23 December 2002 - Holiday Reminders

Keen Customer Service Holiday Hours
In observance of the Christmas holiday, Keen Customer Service will be closing at 10:00 PM GMT(2:00 pm PST) on Tuesday, December 24, and will be closed on Wednesday, December 25. We will return to our normal business hours on Thursday, December 26, 3:00 PM GMT (7:00 am PST) to 7:00 AM GMT (11:00 pm PST).

In observance of the New Year's holiday, Keen Customer Service will be closing at 3:00 AM GMT (7:00 pm PST) on Wednesday, January 1, and will be closed on Wednesday, January 1, 2003. Keen will return to normal business hours on Thursday, January 2, 3:00 PM GMT (7:00 am PST) to 7:00 AM GMT (11:00 pm PST).

Holiday Payment
If you have requested payment, you will not see a debit on the 1st of the month as you normally would for the money you generated on Keen. Expect a debit from your Keen account on the January 2 instead.

We hope you have a safe and joyous holidays.

Best,

The Keen Advisor Team

13 November 2002 - Integration of Keen Mail, Customer Lists and Send Invitations

Great news – You can now use the Keen Mail feature to send invitations and attachments to your customer lists. How can these improvements increase your business on Keen? Take a look:

• Access Send Invitations, customer lists and your Keen Mail in one place for a faster, more functional and easier to use experience.
• Send "Pay-to-View" Keen Mail with attachments (photos, business plans, charts, etc.) to your customer lists for a new revenue stream.
• Send Invitations to your customer lists for free minutes straight from your Keen Mail by selecting "Offer" from the "Type of Keen Mail" drop-down menu.

Creating and using customer lists is a great way to manage your My Customer database and to differentiate between your clients. Be sure to get the most out of your My Customers database by using your customer lists. Here are a couple of ways you can access your customer lists from Keen Mail:

• Click "To:" and this will bring up your address book
• Click "Member Names" and this will bring up address book, as well
• Or click "Customer Lists" to send Keen Mail to your favorite lists of customers

Please let us know how we can improve this new feature by emailing us.

Best,
The Keen Advisor Team

24 October 2002 - Coming Soon on Keen.co.uk

My Favorite Advisors
Your customers will be able to create custom lists containing all their favorite advisors. Your customers wanted it and we've built it, and you're going to love this new feature as well. Why?

• Because it will be easier than ever for your customers to call you.
• Even members who've never called you can easily add you to their Favorite List by clicking a button that appears on all of your listings (remember, this will make your feedback, ratings and your listing's appearance more important than ever).

New, Improved "My Results" Page for Featured Listings
The My Results page for your Featured Listings will have 2 improvements to help you better measure the results from your investment.

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• Total Clicks will show all the clicks your Featured Listing received -- not just the "qualified clicks" that you've been charged for. These statistics will show you the full extent of exposure your listing is getting while you're featuring it.
• All Listings will be the new "default sort" (the way you see your results displayed when you first come to the page) when you're viewing My Results. Starting off by seeing the results for all the listings that you have had featured will make it more clear how your overall Featured Listings investment is doing.

New Home Page
As a continuing effort to improve our members' experience on Keen.co.uk, we've given our home page a makeover! Extensive usability testing has shown that the new home page is easier to understand and use and, basically, just a friendly, warm place for your customers to visit when they need advice.

Here is a sneak preview of the home page:



Existing Keen.co.uk customers will see a slightly different version of this page, one that includes direct links to useful information, including "My Favorite Advisors" and "My Special Offers," which will make finding their favorite advisors easier than ever! The new designs will be live in the next week. Be sure to visit us and see for yourself!

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions on all these improvements.

Best,
The Keen Advisor Team

15 October 2002 - Featured Listings Improved

Thank you! Many of you participated in the Featured Listings Beta and we appreciate it. This new feature has been a great success for many advisors. We also have received a lot of great feedback and have made many improvements based on your suggestions.

As a token of our appreciation, we're matching all advisors' accounts with the funds they used to feature their listings during this Beta test period. For example, if you invested £25 promoting your listings with this feature, you will see a £25 Featured Listing credit in your Keen account. This credit can be used to feature your listing again with all of the improvements we've made during this Beta period. The credit will expire in 30 days, so be sure to use it before then. And since the test period has ended, your My Results section will start from scratch or have zero results.

The improvements we've made include, but are not limited to, the following:

Your Ratings Count

• To indicate that listings appearing below Featured Listings are the highest rated, we've written "Top Available" on their tab instead of "All Listings." We realize that you have worked hard to get where you are, and you should be recognized for it.
• We are considering renaming "Featured Listings" to indicate that these listings are paid for. If you are for a change, then tell us your suggestions for a new name.

Quality Matters

• Listings with negative ratings cannot be made a Featured Listing.
• In the coming weeks, Featured Listings will be required to have a photo.

Clicks That You're Not Charged For

• Clicks from your customers (members that have called you in the past 30 days). So if one of your customers clicks on your Featured Listing, you will not be charged.
• A single customer can only account for one qualified click on your listing per 24 hours, and are limited in the total number of qualified clicks they can cause.
• Clicks from customers who do not have a credit card added to their Keen account.
• Clicks from other Advisors.
• Clicks from Keen employees.

Tips for Success
We realize, however, that your top priority is to see a return on your investment in Featured Listings. So remember:

• You are bidding for qualified clicks and not necessarily for placement or for calls. We designed the bid system around clicks instead of calls so that quality advisors like you with positive feedback would have an advantage over lower quality advisors, who would have to pay for more clicks before a customer would call them.
• Don't overbid - even if you're not in the top five spots you will still be advertised to customers. Bid at a level where you will still earn money while growing your business.
• All level of advisors are seeing success, including those who are not necessarily in the top five Featured Listings. Make sure to read the newly created Tips and Strategies section designed to better help you understand how to get the most out of y our Featured Listings investment.

Coming Soon:

• My Customers search, a clickable alphabet navigation and delete functions for your My Customers database. This will enable you to more easily find and mange your customers so you can retain them better on Keen.
• More detailed click data on Featured Listings in your Account Activity > My Results. This way, you can see exactly when each click occurred and how many clicks your listing received while featured.
• A special section explaining Featured Listings to Keen customers.

As always, please continue to send us your feedback and suggestions.

Thanks,

The Keen Advisor Team

10 October 2002 - Important News

Due to an increase in international long distance rates, Keen will be raising long distance rates customers pay when calling your Keen.co.uk listing. The increase in rates will not take effect until 23/10/02. On average, the increase works out to be £0.05 per minute for calls outside the UK. The new rates will be published on 23/10/02 on www.keen.co.uk. We encourage you to take a look at the new rates by visiting here after 23/10/02.

These increased rates will not affect your overall revenue. The slight increase will be automatically added to your rate per minute for customer's calling from locations outside the UK. If a customer is calling you from within the UK there will be no rate increase.

Thanks,

The Keen Advisor Team

20 August 2002 - Grace Minute on Keen Calls

Based on your feedback, as of August 21st, 2002, Keen Calls will no longer include grace minutes, the 60-second period during which Speakers are reconnected, without being paid, to Seekers who have decided not to add money to their account.

Why is this good for you as a Speaker on Keen?

• Gives you more control over your time
• No more giving away free minutes
• Get paid for the minutes you're on the phone

If the caller asks what the tone was, you can briefly explain that it means he or she has 1 minute left. Also, when you reach a good stopping point, press the pound key (#). Your caller will be prompted to rate the call. You'll hear your earnings from this call and will be able to decide whether you want to remain available to receive more calls.

Here is how it will work:

• Prior to connecting with you, the Seeker will hear a prompt that says, "Hang on while we contact the person you selected. You will hear a tone (tone is played) 60 seconds before you'll need to add to your account."
• Then, 60 seconds prior to the Seeker running out of money, you’ll both hear the tone.
• Once the Seeker has run out of funds, they'll be interrupted to add to their accounts. Those who do will be reconnected to you; those who don't will go right into rating the call.
• If the Seeker only has enough for 1 minute at the beginning of the call, they'll hear the tone shortly after you begin talking.

In short: you spoke, and we listened. Keep those ideas and suggestions coming!

Thanks,
The Speaker Team

31 July 2002 - Keen Mail Auto-Reply

The Auto-Reply option lets you create a personal message that will be sent in response to all incoming Keen Mails, letting your customers know that you're away and will get back to them when you return. Here are some things you can say in your Auto-Reply email:

• What dates you'll be away on vacation.
• How long you won't be answering Keen Mail.
• How soon you'll be able to get back to the person who wrote to you.

And whatever else you want to tell your customers, new and old, while you're away!
You can find Auto-Reply under Options on your Keen Mail page. All you need to do to activate this new feature is:

• Check the box located under Auto-Reply in Keen Mail Options.
• Type your custom message in the box provided
• Click "Submit" to turn the feature on.

And to turn off Auto-Reply when you return, all you have to do is uncheck the box and click "Submit" again.

You can also manage your Keen Mail Forwarding, Call Back Emails, and Group Invitations by visiting Options under Keen Mail.

Thanks,

The Speaker Team
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