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Hold messages: tips to avoid irking clients

When your customers call your support hotline, they want to be connected to a helpful customer service representative, not experience another hassle. But when they get irked by your unprofessional on-hold messaging system, they can get doubly frustrated and become harder to appease.

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13 Jun, 2017 / by Complete Technology Resources / in VoIP category
Hold messages: tips to avoid irking clients

When your customers call your support hotline, they want to be connected to a helpful customer service representative, not experience another hassle. But when they get irked by your unprofessional on-hold messaging system, they can get doubly frustrated and become harder to appease. Here are some tips to make your on-hold messages pleasant to your customers.

Use professionally recorded messages

A small nuisance like minimal static might not cause annoyance, but an unprofessional on-hold message certainly will. Banking on in-house resources such as your employees recording your on-hold messages might seem cost-efficient, but the poor quality of the recording could backfire.

To avoid this, hire professional voice talents for your company’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. They’ll enhance your company’s brand by conveying messages in a professional, friendly, and pleasant manner. Professionals have impressive enunciation and exceptional voice skills, and they’ll record messages using high-quality equipment.

Keep callers engaged with pleasant on-hold music

Your company’s on-hold music should be relaxing, well modulated (not too loud or too soft), and on-brand. If you don’t have the right recording equipment, hire professionals. Otherwise, your message may end up sounding distorted and the recording may produce static. It’s a small thing, but it can spell the difference between keeping customers and driving them away.

Offer an easy way to speak to a person

To solve time-sensitive issues such as overcharged billing or an ongoing service issue, customers would rather speak to someone who can reverse a charge or file an urgent customer report. Businesses that rely too much on recorded messages that spin a complex web of voice prompts risk frustrating their customers.

Companies that deal with a large volume of inquiries can combine the efficiency of an IVR and personalized assistance by offering an option that lets callers quickly get connected to a customer service representative.

Provide clear, useful information

According to a study, 83% of customers prefer human interaction over automated channels when solving customer service issues. Nevertheless, IVRs offer an efficient way to dispense non-critical information such as business operating hours, special offers, and minor account updates.

Automated responses also offer an appreciable value to businesses that need to funnel their most important customer service calls into the right customer support channels. When deploying an IVR system, your on-hold messages should provide information that’s up-to-date, concise, and useful.

Some of these issues can be solved using advanced VoIP solutions that not only automate and upgrade your customer support functions, but also turn it into a superior messaging system that can appease unhappy clients. Call us now for VoIP solutions that will help you integrate these tips into your customer support system.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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Using Pinterest to market your SMB

Many small- and medium-sized businesses are abandoning traditional marketing methods in favor of social media platforms, and for good reason. Take Pinterest, for example, whose latest product “DIY Promoted Pins” allows businesses to promote their Pins to increase click-throughs, improve reach, and potentially drive more website traffic.

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12 Jun, 2017 / by Complete Technology Resources / in Social Media category
Using Pinterest to market your SMB

Many small- and medium-sized businesses are abandoning traditional marketing methods in favor of social media platforms, and for good reason. Take Pinterest, for example, whose latest product “DIY Promoted Pins” allows businesses to promote their Pins to increase click-throughs, improve reach, and potentially drive more website traffic. But wait, there’s more.

Know your audience
According to a study conducted by Ahalogy and AcuPOLL Precision Research, Inc., Pinterest is largely used by women, mostly “Millennial Moms.” If your typical customer demographic is predominantly male, your marketing efforts would probably be better spent elsewhere. But if your business caters to women between the ages 15-29, you should consider creating an online presence on Pinterest.

Think like a content marketer
Users are looking for engaging content, which is why 59% of active Pinterest users go for Pins that lead to blog posts, articles, and even photos. The most popular topics on the platform are more visual (e.g., food, fashion, decor, etc.), so if you don't have highly visual content, then infographics, images from blog entries, and even photos of staff members also do the trick.

Look for inspiration
Getting stuck in a creative rut happens to the best of us, so check out the boards that are saving your Pins to get some fresh insight. There's a good chance that people saving your Pins have related content that can help you gain insight into what your typical customer is interested in. Not only that, it also helps you identify trends and come up with new ideas for a marketing campaign.

Categorize your boards
By creating and properly labeling multiple boards -- one for each of your products or services -- your users are able to engage not only with your general content but also with content they’re more interested in.

Determine posting frequency
Excessive pinning might overwhelm or simply annoy your audience, but not pinning enough might cause followers to lose interest. Create a posting schedule and gauge audience reaction before making any changes to the frequency of Pins.

In order to surpass the stiff competition, you’ll need all the help you can get, and that includes social media marketing. If you have any questions about Pinterest and how it can help your business grow, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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Fixing computers drains your firm’s funds

Aside from overseeing your business’s network security, IT security staff are also adept at fixing personal computers. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they should. In fact, such occurrences ought to be minimized, if not avoided altogether.

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09 Jun, 2017 / by Complete Technology Resources / in Security category
Fixing computers drains your firm’s funds

Aside from overseeing your business’s network security, IT security staff are also adept at fixing personal computers. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they should. In fact, such occurrences ought to be minimized, if not avoided altogether. Your security personnel should be focusing on more pressing issues. But if they’re toiling over PC repairs, not only is your staff’s energy drained, but your IT budget plummets, too.

Cost of fixes

According to a survey of technology professionals, companies waste as much as $88,660 of their yearly IT budget as a result of having security staff spend an hour or more per work week fixing colleagues’ personal computers. The ‘wasted amount’ was based on an average hourly salary of IT staff multiplied by 52 weeks a year. Other than knowing how much time is wasted, what makes things worse is that IT security staff are among the highest paid employees in most companies.

The fixes have mostly to do with individual rather than department- or company-wide computer problems that don’t necessarily benefit the entire company. The resulting amount is especially staggering for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) whose limited resources are better off spent on business intelligence tools and other network security upgrades.

Other costs

All those hours spent on fixing personal computers often means neglecting security improvements. The recent WannaCry ransomware attacks, which successfully infected 300,000 computers in 150 countries, demonstrate the dangers of failing to update operating system security patches on time. It should be a routine network security task that, if ignored, can leave your business helpless in the face of a cyber attack as formidable as WannaCry. It didn’t make much money, but had it been executed better, its effects would have been more devastating to businesses, regardless of size.

Profitable projects could also be set aside because of employees’ PC issues. For SMBs with one or two IT staff, this is especially detrimental to productivity and growth. They can easily increase their IT budgets, but if employees’ negligible computer issues keep occurring and systems keep crashing, hiring extra IT personnel won’t do much good.

What businesses should do

The key takeaway in all this is: Proactive IT management eliminates the expenditure required to fix problematic computers. Bolstering your entire IT infrastructure against disruptive crashes is the first step in avoiding the wasteful use of your staff’s time and your company’s money.

Even if your small business has the resources to hire extra staff, the general shortage of cyber security skills also poses a problem. Ultimately, the solution shouldn’t always have to be increasing manpower, but rather maximizing existing resources.

Having experts proactively maintain your IT eliminates the need to solve recurring small issues and lets your staff find a better use for technology resources. If you need non-disruptive technology, call us today for advice.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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How to keep Mac computers safe

When it comes to Mac devices, data privacy and security should be your #1 priority, not an afterthought. Without implementing sufficient security measures, you’re leaving the door open for cybercriminals to ransack your sensitive data. Keep your bases covered and fortify Mac security with these six tips:

The basics
Let’s start with the basics and head over to the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences.

The post How to keep Mac computers safe appeared first on Complete Technology Resources, Inc..

08 Jun, 2017 / by Complete Technology Resources / in Security, Tips category
How to keep Mac computers safe

When it comes to Mac devices, data privacy and security should be your #1 priority, not an afterthought. Without implementing sufficient security measures, you’re leaving the door open for cybercriminals to ransack your sensitive data. Keep your bases covered and fortify Mac security with these six tips:

The basics
Let’s start with the basics and head over to the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences. Here, you’ll find four tabs -- General, FileVault, Firewall, and Privacy -- that control various aspects of security. To change your security settings, click on the padlock on the bottom of the screen and type in your username and password.

Firewall
Enabling the firewall will block unwanted incoming network connections. Many think it is enabled by default, but often it’s not. All you need to do is click the Firewall tab in the System Preferences > Security & Privacy pane, click the padlock icon on the bottom left, enter your username and password, and click the ‘Turn On Firewall’ button. Don’t forget to enable Stealth Mode by clicking the Firewall Options button and then clicking Enable Stealth Mode in the dialog box -- this makes your computer invisible on public networks.

Passwords
Make sure to set strong passwords for your user accounts if you don't already have one. To do this, go back to the 'General' section of the Security & Privacy settings. In this section, you should also consider setting the Require Password field to 'immediately.' This makes it so that you'll need to re-enter your login credentials to unlock your Mac when it goes to sleep or when a screen saver begins.

Automatic login
It’s best to disable this function, especially if you are using a mobile Mac. If your Mac gets stolen, you don’t want to give thieves a free pass to your private data.

Applications
At the bottom of the General Settings tab, there are three options that authorize which apps can run on your Mac. The safest option is to allow only apps from the App Store to run, and the least secure option is to allow apps from anywhere. Get the best of both worlds by choosing the option of running apps from the App Store and from developers known to Apple.

FileVault
The FileVault tab enables you to encrypt all the files in your user account. To decrypt them, you must enter either your account password or the recovery key you created when you switched FileVault on. It might be tedious to type in a password every time to access a file, but it helps keep your vital data under lock and key.

In this digital age, ensuring the protection of all your devices is crucial to your business’s success. Because all it takes is a tiny leak to sink your ship. Feel free to give us a call and we'll help prepare your business for choppy waters.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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