Many companies are turning to Twitter to increase their online presence. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, as companies can easily reach a large amount of existing and potential clients at the same time. The downside is, if there is a negative tweet about your business, all subscribers can see the complaint. Does your company have a plan to address negative tweets?

Traditionally, the general rule regarding complaints was that a disgruntled customer or client will tell up to 20 people when they are unhappy, versus 5 when they are happy. When a complaint is made on Twitter, chances are very high it will be seen by more than 20 people. Complaints on Twitter should be taken seriously, even one complaint could damage your online reputation. Here are a few tips on dealing with this new breed of online customer service.

Ensure Team Alignment If you have more than one person looking over your social media accounts, or someone other than you looking over it, you need to be sure that they are experts on your products and services. This is important because it is them who will be responding to questions and complaints. If you don’t have an FAQ section set up, it is a good idea to establish answers to the most commonly asked questions, as well as answers or responses to any frequent complaints. This will provide you and your employees with a way to quickly handle displeased customers.

Prompt Response is Key Oftentimes, a quick response will go a long way in dampening the complaint. As people, we like to be acknowledged and when it is done promptly, we are more likely to be open. Many complaints are made when people are mad, and as such, the complaints tend not to show the whole picture. If you quickly respond, ask for more information or suggestions on what you can do to help, the complainer will often give you valuable feedback to use. If the complaint is serious, it is a good idea to acknowledge the complaint briefly, and then pursue a private dialogue. The average window to respond is 2-3 hours from the time of the complaint, so try to at least acknowledge the complaint within that time.

Personal Responses go a Long Way As with any response to complaints, it is a good idea to personally respond. If you use a company account, the response or apology will be read as insincere, and potentially make the problem worse. Many people feel valued when they are contacted from the owner’s or manager’s personal company account. In small businesses like yours, it is a good idea that someone at the very top replies. This will make it look like you care.

Word Limits, We Don’t Need No Word Limits The 140 character limit is usually not enough to explain yourself, or conduct damage control. So, don’t limit yourself to just the 140 characters. Use the space to acknowledge the complaint, and ask the person who lodged the complaint for their email so you can help them.

Pick Your Battles Remember one of the most important sayings in business: “You can’t please everyone, all the time.” There will always be people who complain simply because they can. In an ideal world, you would be able to personally address and solve each and every complaint, but chances are high you won’t be able to do that. Use your business sense about the complaints, or have a colleague look at the complaint and debate about what you should do.

With careful responses that are prompt and personal, there is a high chance you will turn the complaint into praise, and not only keep your client, but look good while doing it. If you have any questions about Twitter or any other social media tools, please give us a call.

It is more or less the end of the first quarter of 2012, many companies have released their annual figures and people are looking to move jobs. Heading into Q2, the quarter in which companies are most likely to hire, chances are you will be doing some hiring in the not so distant future. These days, many companies use VoIP software like Skype or Microsoft Lync to conduct interviews. Do you?

Let’s face it, there are very few people out there who love conducting interviews. The ones that do, are journalists, the rest of us see it as a means to the end. But that doesn’t mean that you should put interviews on the back burner. Remember, the purpose of the interview is to find an employee that meets your needs and is a good fit for your business. Many of us have watched or conducted interviews over VoIP, and have walked away unimpressed, or unsure of the results. Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out of VoIP while interviewing.

Remember the Rules Many of us have another identity or personality when we are online, it’s common to see people who are usually quiet and reserved in real life become very vocal when placed in front of a computer. This also happens when people conduct interviews online, another personality often comes out during the interview. Remember: even though you are conducting an interview over VoIP, it is still an interview, and as such, you need to follow the same rules and guidelines you would when conducting a face-to-face interview. One of the biggest things interviewers forget when they conduct interviews via VoIP is that you are a representative of your company and its brand, the interviewee will form their own opinion based on what you say and how you act. Adopt your face-to-face interview persona, not the online persona.

Lights, Camera, Office? When conducting the interview it is best to pick a well-lit spot, with minimal to no distractions. Your office may be the one with Nirvana posters on the wall - which is cool - but they’re probably not the best thing to have as your background during the interview. The best spot to conduct face-to-face interviews is in a conference room, so why not conduct the online interview there? If you don’t have a conference room, pick a quiet spot in the office. Wherever you settle, be sure you are comfortable there, as chances are you will be conducting more than one interview.

When you have found a good spot, be sure to turn off your cellphone, or at least put it on silent. Also be sure to turn the various sound alerts on your computer off. Nothing is more annoying to interviewees than being interrupted mid-sentence by a telephone call, or the ubiquitous IM alert.

Test the Tech Before you conduct the interview, ensure you are familiar with the program you are using. You don’t want to accidentally mute the interviewee, or even worse, hang up on them. It is a good idea to set up in the place you are going to be conducting the interview, and check that the internet connection is stable, or if you are using WiFi, that the signal is strong. Conduct a test call with a colleague or another person to ensure that your webcam is working correctly, and you can hear the other person. It is best to do this a few days in advance, so you can iron out any glitches or problems with lots of time to spare.

If a technological mishap occurs during the interview, or you lose your connection, don’t give up and walk away, simply call the interviewee back, apologize and carry on. Better still, establish at the outset that if there is a problem, you will definitely call back. This will ensure that the interviewee isn’t calling you when you are calling them.

The Interview Remember that you are using technology for the interview, and this technology has many useful features, the most pertinent being the ability to record. Being able to play the interview back later if you feel you have missed something, or want to know other employees’ opinions, is an excellent perk to using VoIP. Be sure to let the interviewee know that their interview will be recorded, as it could be illegal to record the person without their consent.

One common oversight by both the interviewer and interviewee is time. It may happen that you need to conduct an interview with someone in another timezone. It’s important to be aware of the time difference and ensure that both parties are on the same page. Also, if you’re in an area that has Daylight Savings Time, be aware that some places don’t observe it, and adjust accordingly. If you know the interviewee is in another timezone, clearly state when you are setting up the interview time, if you mean your time or the interviewee’s time.

Finally, when conducting the interview: be aware of where you are looking. Most programs will have the other person in a large image with you in a smaller image. Look at the image of the person when they are speaking, and at the camera when you are speaking. This is the best way to replicate eye-contact in a face-to-face interview.

When you remain professional and can execute a good interview using VoIP software, you can be sure that the interviewee will be impressed and will want to join your company. Good luck! If you would like to know more about using VoIP for interviews, or other business operations give us a call - we are more than happy to hear from you.

One issue that has caused business owners and managers many headaches, and possible sleepless nights, is cybercrime. Businesses are always under threat of having data or money stolen, and need to be taking actions to stop this. Do you know what you need to protect your business?

A quick Google search for “cybercrime trends” yields over 78 million results, the majority of which are likely to affect large enterprises or governments. While it is beneficial for all businesses to be aware of the major trends, there are a number of threats that will affect small businesses more than others. Here are some current cybercrime trends that SMEs should be aware of.

Mobile Malware Smartphones are becoming ever more popular, and with this popularity has come an exploding number of apps. Malware developers have been picking up on this during the past few years and there have been an expanding number of apps dedicated to attacking your phone or mobile platform. The most common type of malware on mobile devices is spyware, followed by SMS Trojans. SMS Trojans run in the background of some applications, and make international calls or text messages from the developers’ services causing huge phone bills. The final form of malware targets online payment apps on the phone.

One of the main reasons this form of malware has become so popular is due to the openness of some markets, such as the Android Market. The owners of the app markets are working to track down and get rid of the guilty apps on their marketplaces, but you still need to remain vigilant. while installing apps. Look at the developer of the app - how many times has it been downloaded? Maybe double check the app’s integrity online before installing and double check the app on the internet.

Open-Source Malware Kits A common thing malware developers do is write code for malware and then sell it to interested buyers. But a rising trend is that developers are writing malware that is open-source—any person can download and change it. The worrying thing is, many developers of already powerful malware have been releasing open-source versions of their software. This means that there will be an increase in the number of malware attacks out there, as devious developers can easily come up with more elaborate hacks.

Banking Trojans Along with the open-source malware kits, there has been an increase in the number of banking trojans—aimed at stealing account information and passwords. While these trojans have been a threat ever since banks first started offering online banking, they have become popular again as people and businesses are starting to move their online banking onto mobile devices, and the trojan software is easily accessible. This makes mobile banking apps an easy target.

With cybercrime on the increase, now is a good time to review your security, ensure its up to date and remind employees of your mobile device policy. If you don’t have a policy in place, or feel that your security is inadequate, give us a call, we are happy to help you. Remember: with good security and knowledge, there is no reason you should fall victim to cyber theft.

In this modern age, many businesses have become reliant on technological networks, with businesses big and small using some form of network in their day-to-day operations. But what happens when one of those networks goes down? Larger businesses will normally lose some profit, but will be able to recover. However, a network outage could be the death of a smaller business. 24/7 networking can help prevent this.

How can 24/7 network monitoring help your business, you ask? Through preventative operations. The main idea of network monitoring is to act as an “Early Warning System” to let managers and owners know of potential problems before they strike.

What Does Network Monitoring Monitor? There are a number of things you can monitor with Network Monitoring. The most popular areas include application and system performance, bandwidth usage, and server status. You can also set up monitoring of additional areas, for instance: server load, ink levels in printers, time left on software license agreements, which devices are connected to the network, their data usage, and more. This is all done 24/7.

The one thing Network Monitoring does not normally monitor is unauthorized access to networks. It can be set up to look for unauthorized access, but this is normally taken care of by another system.  

How Does Network Monitoring Help Me? Network Monitoring is a preventative system, intended to warn you about potential network problems so you can proactively seek solutions before a vital network goes down. This makes it, in a round-about way, a justifiable addition to business value since, when implemented right, there will be less network crashes—which means less or no profit loss.

What Should I Monitor? In an ideal world, you would monitor each and every network. Over time, you can get there, but if you’re like most Small Business owners or managers, you have neither the time nor the budget to implement a full system. As with most projects, it’s suggested that you implement a system like this in stages. The most common areas to start with are:

• Local Area Network (LAN) Data
• Internet data usage
• server status
• alerts to existing networks

If you’re unsure of where to start, try contacting a local Network Monitoring service, or hire a consultant to establish a system. If you would like to know more about 24/7 Network Monitoring, or other ways to improve business value, please contact us.

Business Intelligence (BI) is not a new idea; many large MNCs and enterprises have been using BI for many years. The only problem is that the practice of BI and the software used has been beyond reach for many SMEs due to cost and complexity. This is changing as more and more companies are offering BI solutions to SMEs. Are you thinking of implementing BI into your organization?

If you are looking into integrating Business Intelligence at your company, no matter what system you choose or the size of the project, there are a number of things you need to be aware of in order to make the implementation successful.

4 Things to Know before You Start Before you start any BI project, there are 4 key BI implementation areas that you and your company will need to be clear on:

1. Data or Information: In most SMEs there is a limited amount of data available, so you need to be sure where all the relevant data is located. This typically includes client and employee information kept on accounting systems, spreadsheets or contact manager databases, sales or business reports, industry and competitor information, and more.
2. Technology: A large number of BI programs require technical systems that are stable and have minimal downtime. It’s a good idea to ensure that your systems meet the requirements and are stable. As with any software, be sure to do your homework and pick a system that is reliable and compatible with your business. Don’t just pick the cheapest system – pick the system that best meets your needs.
3. Knowledge: Many SMEs have employees that wear more than one hat, and as such may not be experts in any one thing. It’s important that, when implementing BI, you have employees who understand it and the related systems. If you don’t, there are many qualified BI consultants out there you can turn to for help and training.
4. Communication: It’s crucial that you have constant communication with the employees involved in the implementation, and that you explain what BI is, the analytics used, how to interpret what the results mean, and the actions to take.

Your Criteria To Success Once you have picked a good system, there are a number of criteria you should aim for to ensure successful implementation:

• Align Business and Technical: It’s important that the business side of your company knows about the implementation and will actually use it. Both sides need to work together to ensure an aligned team.
• Piece by Piece: It’s a good idea to not implement BI across your whole organization in one go because that involves far too much work and complication. Instead, look at the areas of your organization that could benefit the most from BI and start there. For the majority of organizations, Customer Service and Sales are a good choice.
• Ease of Use: Chances are, your employees do different jobs and won’t concentrate solely on BI. Therefore, you might want to pick or develop a system that is easy to use. As a benchmark, pick a sales or business manager and, if possible, a business analyst, and see how long it takes them to learn the system. The bigger the gap between the learning time of these employees, the harder the system is to use.
• Flexibility: It’s common knowledge that your business is always changing. Therefore, It’s a good idea to ensure that the BI system you choose is flexible and can be quickly and easily adapted to meet changing needs. If you have a rigid system, it will be successful in the short term, but a nightmare or even a failure in the future.

With planning and patience, BI will bring about an improved business and bottom line. If you would like to learn more about BI or would like help implementing it please contact us.

Many businesses are aware that they can be targets for hackers, and take necessary precautions to protect themselves. However, there is a new hack out there that is targeting your business’s banking information through a devious method. Be prepared, this hack could pose a difficult one to eradicate.

The hack, a variation of the Man-in-the-browser (MITB) hack, is a form of Trojan horse that mainly infects a Web browser and has the ability to change a Web page, insert orders or transactions covertly. The user will not notice any change to the website. This particular hack infects user’s computers with a Shylock malware program, a new form of malware that focuses on bank accounts and financial transactions.

The user goes to a banking website, attempts to log in and is given an error message stating that security checks are being undertaken. After a few minutes a window pops up telling the user that a representative from the bank will be contacting them to go over their account details. A chat window will open up and the “representative”, who is really the hacker, will ask the user for their account information. While the user and hacker are talking, the hacker will log into the account and proceed to go to town, so to speak.

At this time, it seems like the hack is not widespread, but it is spreading, and it is one of the more sophisticated programs out there. To learn more about this or any other security threat that may have you worried, please contact us.

The thing about the social media boom is that so many people are thinking of ways to make it better and to put a unique twist on an otherwise used and reused concept. Pinterest is one of the few that have been successful at this – which means, like in any other social media platform, businesses stand to benefit provided they use it the right way.

What is Pinterest? In a nutshell, it's something like a social media scrapbook, album, and bulletin board combined. Each interest / theme has its own 'Pinboard' where you put photos, videos, or other media that interest you.

What makes Pinterest unique is its concept, which has been consistently growing in popularity, especially with female audiences. And while Facebook and Twitter are more open to overt advertising, Pinterest takes a more conservative stance. While advertising isn't exactly prohibited, the marketing should definitely be more subtle and more consistent with a personal Pinterest profile. Here are some basic tips that will help you utilize Pinterest to your advantage.

1. Understand your market. The first question you should ask yourself is if Pinterest is something worth your time investment. Since the majority of Pinterest users are female, ask yourself if your products and services appeal to them directly.

2. Invest time. As in many other social networking sites, you need to put a personal and human touch to your Pinterest profile and in the way you interact with your audience. Log in often, update regularly, and respond quickly to any kind of feedback. Let your audience know that you're there.

3. Use other social media to augment Pinterest. Since Pinterest is less known, use your other social media accounts to point people your way in Pinterest, such as Tweeting or updating your Facebook status with your most recent Pinterest profile update.

4. Talk about what you represent. As mentioned earlier, since Pinterest isn't big on overt advertising, you need to market yourself in a different way. Talk about what your brand is all about. What do you represent? What content can you provide that would inspire your audience to share on their own Pinboards? If you're a furniture company, for example, you can try giving some tips on basic interior design and picking the right furniture pieces for spaces, with pictures or videos. What's good about Pinterest is that it challenges you to be more creative, and thus, more appealing to potential clients.

If Pinterest interests you, give us a call so we can discuss how you can maximize this new social media platform for your business.

Disaster can strike at any time, and it can be as simple as a server or system crash, or as severe as the recent worldwide natural disasters. No matter what it is, the disaster will affect your company’s operations and potentially its bottom line, or worse — force you out of business. Are you prepared?

Most companies have at least basic protection from emergencies and disasters in place. The most common forms of protection are insurance, server and computer backup, and basic preparations as required by law. While these protective measures are considered adequate for most companies, there is still a chance a disaster will strike, leaving your company in the lurch.

In the recent months and years an increasing number of occurrences, such as the earthquake in Japan and flooding in Thailand, have caused widespread disruption to businesses. To counter this, two business initiatives have risen to the forefront: Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP). In fact, these two terms have become common buzzwords, a quick internet search returns over 53 million hits on business continuity alone. The problem is that many professionals are unclear on what each really is. It’s important to be clear on each topic and the basic steps to take to be prepared for any disaster.

What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)? BCP, first seen during the Y2K scare of the late 90s, is a plan that covers the way an organization prepares for and maintains all critical business functions. BC planning is comprised of activities that ensure maintenance, stability, and recoverability of service before, during, and after a disaster. The plan is typically set up on a day-to-day basis, and covers the whole organization.

It’s important to have a BCP for your organization because if something happens and you can’t deliver to your customers, they will go to another company.

What is Disaster Recovery? Disaster Recovery is considered a part of the overall continuity plan that focuses on the technical side of the business, including components such as data backup and recovery. Think of BCP as an umbrella and DR is under the umbrella — if you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, the overall umbrella is more or less useless.

What Should be in Your DR and BCP Plans? These plans both share a number of similarities, generally following the same steps involving the same elements. Both plans should include:

1. An operational plan for a number of disasters that could happen in your geographical area. The plans should cover occurrences as small as computer hardware errors and as large as massive natural disasters.
2. A succession plan for you or your top management.
3. Training for substitute employees on important tasks.
4. Cross training of your employees on the basics of different roles so they will be able to take over if need be.
5. A communication plan focused on different crises, including ways of communicating if networks are down.
6. Off-site meeting places for staff and managers.
7. A focus on safety. Foster partnerships and communication with local and emergency response services: Fire, Police, National Guard, Search and Rescue. Ideally, all employees should at least know basic first aid. If you have employees who are volunteer members of local Emergency Response Services, ask them to be responsible for teams.
8. Daily plans to backup your Enterprise systems, along with training and testing of recovery of systems.
9. Training and testing of all employees to practice recovery activities in situations as realistic as possible.

It’s important that you conduct regular tests of your systems and processes, and make changes as needed. Be aware that your business is always changing and so should your Business Continuity and Disaster Recover Plans.

With a carefully prepared and practiced plan, your business should be ready to face a variety of disasters with minimal downtime. If you would like to know more about Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery please contact us.

In many industries there is a fine line between profit and disaster. This is especially true for small businesses, where even a tiny mistake can can have big negative implications. Owners and managers need to ensure that their projects are living up to expectations in order to be successful and stay in business.

How many times have you started a project only to have it spiral out of control? Mistakes, delays, and other problems can be costly - both to you and your company. Here are some common reasons projects fail, and ideas to be aware of before you start your next big project.

No plan Possibly the biggest mistake any company can make is to not have a plan. A project without a plan is like a football team without a quarterback - it just won’t work. The most common plan used by businesses is a “project plan”: a plan that outlines your final goal, your plan to get there, and what resources are needed along the way. It is a good idea to involve all project team contributors in the planning phase. This will help encourage your team to stay on track.

Unrealistic budget An equally important mistake to avoid is having an unrealistic budget. All managers know they have to set and stick with a budget. However, few managers really know how to set a proper budget, and many projects end up being over budget. The easiest things you can do are:

• Determine the knowable costs. These can include software, parts, wages, fixed costs, etc. Be sure to include costs like shipping and tools needed for the project.
• Consider different parts of the project separately. Try to think which are more likely to have problems. Budget an extra percentage of the total costs based on how risky that aspect is.
• Look at budgets from similar past projects. These will help you judge whether you are on the right track.

Poorly defined expectations Many projects suffer from members not really understanding the expected outcome of efforts made. This could cause a decrease in morale among your employees. It’s best to review and update goals regularly, and tweak the scope or timelines as progress is made. It’s also equally important to involve employees in this process.

Scope creep While some change in the focus of the project can be good, beware of scope creep - uncontrolled or big changes to the original plan of the project. This can happen when the extent of the project is not properly defined or controlled. It is important that you clearly define the scope of the project with both yourself and your employees, and try to make as few changes as possible.

Poor communication This cannot be stressed enough: communication is very important. Many projects fail due to lack of good communication and interaction between the parties involved. We recommend that you stay in constant contact with all parties to ensure understanding of the project. Encourage an open communication environment where any employee can talk about anything and suggest ideas.

With good communication, a clear focus on the project and a solid plan your next IT project is on its way to be a successful one. For more information on project planning, please contact us.

There are all kinds of threats to electronic data nowadays – hackers and scammers, sudden system or hardware failure, and even natural disasters – all of them can threaten important business information. This is why it's necessary for you to have a data recovery plan.

The high cost of downtime Did you know that for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the average cost of downtime is about $12,500? And that's beside all the headaches you're bound to get from a steady loss of clients (as your downtime continues) as well as from the hefty fines and lawsuits that you will probably have to face.

All this is why, with most (if not all) businesses nowadays that depend on electronic data to support their day-to-day operations and transactions, an effective disaster recovery plan is a necessity.

For many, especially SMBs, outsourcing data recovery is the more efficient and cost-effective way to address disaster recovery. Of course, since we are talking about sensitive and important company data, it is also important to assess several factors that will affect your choice of vendor, such as the time it takes them to put you back online, and the regularity and frequency of backups.

Recovery in the cloud While there are still some organizations that rely on traditional disaster recovery methods, there is a growing demand for cloud-based disaster recovery, since it's less complicated to manage (especially for the organization itself) and much more affordable.

Cloud-based disaster recovery enables you to be free from a dependence on hardware, and also usually increases the frequency of backups to an offsite server, making data recovered in case of any incident very recent and much easier to work with. Cloud-based recovery has many more advantages, but the bottom line is that it allows you to be back to normal in a matter of hours, and sometimes even less than an hour – minimizing any negative impact on operations and productivity.

Don't make the mistake of being unprepared when disaster strikes – and it will, sooner or later, to a degree you can never predict. So it's best to make sure you take measures to ensure that your data will always be kept safe, secure, and recent. Contact us for a comprehensive and custom plan that will meet your specific needs.