This is going to be a big week for Apple with the launch of iOS 7 and their 2 new phones, the iPhone 5c and 5s but along with the new OS comes iWork.  iWork is Apple’s answer to Microsoft Office online option and Google Docs (now called Drive).  Apple has decided to give iWork away for free to customers purchasing new iOS 7 devices.  That will include new iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.

This freebie may be a big deal or just a splash in a large pond.  The real question is will you consider using iWork on your iPad?  What about for kids, will this be a suitable resource for their school work?

I for one have used SkyDrive which is the free version of Office (in the cloud), Google Docs and iWorks Pages (on iOS), the first two are competent word processors but unless Apple updates Pages and more than likely all of iWork I don’t think it will come even close to being able to play in the big leagues of the other two cloud services.  iWork looks very basic and unpolished at this point.  Granted it is a cloud version still in beta but the iOS app is not though still lacks a great deal of functionality and modern necessities.  Unlike Google Docs you can’t collaborate with others to input data into a spreadsheet or document.  This is 2013 soon to be 2014 and that’s a basic feature and necessity, at least it is to me.

My personal pet peeve in Pages on iOS and in the cloud is not being able to easily add and edit hyperlinks.  I’m writing this post in iWork (beta) on a computer browser and I’m unable to add a hyperlink to an old Phone.com blog post and on my iPad it’s a ridiculous experience to try to create hyperlinks.  I will have to complete writing this blog post by copying and pasting it into Google Docs add the hyperlinks to the post I’ve already written.  This is an injustice to the user and a sad state of affairs IF this is what’s going to be presented to the public this week.

I for one will stick to composing all of my documents in Google Drive and on the rare occurrence I’m not able to edit or email the document to a Microsoft Word user I’ll use my MS Office suite on my computer for this purpose.  I hope Apple will fix Pages because at this point I wasted the $10 I spent buying it on the iPad.  Maybe that will change this week, we will just have to wait and see.  

Anyone with children knows that every child will inevitably resort to throwing a tantrum to try to get their way.  If they continue to do it, it’s probably because they end up getting what they wanted.  Customers  can often be the same way and in a world where so many companies believe “The customer is always right” the customer usually does get their way.

On Friday, September 13 at 1pm Eastern, Jenny Dempsey (@jennysuedempsey) and Jeremy Watkin (@jtwatkin) will be hosting a Coffee And Customer Service Hangout with a couple of our awesome customer service representatives to discuss this topic from the perspective of a customer service professional.  You can tune into the hangout live on YouTube or go to CommunicateBetterBlog.com to see it in its entirety.  They will tweet a link to the hangout from @commbetterblog prior to the event.  We hope you can join us!

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… and if you missed it live… here is the video: 

Companies are learning that sometimes the old method is best, at least when it comes to communication. Emailing has it’s place but when giving a sales pitch to a potential customer or conducting an interview, a phone call is usually the better choice if it can’t be done in person.  Granted voice calls can be obtrusive and force people to stop what they’re doing to talk but isn’t that better than losing a sale because the customer didn’t feel like typing?

Younger workers may be fluent in technologies that their older counterparts may have never heard of.  On the other hand according to Mary Jane Copps a phone-use consultant: “For many people, it’s a lack of confidence that they’ll be able to say the right words in the right order in the right amount of time,”.  Those “older” employees are typically more comfortable on the phone. They may be faster on their “feet” in terms of answering questions because they didn’t grow up taking their time to respond to a text message, when someone called they had to talk to them at that moment.

Some small business owners have seen a decline in sales due to their younger Millennial employees sending sales pitches to potential customers instead of making a call.  It’s much harder to build a relationship and rapport with a client via email then it is by phone.  In a Wall Street Journal article last week “Jason Nazar, a 34-year-old Santa Monica, Calif.-based technology entrepreneur, says his company has missed out on potential hires because his 20-something employees schedule interviews by email, rather than phoning applicants” Jason was quoted saying “If you can do something more quickly and more efficiently by using older technology, then do it,”

Dana Brownlee a Corporate trainer explained in the WSJ article that one of her clients “recently had to teach his young employee what a dial tone was and explain that desktop phones don’t require you to press “Send.”  So pick up a phone next time it is beneficial to talk to the recipient.

Ari Rabban, CEO will be speaking at the NJTECH Meetup on Monday, September 16 2013.

The event will be sold out and will take place at the Howe Center – Stevens Institute of Technology. For More information click here.