Small Business New Year’s Resolutions

On January 4, 2021
6:17 pm
Filed under Learning, Live Receptionist, Tips and Tricks

The end of the year is traditionally the perfect time to make plans for the coming year. The most popular New Year’s resolutions are health and fitness related, such as working out more, quitting smoking, eating healthier meals, taking up meditation, etc. Then there are some who have a different approach to New Year’s resolutions, making them not only about improving themselves, but their families (“being a better father”), their communities (“volunteering once a month”), or their work (“being a better manager”). Deciding to improve your performance at work can actually help you with all your other resolutions because any

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in 1996 to modernize the flow of healthcare information. It stipulates how all personal data maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft. It also addresses limitations on healthcare insurance coverage. All healthcare and healthcare insurance industries are required to comply with HIPAA guidelines and can expect to be audited by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), an organization within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). HIPAA compliance should be taken very seriously, as violations can carry civil or even

Is Your Business Prepared for a Remote Workforce? Today’s workforce looks vastly different from that of just a decade ago. More companies are not only allowing employees to work from home, but they are encouraging it. In a recent report by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics, remote work was found to have increased by 44 percent over the last five years and 91 percent in the past decade. Today, 4.7 million people, 3.4 percent of the U.S. population, now work from home. A FlexJob survey discovered that 74 percent of respondents believe flexible working has “become the new normal.”

The world of business today is heavily driven by customer feedback – they have the ability to leave reviews, write blog posts, and share stories through social media. So connecting with these customers and supporting their needs has a huge effect on client satisfaction and business success. Customer service has also been growing and evolving with new technology. But talking to customers on the phone remains one of the most important practices for a customer support team. So how can customer support teams improve their phone interactions to ensure client happiness? Keep reading for our customer support best practices for answering the

Having reliable communication is a very important part of running a business. Customers and business partners need to be able to contact you. So what’s the best type of phone to get to make sure you’re always reachable? This will depend on the specific needs of your business. Keep reading to check out the pros and cons of the best small business phone systems. Types of Phone Systems There are several phone systems to choose from, depending on the needs of your business. We will discuss all the advantages and drawbacks of a few different options to find out what

Only one third of businesses use some form of texting to communicate with their customers today. This is a hugely untapped business advantage. Here are ten tips on how Phone.com helps you use text messaging (SMS) in your business: 1. Text messaging is included for free with all Phone.com plans. 2. All Phone.com phone numbers (toll free and local) are textable and can start sending and receiving text messages today. 3. Try my.phone.com – this new web-based user interface allows you and your staff to easily send and receive text messages from any browser. 4. Try our mobile app –

To menu or not to menu? That is the question. But not really. If you’re a business with a business phone number, you’ll want to make sure your VoIP menu is set up for success. What’s great about the phone menu is it’s completely customizable, so you control how much or how little options you give customers when they call into your company. It all depends on your customer base or potential new business, so do your due diligence and get that research done prior. In the

Pardon the alliteration, but we’re pretty excited about this list of Twitterers in the telecom and technology industry. Given you should already be following the heavy hitters like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook. But it’d be nice to get some women and diverse people in there too! So with that said, here’s our recommendations of influencers in the telecom and tech industries you should be following on Twitter. Marques Brownlee Brownlee, a.k.a. MKBHD, is a popular YouTuber who has millions of hits on his tech vlogs. He regularly posts reviews of products, thoughts on

The holidays are here. And so is the stress. As a small business owner, you shouldn’t have to worry about a phone that’s ringing off the hook. So what’s an easy solution to reduce the business cortisol levels? A call handling feature from your VoIP phone service. Just remember: you’re not the only one stressed. Customers calling into companies are sometimes frustrated before they even pick up the phone. And if they’re experiencing long wait times, poor call quality, or complex menus that lead to

We’re all distracted. I’m distracted even writing this. With Slack messages and email, baby pictures, Instagram, laundry, and the unending news cycle. Plus a whole lot more. A CareerBuilder survey back in 2016 found that after questioning just over 3,000 employees, 66% said they check or use their phone several times a day at work and 65% said they spend at work time for non-work personal messaging. The point is: it’s hard to carve out productivity on some days as opposed to others, especially for those of us who primarily work on our phones or absolutely need to

These days, the cold call is becoming risky business. With new apps for call blocking and the iOS update to silence unknown callers, it can make the life of a salesperson difficult. According to a Hubspot statistic, it can take up to 18 calls to land a single buyer! If you have a personal connection, you’re 4.2 times more likely to get that appointment. That means both that you should make personal connections as often as possible and that salespeople are generally quite used to rejection. The missed calls, the unread messages, and voicemail boxes chock full

In the mobile age where the increase of remote workers is starting to become the norm, a new policy called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is taking hold. The writing is on the wall pertaining to productivity. In a Forbes article, Intel reported in 2011 that the 17,000 employees who used their own device saw an uptick in nearly an hour of productivity throughout the day. There are advantages to BYOD, mainly in reducing business costs, but with that freedom are the inherent risks when people are using their own smartphones. It’s best to have a strong

Voicemails can feel a bit archaic. We hardly spend time on the phone as is these days, but there’s something especially clunky and old fashioned about listening from start to finish to a voice message. Without voicemail transcription, you’re stuck in a certain format and unable to scan through the message like you would a text or Slack message, or even email. Sometimes, even, your caller’s connection isn’t so great, so you’re stuck listening to a garbled indecipherable message. That leads to you listening over and over to a voice message with a pen and paper like you’re

No matter what your company specializes in, it should put a priority on communication. Whether it’s switching your phone lines over to VoIP or setting up town hall meetings to make sure everyone has a voice, your employees have to be comfortable with communicating to one another. A great way to expedite that is to adopt chat into your intra-communication structure. It’s no secret that since mobile has taken over our everyday work and personal lives, people have largely switched over to text- and chat-based communication. According to a 2017 survey from Report Linker, 71% of workers are relying

As a small business owner, you need to always be thinking about your online presence and, therefore, your online body of work. We don’t have all the time to get into the nitty-gritty of SEO, but suffice it to say you need to be churning out content and media on a regular basis to get eyes on your products and your company. It may seem outdated but, depending on your industry, keeping a regular blog can be a great way to connect with your customers, get traffic to your website, and establish you and your writers as industry leaders