We are proud to announce that we are a finalist for the New York Enterprise Report Small Business Awards in the Customer Service Best Practice Category.

For the past eight years, the New York Enterprise Report (NYER) has recognized the Tri-state areas top companies for their business practices. This year, Phone.com is proud to announce that we are among the 30 companies that were selected as Best Practice Award and Best of the Year Award finalists out of dozens of qualified applicants.

From the NYER site:
“The newly revamped awards event will take place on October 9, 2013 at the Hilton New York. Finalists and winners will have the opportunity to network at the newly revamped awards ceremony showcasing the best small businesses in the NY metro area. Winners will be announced in front of the “who’s who” business community. We hope you celebrate with us by purchasing a journal ad or ticket. Visit http://nyreport.com/awards for more information.”

Congratulations to our entire Phone.com team and in particular our customer service department.

At Phone.com we’re very proud of Jeremy Watkin, our Director of Customer Service. He’s on the Huffington Post list of 100 Most Social Customer Service Pros On Twitter. Jeremy is a very compassionate and caring individual and combining that with social media and his Communicate Better Blog (co-created with Jenny Dempsey, our customer service manager) makes him our #1 customer service pro.

When I talk to people about what phone they want next the conversation inevitably makes its way to Android or iOS. I’m sure most of you have had this chat with someone before. I’ve finally made my choice and I want to share it with you. I’ve thought about this a great deal and up to this point I’ve always tried to be neutral and I will tend to continue down that road for the most part but now I know I lean toward iOS for more than just “it looks nicer”, “it’s easier to use” or “it has more apps”.

All the time I hear these excuses and they’ve been valid but are losing their importance due to Android rapidly evolving. The one thing that hasn’t changed is security. It’s a big deal but what does that really mean? Well it was brought to the surface for me recently. I’m running the new beta Apple iPhone operating system iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 and it’s very nice but my bank’s check deposit app doesn’t run properly. I’m lazy and don’t want to have to run to the bank to deposit my Phone.com check so I pulled out my newest Android phone I’ve been reviewing, the Samsung Galaxy S4. It’s a fine phone and I really like it but it’s Android. And once I downloaded my banks e-deposit app I started to put my bank credentials in and then it dawned on me. I’m giving access to my phone to my bank account. I never faltered doing this on my iPhone but I decided it wasn’t the best idea to do on an Android phone. We regularly hear about security issues on Android and I just had some niggle in the back of my mind saying don’t do it.

I waited till my wife got home and used her phone to deposit my check but that was a turning point for me. I don’t think I’m comfortable putting my entire life and trust into an Android phone that seems to be more prone to being violated than my iPhone. This is what I’m going to tell my friends that ask me what they should purchase for their employees, family and friends. No reason to put your security at risk which I feel you are doing using an Android phone at least for your most important details, in my case it’s my banking. I’m just not willing to take that chance.

Guest blog post by Mike Kawula

Today there are so many small business resources and tools available for small business owners, making it an incredible time to be an entrepreneur. The power of the Internet has made starting a business seamless and chipped away at many of the competitive advantages a larger business might have over small businesses. Technology has lowered the cost, lessened competition and has made providing better customer service easier.

BrickCity Tech Meetup, a vibrant entrepreneurial Newark NJ Meetup group, was visited by Ceo & Co-Founder of Phone.com Ari Rabban. The meeting kicked off with host Anthony Frasier introducing Emily Manz of Brick City Development Corporation who announced the development of co-working space in Newark for entrepreneurs. George Lister, program coordinator of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, shared that starting in August they’ll have many exciting entrepreneurial events leading up to the opening of the co-working space.

Starting the meeting off discussing co-working space tied in nicely with Ari’s message. Co-Work spaces provide virtual offices for entrepreneurs at a fraction of the price of what a traditional office would cost. They typically have many different options available for small business owners like mail services, administrative support, event rooms, conference rooms, Wi-Fi Internet access and much more. One of the largest flexible workspace providers Regus has offices available worldwide with cost ranging from $40 – $400 depending upon your office needs.

Ari shared with this entrepreneurial audience that technology and other developments has made becoming an entrepreneur much easier. Take Phone.com for instance, you can now have an affordable business phone system with call recordings, call screening, extensions, multiple voicemail systems, hold music, conference calls and so much more all for less than $15 a month. A solopreneur can now have an extremely professional image for a fraction of what large corporations pay.

There are countless other examples of how costs have been reduced for those looking at starting a business. Take Stamps.com, you can now have you own small business mailroom on your desktop, eliminating costly machines and wasted space. Cloud accounting software like FreshBooks, has eliminated the pains of invoicing and greatly reduced the number of hours needed to manage a business’s accounting. New business owners can now also legally protect themselves online with companies like CorpNet for a fraction of what lawyers charged in the past. CorpNet even has a new Free cloud based corporate compliance tool that emails you when you need to file taxes, tax deadlines, print documents and many other needed small business requirements that small business owners had to pay accountants for in the past.

Cloud based software has made legal, accounting, phones systems and much more easier for small business owners. Though there are countless other tools that are helping entrepreneurs, one of the best has been in the development of staffing. Companies like Elance have made increasing staff and decreasing during slower times so easy. Elance has over 400 categories of freelancers ready to help business owners. They have programmers, writers, web-design, sales people, bookkeepers and so many other freelancers a small business owner can access within an hour to help them in their business at a fraction of the cost of an employee. Today you can simply jump on Elance and hire an employee for a project or for a long-term employment need, absolutely amazing.

Ari’s message really resonated with the entire room of entrepreneurs of how exciting it is to be an entrepreneur today. He closed though with sharing that regardless of technology, customer service still remains number one today. Phone.com has invested heavily in assuring small business owners have the best experience, something I can surely attest to having used countless other providers that don’t have phone support when a small business owner needs it. Regardless of technology, Small Business Owners need to remember:

“If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.”

About The Author, Mike Kawula

Mike Kawula is the Founder of Self Employed King, where they review Digital Products, Online Tools and other Business Resources to help new and existing entrepreneurs navigate the endless resources available. Self Employed King motto: “Before you buy, make sure it’s Koalafied”

I came across some exciting news yesterday. Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees created 45 percent of the reported 188,000 new jobs in June. According to SmallBizTrends.com “84,000 jobs created by small firms represent nearly half of the jobs created by U.S. businesses and the percentage of jobs created by small companies continues to grow.”

They continue, “This is the second consecutive month for growth in job creation among smaller firms. In May, small businesses created 63,000 jobs, up from 57,000 in April.”

What does this mean for Phone.com customers? Are you adding new employees? Is your company growing? What can we do to help your company grow? We want to be part of the solution and help your company in any way we can. Drop us a line on Twitter or Facebook and tell us what we can do.