Customer Service: Case Study

We all have stories of what our best and worst customer service experiences are. For some of you, this experience will make you a loyal customer for life or make sure that you never use that company again.

Below are two experiences that come to mind for me.

Worst

Our television service provider, who shall remain nameless (not a satellite company), is somewhat notorious for poor customer service. They have a good product, but if and when you need to have an issue resolved, it can be a train wreck of an experience.

For example, a few years ago we had to close our checking account. We had several monthly bills automatically withdrawn every month: electric, gas, water, cell phone, cable, etc. We called each of them, filled out paperwork, and were told the process for each.

When we contacted our cable provider, after waiting on hold for over twenty minutes, being disconnected, then connected to the wrong department, then finally transferred to a real person, we were told that this would be no problem. “Just fill out this form and send it in, and then next month the billing will come out of your new account.”

Fast forward two months. The billing is still coming from the old account or rather the closed account. And each time it does, there is a “bounced check” fee and late fees. After several rounds of calls and discussions, I was told, in a condescending, you’re-too-dumb-to-be-on-the-phone-with-me-manner, that I should know that it takes several months to change this process and there is nothing more we can do about YOUR PROBLEM.

The icing on the cake - after I refused to pay the fees, they finally managed to go into my new account and take the “late” fees out without asking, but still would not connect billing to my new account. 

Best

On the other hand, I do have an example of exemplary customer service, and it’s a familiar business -Publix.

Several of us could probably give a glowing story or two about this grocery store, however, I have long been a resentful shopper there. You see, I’m a cheapskate. I have been known to squeak a little when I walk. With that being said, I’m also a converted shopper to this place.

Last year I made a quick shopping trip in to get a few items I needed to make gumbo. I had my items in my basket and was ready to check out, when I realized that I had the wrong sausage (not the one Mr. Cheapie had a coupon for), so I set my basket down up front and ran back to get the right sausage. When I returned, my basket was gone. Was someone else too lazy to shop for their own gumbo items? No, the fast and friendly folks at Publix had noticed the unattended basket and put the items back where they came from.

When I asked an employee where they may be, he asked for my grocery list that was in my hand, and took off. He was fast, too. In just a few minutes, he returned with the items on my grocery list, wiped the sweat from his brow, and apologized for the inconvenience.

Now this is not ground breaking stuff here, but I could just imagine if this happened elsewhere, the reaction would have been much different. 

As a small business owner, you have a choice.  An easy choice.  Do you want to provide customer service that is so good that people have to talk about it or do you want to provide service so bad, that people have to talk about it? 

Avoiding the IT Money Pit

Though many businesses still require an in-house IT manager, it might be more efficient and cost effective to outsource some of your IT functions, so that in-house IT staff can focus on critical projects.

But, choosing the right IT solution and service provider can be challenging, especially when you’re not sure what your business needs. Companies around the world pump $2 trillion into IT each year—billions of which is actually wasted on unnecessary or ineffective IT “solutions.” So, how do you know if you need state-of-the-art IT, or just the basics?

To help you keep your IT spending under control, here are some indicators that “good enough" IT might be right for your business:

 If you have a smaller budget.  Knowing how much to spend on IT can be difficult for many decision makers. So, just recognize that IT costs can get very expensive — especially if you’re paying for all the bells and whistles that many IT vendors offer. If you don’t need cutting-edge equipment or 24/7 monitoring and service, don’t pay for it.

 If IT isn’t a critical function of your business.  Could your business survive for an afternoon if your system crashed? If brief downtime won’t significantly hinder your business, you probably don’t need to pay for IT services that guarantee repairs within a few hours. Determine what your business absolutely needs in terms of reliability and responsiveness, and select an IT solution in line with your critical needs.

 If you have fewer than ten employees.  When you’re running a very small business, you have less equipment and hardware to worry about. With very few employees, you probably only need basic IT support and hardware controls to effectively and affordably manage your team. You will still need reactive on-call service to support your network if you have a problem, but proactive maintenance tracking programs might be overkill.

Let Modern Office Methods IT Service Group help you to focus on your end user’s business continuity by keeping your employees working and productive with our Managed IT Services. Check out all of our Managed Network Services and contact us for more information at info@momnet.com.

The best 5 online marketing strategies for small business

Building marketing strategies for small businesses

If your goal is success in business, it is crucial to have an strong online internet marketing strategy in order to be able to increase on sales and profitability, and to be successful in today's competitive online economy. Small businesses that are mainly conducting their business with online marketing need to seriously consider the following online marketing strategy list which will help grow their online business successfully:

Developing a Content Marketing Strategy

This strategy is based on providing existing and prospective customers with all information pertaining to your business, service or product. This information can be delivered out to customers by way of articles, blogs, printed brochures and press releases on the website of the small business. The content delivered, should consist of high quality, highlighting the purpose and benefits of the business along with any USPs of the business. You need to be able to create interest for your target audience so that they can be drawn to your business and even inform others about it by word of mouth advertising.

Smart Search Engine Marketing tactics

This marketing tactic is imperative for a small business by giving them an opportunity to be able to compete even with their much larger competitors through visibility on search engines. Using search engine optimization, you will be able to enhance your visibility to your target audience by obtaining a good search engine ranking on Google especially.

Improve Your Local Search Marketing Strategy

This tactic includes the optimization of a website for search engine results, but is also inclusive of the function of maps with search engines like Google. Through this strategy, your small business can be listed with address information and mapping to give a brief set of information to your customers for visiting your business. Customer services like your website address and phone number may also be listed through this Local Search Marketing Strategy. With the help of the above mentioned online marketing tools and strategies, you can be sure to enhance the presence, visibility and awareness needed for the success and prosperity of any small business.

Effective Email Marketing Strategies

This e-marketing strategy revolves around the creation and building of an email list of all present and potential customers which will include their names and emails. This strategy is more customized as individuals receive emails through which you can engage with them on a regular basis even when they are not purchasing from you. This is a good way of staying in touch with your customers via informative emails, and exclusive discounts, reminding them about your business offerings and why they should choose to buy from you. Email opt-ins can also be placed on your website for conducting email conversations.

Social Media Marketing Plan that work

This e-marketing strategy is useful for strengthening your customer base, using the power of the social media to influence them into purchasing your products or services. Social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Facebook are highly beneficial for keeping current and prospective customers informed and updated about the happenings, upcoming events and incentives and latest additions of any small business. It is also an important source of getting to know the demands, desires, and expectations of customers along with being aware of the feedback they provide.

Cool Printing Trends You'll Want to Know About

When it comes to printing technologies, innovation never stops. The casual observer might not think much has changed in the printing industry in recent years, but many new print technologies have emerged that will soon revolutionize the way documents—and even objects—are produced. 

Being in the know about upcoming and transformative printing technologies gives you a competitive advantage and ensures you’ll have access to the latest advancements when the timing is right for your business.

Here are some of the emerging printing trends to look out for:

Diversity of Media Types 
Many industries and companies need to print specialized items, such as product packaging or on-demand banners. By expanding the various media types and paper weight (gsm) that printers can accommodate, businesses have more flexibility to produce the documents and printed materials they need. 

Ricoh Pro C7110X: Media Handling Video

 White & Clear Toner 

This is cool stuff! White and clear toner gives you the ability to really add value and flare to your printed documents. With clear ink, you can flood coat a document to enhance its appearance, or you can spot coat only the headline text, so the words seem to jump off the page. Using white or clear toner also allows businesses to produce eye-catching effects—such as creating metallic designs, applying custom clear-coat watermarks, or highlighting photos or objects on marketing collateral. More and more print manufacturers are offering white or clear toner options, expanding this new technology across many different industries and applications. 

Ricoh Pro C7110X: WHITE & CLEAR Toner Video

3D Printing 

You’ve probably heard about 3D printing already, but the technology itself is quickly becoming more advanced and more attainable at the same time. The latest 3D printers are now smaller, faster, and cheaper than previous versions, which means this technology will likely find its way into more industries and businesses sooner than many experts previously thought. 3D printers will likely be integrated into many healthcare and manufacturing settings in the very near future, but with nearly endless applications, the technology will soon expand to many other industries.

The print industry is constantly changing and evolving to meet consumer needs and demands. Contact us today to learn more about these emerging printing trends and check out the Production Print page on our website for more videos and information!

Top 7 Common SEO Mistakes That People Makes

Do You Make Any of These 7 Simple SEO Mistakes ?

There's a lot of buzz about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and many businesses are looking at ways to increase their website visibility with the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing).
I am going to show you 7 “SEO mistakes" that holding back people from their success. Before you start doing SEO optimization for your site or for your client sites it is important for you to read about SEO mistakes in 2016.

 If you have made the investment in an SEO program for your business site, you'll want to make certain that you're not making any of these SEO optimization mistakes:

1. No SEO strategy. How will you know you're reaching your SEO marketing goals if there's no plan ? SEO can easily become a waste of time and money when there is no strategy or action plan. A clear solid strategy helps ensure that all your online efforts work together to rank your site in first page.

2. Social media marketing. You need to post a good helpful and relevant content to keep your fans and followers coming back to your page and sharing your posts.

3. keyword stuffing penalty. Google penalizes websites that load their pages and meta tags with keywords or numbers. According to Google experts, this includes cities, zip codes, and phone numbers. Not only will it not boost your SEO, it will hurt it.

4. Inadequate keyword research. you cannot predict how users search for the products or services in your site content. There are a lot of keyword research tools online; you should use them.

5. bad building links strategy Using poor quality or broken links (includes spammy links). Low quality links don't serve any useful purpose to search engine users, and this flies in the face of the user experience Google wants for them. It's viewed by Google as manipulation of search results and negatively impacts SEO. In addition, buying or selling links is a direct violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

6. Publishing Too Often: Google has stopped favoring sites that update too often content. it means, publishing too often may penalize your Google site ranking. It is very strange that many seo experts or “SEO Gurus” still recommends writing content too often.

7. Focusing Too Much On On-Page SEO: Probably you already know what is On-page SEO optimization? I don’t want to waste your time in explaining On-page SEO optimization. For exemple There is many WordPress Plugins that can help you optimize your page but focusing too much on On-page SEO is one of the biggest mistakes that people are making in this 2016 world of SEO. On-Page is important but. If you want to rank your site the first page on Google you have to hard working on a good quality link building and relevant content.

Common IT Mistakes Small Businesses Should Avoid

In the modern business world everyone depends on technology in the office, no matter how small your business is. As such, the decisions you make regarding the technology you depend on to do business are more important than you may think. Not being smart when it comes to your company’s IT situation can create pitfalls that prevent you from being as successful as you could be.

Knowing which IT missteps are commonly made by small businesses can help you avoid making these same blunders. Here are some of the most frequently made IT mistakes to avoid:

• Failing to Protect Your Data – Your company’s data is invaluable, so there is no excuse for not keeping that information safe and sound. Is your confidential data safeguarded against potential security breaches? Are you prepared for an emergency, such as theft, fire, flood, or server failure? Are your files and records backed up for disaster recovery purposes? Adequately protecting your data includes physical security (a firewall), network security (anti-virus/spyware), and backing up your information. In addition, regularly educate and update your employees about Internet and mobile security and safety.

• Not Changing with the Times – Technology is always changing, and businesses must keep up on the latest innovations and products to stay ahead of the competition. Keeping current with the latest technologies can help prevent your company from ending up with outdated, inefficient equipment and software.

• Choosing the Wrong IT Provider – The right IT provider doesn’t just sell you equipment; they manage that equipment, as well. They have the goals of your company in mind and proactively provide solutions to help you achieve those goals.

• Employing Unreasonable Password Requirements – Passwords are essential, but your password policy must be reasonable to be effective. While weak or non-existent passwords are unacceptable, making your requirements so strict that employees must resort to writing passwords on sticky notes undermines your policy.

• Leaving Everything in One Employee’s Hands – You might be impressed that a single person in your office knows all of your passwords and how everything works, but you could be setting yourself up for an enormous problem. What would you do if that employee decided to leave, or became incapacitated due to illness or injury? As the saying goes, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

Don’t fall into the same traps that many small businesses do when it comes to managing their IT. Avoid these common mistakes to help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible. For more information about MOM's IT Services, visit our website at www.momnet.com/Managed-Network-Services.

Building your website ? Learn the tools, that will help you

If you’re ready to launch a new website for your startup, personal blog, portfolio, or anything else, getting things up and running can often be a daunting and expensive process. The collection of these  tools will help you build and launch your next website—even if you have limited or no coding or design experience.

1. Carrd

Simple, responsive, one-page sites for pretty much anything.

A free service for building and hosting simple, responsive, one-page websites for anything and everything. There are a bunch of other sites that help you build out one-pagers, but the biggest differentiator here is the simplicity and easy of use, while not compromising on your ability to create a functional and beautifully designed website.

2. Template Stash

Curated collection of best free themes & website templates.

A curated collection of the best free website templates. Each one is evaluated based on: visual appeal, ease of customization, and functionality. You can search for what you’re looking for by category, keyword, and creator, which makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. Bonus: There are also collections dedicated to specific design trends, like “material design” and “modern portfolio.”

3. Bubble

Build a fully functional web app without any code.

Without any code knowledge, this tool helps you build web and mobile applications. The intuitive drag and drop builder allows you to easily add page elements like: text, videos, maps, icons, images, buttons, and more. Everything is customizable, down to font colors, icons, and the visibility of various elements based on what’s going on in the app you design.

4. HTML to WordPress

Convert HTML website to WordPress theme in seconds.

This tool converts static HTML websites into WordPress. If you’re looking to switch your site over, this will help you automate a lot of the manual work. Just upload a website into the tool and after a few seconds, it’ll convert into a fully functional, premium quality WordPress theme—activated and installed. All of the designers and developers, rejoice!

5. Tilda Publishing

Build beautiful websites and tell stories without any code.

A website building platform geared toward content-oriented sites. There are over 170 pre-designed blocks that enable you to drag and drop your way toward a fully customizable website. All pages you create with this tool are built to look great across all devices, which is a nice thing to not have to worry about if you’re not a coder. This is a fantastic option for those looking to build blogs, lookbooks, event reports, and more.

6. XPRS

Free website builder — making web design like Lego™. No code.

If you’ve ever been frustrated with the process of building a website because it was too complicated, confusing, and/or expensive, this product will make it so much easier (and fun). Use a collection of premium web designs, reliable hosting, and a simple editing environment to get your next web project up in no time. What’s special about this tool is that you build your site with polydoms (smart content blocks), allowing for endless customization. It really is like playing with digital Legos™.

7. Grav

Modern open source flat-file CMS to build faster websites.

A more complex tool, built for developers with some experience. This open source flat-file CMS allows you to build faster websites. The idea: With static HTML pages, you can’t do anything dynamic like query data, edit content via an admin interface, process forms, etc. Grav is “processed at runtime,” allowing you to do the same things you could do with Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress. There are countless features, including: site-wide and per-page routing and redirection, a visual debug panel, multi-language support, flexible taxonomies, a built-in asset manager, and much more.