieved and astonishing 16% increase. Showing that virtual workouts can give the same effects as actually working out.  There are now journal after journal documenting such experiments. Seeing all this material being produced makes me wonder if when I learned about my character having intentions that I created an intention to be ready for the next phase of the true power behind intentions.

The Long Sit

I’ve been practicing a particular type of meditation Vipassana, Insight meditation. Seeing things as they really are; India’s most ancient techniques of meditation. It’s a non-sectarian technique taught by Gotama Buddha as a universal remedy for universal ills over 2600 years ago. I found out about this Vipassana Meditation technique when a good friend of mine told me that she just finished doing a 10-day sit recommended to her by one of her spa clients. She was all excited and told me that this meditation technique is life changing and amazing. She said there’s tons of Vipassana Meditation Centers around the world and there free. The centers do not charge to attend a 10-day sit. They even give you room and board.

I could tell in her voice that she was a changed person. She was more alive and calmer at the same time. I arranged a time to meet up with her a one of Singapore Best Spas, my favorite way to meet up with friends for a day, when we meet up I could ’see’ the change in her. I couldn’t wait for her to tell me all about what she learned. She and I have been meditation buddies for years, going from one spiritual center to another, learning how to meditate. There are so many techniques and so many ways to meditate, all promising a peace within. Some techniques require chanting a mantra, another is to visualize a deity and some focus on the breath, counting how many breaths you take. All of which my friend and I found lacking. Yes, after practicing these meditation techniques we did feel peaceful and happy, but it didn’t last.

She proceed to tell me that what she learned in those 10-days is a technique aimed for the total eradication of mental impurities and the results of the ultimate happiness of becoming fully liberated. This got my interest. She continued saying Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self observation of the mind and body interconnection. This definitely sounded like something I’ve never tried before. But, seeing how she glows, and it’s been a month since her 10-day sit, and how much joy is in her life, I decided to try it myself. To date, I’ve been to four 10-day sits and all I can say is that this Vipassana Meditation Technique is truly transforming and life changing.