Category: General

It is no secret that an online presence is crucial for any business today, which is why every single business, big and small, needs a well-designed website. Studies have highlighted the fact that when it comes to business success, 94% of buyers search for a business online before doing anything else, which is why having an online presence is crucial.

Of course, an online presence isn’t just about a website; it’s also about digital marketing and social media. However, a well-designed, easy-to-use website is a crucial first step for success. While there’s a common misconception that building a website is an easy task and anyone can do it, when it comes to building a website for your business, there’s a lot that needs to be taken into account.

To help make the process of designing your business website a little easier, here are some useful tips and ideas to take note of when you’re looking at building your business’s online presence.

Work with a professional web designer

First and foremost, when it comes to website design, it’s vital that you hire a specialist web design company. You can choose a local company, but the nature of digital means you can work with a company based almost anywhere if you like what they do. To help you pick the right company for your needs, providers will list the services they provide as standard, such as those offered by website design Lichfield, for instance, as well as what else you might be able to ask for on top. While a lot of people might be tempted to build their business’s website themselves using basic platforms or out-of-the-box options, unless you have a background in web design, it’s not a great idea. It’s far better to work with an experienced company that can create a website that not only looks great but also runs seamlessly, is free of glitches, and does exactly what you need it to do.

Ensure your site is responsive

Did you know that more than 62% of shoppers use their smartphones to browse the internet and make purchases? This means that if you want to give your chances of success a boost, it’s essential that you ensure your site is responsive and works just as seamlessly on smartphones and tablets as it does when being accessed via a computer. The site should also be easy to use and navigate, regardless of the device it’s being used on.

Make it easy to find

You won’t be getting any new customers if they can’t find your website. To make sure your site is discoverable, you should choose a domain name that is as closely related to your business name as possible. You should also ensure that your business is listed on Google Maps. Finally, it is imperative that you understand what keywords customers might use to find your business so you can optimize your site for search engines.  

Add a blog

If you want to boost where your website ranks in search engines, adding a blog to your site can be a great step to take. You will also find that adding a blog to your site will drive traffic, and these readers may then be converted into sales. Having a blog also gives customers an insight into your personality and the passions that drive you, which is great for building customer loyalty.

As a small business, it is important to know how you can be using software to your advantage as this can help your company to streamline, improve your output and help you compete with the biggest companies in your industry. Software can be used in many different ways in a business setting, and what you use will depend on your particular industry. However, it is helpful to know a few handy tips which will hopefully help your small business to compete at a much higher level and satisfy your target customers. With this in mind, here are a few software tips for small businesses.

1. Stay Current

One of the most important tips is to stay current on the latest software news. There are always new types and versions of software being released, and it is crucial to be aware of what these are so that you can make improvements to your business. There are many ways to stay current on the latest software for businesses, including:

• Reading business and computing blogs
• Reading magazines
• Listening to business podcasts
• Joining online communities
• Following relevant organizations on social media
• Speaking to people with strong IT knowledge

2. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Businesses in all industries have repetitive tasks to carry out, and these can be frustrating, time-consuming, and often lead to human error. Instead, look into software and apps which can automate these tasks for you, as this will help to streamline, eliminate errors, and allow you and your team to focus on other areas of the business.

3. Look For Open Source Software

As a small business, you will always want to find ways to keep your costs down, and software and licensing can be a significant cost. Instead of opting for the household name brands, look to see if there is software that you could use instead. Often, you will find free open source software, which is as good and possibly even better than the bigger brands.

4. Only Use What You Need

Software can help a business to succeed in many ways, but you should not overcomplicate the operation with software that you do not need. Instead, think about each task in your daily operation and determine whether the software can be used and if it is worth implementing.

5. Make Cybersecurity A Priority

Cybercrime is a huge problem for businesses in all industries and has the potential to destroy a smaller company. This is why you need to make cybersecurity a priority and invest in high-quality cybersecurity software, which will protect your business against the latest threats and allow you to operate with confidence each day.

6. Use Software To Elevate Project Management

Project management is one area where you should be using the best software and tools to elevate your projects. This should include a Gantt chart maker, which can enable you to make high-quality charts that can be used to assess the timeline of your tasks and get a clear overview of the project. This should lead to greater success with all of your projects and drive further growth.

7. Manage Accounting With Software

Every business owner knows that you need to keep completely accurate financial records for tax reasons and so that you can make intelligent business decisions. This is a complex area of the business, but outsourcing to an accountant can be expensive for small companies. This is why, instead, you need to find high-quality accounting software that can streamline this area and allow you to focus on other areas of the operation.

8. Provide Clear Staff Training

Having the latest and best software in place is great, but it is not much good if your team do not know how to use the software. This is why you need to provide clear staff training so that those that need to know how to use different programs feel confident and are able to work efficiently each day. It can take some time to learn about new software, but it is worth taking the time; otherwise, the entire business could be slowed down.

9. Keep Software Up To Date

Every piece of software that you own should be kept up to date at all times, and you can turn on notifications so that you know when an update is available. This is because updates often include important patches for security holes, and – as mentioned – cybercrime is a huge problem. This could also fix bugs and give you access to the latest features.

10. Familiarize Yourself With Software Licensing

You need to educate yourself on software licensing so that you know the best type of license for each piece of software and so that you are not violating the contract of agreement with the publisher or spending unnecessary money.

Small businesses need to know how best to use software so that they can streamline and compete with the more prominent brands in their industry, and these tips should allow you to do this.

You have decided that the time has come to develop and enhance your business. You have spent years building up your company and creating an amazing brand, and now it is finally time to enhance and improve it. Your first step is to transform your business space and create an even more amazing business environment. However, you’re not sure what it will take to manage this effectively.

You want to make sure that the project goes off without a hitch, and that it is completed within the right period for the quoted cost. While your business is booming and things are going well for you, you do not want to overspend on this development.

The question is, of course, what does it take to ensure that your business development plan goes without a hitch? For everything that you need to know, have a read of the tips and ideas below, and implement them!

Utilize software effectively

When it comes to managing the project, you must take advantage of the software that’s available to you. The fact is that when it comes to this kind of development, there are some fantastic tools and pieces of software available. You may find that using job costing software will help to make monitoring and tracking the cost of the work far easier and less stressful. This kind of software allows you to effectively work out how much a job should cost, helping to ensure that the associated costs remain within the budget.

Be clear on the action plan

It is also essential that when considering your business development plan that you are clear on what will be happening and when. What you want to do is engage the help of a team who are happy to provide you with clarity and insight into the project and it will also keep you informed regarding your deadlines and whether they will be met. If you want to make developing your business as stress free as possible, then you need to put a clear action plan in place, which should help to make managing each aspect of the project a little easier and less stressful.

Ensure goals are met

Set goals for your business’s development process and take steps to ensure that those goals are met. To make achieving these goals easier, it might be a good idea to break them down into smaller, more achievable targets. Say, for instance, by the end of three months you want to see an entire part of your business overhauled, redesigned, and in working order again, then it is important to set interim goals to help ensure that the work remains on track throughout the project. Plus, should an interim goal not be met, you can then change the date that you would like the final goal to be met.

Hopefully, the above tips, ideas, and advice will help to make the process of redeveloping your business a simpler and easier one to manage.

Whether you operate a mom-and-pop online store or own an industry-leading ecommerce organization, your primary goal should always be to drive more sales via the web. By clinching more deals online, not only will you generate a greater amount of profit, but you will also improve your reputation as a web-based retailer.

Unfortunately, driving more sales online is not a necessarily easy task. There are a host of different variables that can have an impact on your ability to make money via the Internet, which means that you must fully dedicate yourself to this endeavor if you want it to prove fruitful.

Should you decide to take on the all-important challenge of driving more sales online, be sure to put the following pieces of advice into practice.

Improve your shopping experience

Improving your shopping experience is the most crucial task that you will face in your bid to drive more online sales. If you are to draw custom out of each and every visitor that accesses your online store, you need to provide them with an optimized browsing experience, and you need to ensure that they do not encounter any problems during the checkout process.

To guarantee that your online store is up to the task of providing an optimized shopping experience to each and every one of your consumers, you should ask a custom ecommerce website design company to develop your site for you. By enlisting their services, you won’t have to worry about your site looking pretty but lacking substance below the surface. They will stop at nothing to ensure that your website provides an unforgettable shopping experience across all platforms and devices.

Be honest with your customers

If you’re to drive more online sales, you need to foster trust in your business’s brand and reputation. One thing is for sure — you aren’t going to encourage your consumer base to trust you if you always let them down and lie to them. Quite simply, no matter how tempting it may be to do so at the time, you need to stop making promises that you can’t keep. Even if this means risking your short-term profit turnover, you need to be transparent with your customers at all times if you want them to return to you going forward.

Show off your customer testimonials

Should a customer ever take the time to provide you with positive feedback, referral, or testimonial, you need to show it off to the world. Post these comments on your home page, and you will showcase the fact that your past customers were satisfied with the service that you provided them. This will then make future potential customers far more likely to trust you going forward.

Driving more sales online is about way more than just turning over more profit. It’s about enhancing your reputation and proving your worth to your consumer base. Of course, the extra income never hurts either!

Take the above advice, and you’ll no doubt find yourself driving more online sales in no time.

In today’s day and age, every brand needs to create high-quality content as a way of engaging with their target audience and showing their expertise. Creating a constant stream of high-quality content can help to increase your presence and visibility online as well as connect with your audience and provide more than just a product/service, but it is also an area that many companies struggle with. Having to create high-quality content on a regular basis is a challenge, especially when you consider that every competitor is creating content too. This is why you need to utilize visual storytelling techniques in your content which will help your content to shine and engage your target customer.

 What Is Visual Storytelling?

So, what exactly is visual storytelling and why is it of value to businesses? Essentially, this is a story that makes use of visual media, such as photos, videos, drawings and animations. These can bring otherwise bland content to life and make your content much more engaging and hard to ignore, whether this is static web content, blog posts, guest posts, email marketing or any other type of content that your business is creating. With this in mind, here are the top 10 visual storytelling techniques that you should be using in your content:

1. Show Instead Of Tell

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so you will want to use visuals to communicate your message where possible. This should not be combined with lengthy text descriptions, which will be unnecessary and create a cluttered feel to the page, so try to avoid explaining the images where possible and allow the reader to make the connection.

2. Use Movement

Static images can add visual appeal, but it will not be as engaging or eye-catching as any kind of movement. This is why content should always have video, GIFs or an animation, but be sure not to overdo it as this can be distracting and create a chaotic feel on the page which can lead visitors to leave.

3. Keep It Relevant 

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make when creating content is using too many visual elements that are not important to the story. This is why you need to make sure that every piece of media serves a purpose as otherwise it will distract and also slow down the loading speed.

4. Use People

It is important to create a human connection in your content to build relationships with the reader and this is made much easier when you use visual media that has people in. As an example, including photos of your team members when creating content for the website will help to create a human connection and allow you to build a personality for the company. Media is always more interesting when it has images of people, so use this to your advantage where possible. 

5. Inverted Pyramid

One of the most important techniques in any kind of content creation is the inverted pyramid. Simply, this is the key information at the top as to captivate the reader from the start – this can also be applied to visual storytelling where you need the best and most informative visuals at the beginning.

6. Light Color Palette 

Using a light, soft color palette with any visual content is an effective way to calm the reader which will be important for keeping them on the page. It may seem obvious but it is remarkably effective as you would find that darker, more intense colors can be distracting and signify negative emotions.

7. Keep It Current 

Modern-day consumers will see an enormous amount of content on a daily basis. One of the best ways to make your content stand out and to connect with the modern audience is to make sure that it is current, such as by using a popular and current meme or by referencing something that is happening in the world right now. People want their content to be modern, fresh and relevant; otherwise, it is likely to be ignored (this is also why you need to create a constant stream of content).

 8. Keep Your Target Customer In Mind

Following this, you also need to make sure that the content and visual storytelling is tailored to your target customer because otherwise it will be ignored, so think about who you are creating the content for and what they would like to see. As an example, a growing business that is opening a new office will be interested in Gerald Eve’s services. The visual content should engage business owners and show them how this company can help them through every stage.

9. Use High-Quality Images

Nothing will put off a reader quicker than low-quality, blurred images. This is why you need to make sure that every type of media on your content is of the highest-quality, even if this means hiring a professional photographer. This can make a huge difference to the entire piece while helping you to maintain a professional reputation.

10. Source User-Generated Content

One of the smartest ways to make your content more engaging and valuable to your target customer is to source user-generated content. Using media that your customers have shared (be sure to get their permission first) helps to build authenticity, helps you to create a connection with your customer base and adds social proof to your content. As an example, you could create a hashtag on Instagram for your customers and encourage them to use this on their photos, which will help you to collect lots of user-generated content and show your audience different perspectives.

Try incorporating these visual storytelling techniques into your business content and you should notice an immediate improvement. Visual storytelling is an excellent way to make your content shine and to engage your target customer, but you must also know how to use it effectively and avoid techniques that will put off the reader.

Regardless of the type of work you do in your laboratory, the time will come to think about enhancing your existing setup to cater for your growing needs. Perhaps you are taking on new technical staff, or require a large amount of new technical equipment to service a new client, or maybe you are just simply running out of space. With all those boxes of equipment, notes and samples, you’ll need some efficient storage (rather than cluttering the work surfaces that you actually need to work on). With that in mind, this article will look at a few considerations for when you want to upgrade your laboratory safely and effectively.

Plan Ahead

Redesigning your lab is a job that, ideally, you’ll only want to do once, so make sure you plan ahead before reaching out to builders, designers and architects. You need to decide exactly what functions you need your lab to perform going forward; for instance, how much space will be needed to accommodate not only your staff but the type of work you might be undertaking? What processes will be used? What types of materials might be used? One size does not fit all, so plan forward to get the perfect layout for your needs.

Consult with Your Team

It won’t just be you using this space, but your wider team, too, so make sure that everybody is on-board with the lab enhancement plan. Ensure you communicate your ideas to your staff and listen to their feedback; encourage a forum for ideas because the people that work in that space every day will almost certainly want some input in terms of how the space is going to be used. They could also raise some valid, and perhaps previously un-considered points.

Equipment and Storage Space

If you are enhancing your lab, there’s a good chance you’ll also be investing in new equipment to diversify your work type; therefore, it might be a good idea to spend some time maintaining your existing lab equipment (especially the items that benefit from continued care, like your akta system, for example). With all that new equipment, don’t waste the opportunity to upgrade your lab’s storage facilities; a laboratory will always benefit from new cupboards, drawers and closets, especially the specialist storage units required for chemical and hazardous waste. Not to mention, getting all those boxes off the floor and safely out of the way will reduce those health and safety risks significantly.

More generally, make sure you plan ahead for how each space within the lab might be used. You need your working areas, but you also need to think about where meetings can be held, where staff might eat and personal working desk space. It is always wise to keep these spaces separate, for both safety and productivity reasons.

Be Future-Proof

Most importantly, as you put together plans for your newly enhanced lab space, don’t forget to incorporate a future-proof plan; try to predict the likelihood of taking on new staff, new equipment even new types of work, and try to create a flexible workspace that not only caters for today’s needs, but ensures you have a safe, efficient, flexible laboratory for many years to come.

A smart business owner will always consider the customer experience, and try to find ways to make improvements. This is critical to success, as you will never retain customers or benefit from their referrals if they have a bad experience when using your brand. Fortunately, it can be relatively straightforward to improve the customer experience, and this should start to deliver noticeable effects almost immediately.

So, if you are just starting out, or if you feel as though you could be providing a better experience for your customers, then be sure to read on for a few ideas for ways in which you can make improvements.

Get A Clear Understanding Of Target Customer

It is difficult to know how to improve the customer experience if you do not have a clear understanding of who your target customer is. Look closely into your target group and think about what they want when they interact with a brand.

Make Communication Easy & Varied

Communication is key to success in all areas of business, particularly when it comes to your business. You need to make it easy for your customers to get in touch with your business, and you should always be replying swiftly and professionally – there are few things more frustrating than being unable to reach the company that you are doing business with. There should be a few ways for people to contact your business as some prefer certain forms of communication and dislike others. This means that you should have the following options:

• Email
• Social media
• Chatbot
• Phone

Easy-To-Use Website

Websites are what customers greatly rely on, so you must make sure that this is easy-to-use, stylish, and functional. Nothing will deter a visitor more quickly than a clunky website, irritating ads, a chaotic layout, or a website which loads slowly. For the best results, it is worth using the services of a professional web design agency who will be able to deliver a modern, stylish and easy-to-use site which is a positive reflection of your brand.

Use Customer Satisfaction Tools

Without seeking feedback from your customers, making changes can be pure guesswork. So, a key strategy is to seek feedback from your existing customers so that you can learn what is working well and what is not. Customer satisfaction tools like those provided by HappyOrNot are highly effective for gauging how successful the customer experience is and allows you to identify ways in which you could make improvements.

Learn From Mistakes

Even the best companies drop the ball from time to time when it comes to the customer experience. What separates the best companies from everyone else is the fact that they will learn from these mistakes, and then find ways to avoid it happening again in the future. Additionally, it is important to own up to mistakes and do what you can to appease the customer (free products, discounts or anything else) – it is frustrating as a consumer when a brand does not acknowledge their error or show any empathy.

Hopefully, these tips will help you to provide a greater customer experience which will be key for retention and boosting your reputation.

For large and enterprise businesses, the ability to see into the future of technology is critical for continued success, especially when it comes to customer satisfaction (CSat). Contact centers have gone through a major transformation in the past 10 years, and emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will soon be commonplace and part of customer service expectations. The call center software you implement and the customer data you collect and store will help improve the omnichannel experience and keep you ahead of the curve.

What Is Omnichannel Call Center Software and Why Should Your Company Use It?

Omnichannel call center software integrates inbound voice, outbound voice, seamless omnichannel interactions and self-service solutions for a robust contact center system that delivers consistent, cohesive customer service across multiple channels. It enables real-time data sharing between channels, databases and agents.

In the traditional multichannel call center, information was kept in data silos, frustrating customers who had to keep repeating themselves as they were transferred between agents or changed communication channels. An omnichannel solution provides cross-channel integration, creating a more consistent brand experience and greater CSat.

Customer satisfaction is of critical concern for enterprise organizations. Studies have shown that for users who engage with two or more channels for a single inquiry, CSat is 39 percent greater (67 percent) with a seamless omnichannel experience than with a non-seamless multichannel experience (28 percent). A positive experience enhances their perception of the business and builds customer loyalty.

What Will the Omnichannel Experience Look Like in 2020?

According to a government report on emerging technologies in contact centers, less than one-third of customers use the phone to contact a call center. It is predicted that by 2022, cloud-based technologies such as chatbots, mobile messaging and machine learning will power up to 70 percent of customer interactions, and that AI will be handling 20 percent of customer service interactions.

This rapid adoption of emerging technologies by contact centers is driven by the expectations of savvy customers who are accustomed to short, productive communications with smartphone and home AI systems like Siri and Alexa. They will expect seamless integration between voice, text, live chat and other channels with lightning-fast interactions and issue resolution. The modular design of today’s omnichannel call center software lets companies add what they need when they need it, and it adapts well to a rapidly changing communications environment.

What Data Should Businesses Be Collecting and Storing to Improve the User Experience?

With call center software, various data can be collected from customer interactions through different sources. This data can be correlated, analyzed and used to enhance the customer omnichannel experience, identify consumer trends and provide insight for future product and service development. This goldmine of information is used by sales, marketing and customer service teams to improve business operations and boost ROI.

Businesses should be capturing:

• Personal and account information
• History of communications with company agents and past transactions
• Issue details and concerns
• Most recent company website pages that the user visited
• Communications via organization’s social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook
• Most recent mobile app transactions
• Web-based sales and/or abandoned carts; order history and preferences; product questions

Where to capture data:

• Voice and SMS messaging
• Social media conversations
• Live chat sessions
• Email correspondence
• Posts on community forums
• Inquiries on company website
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software data
• ePOS and POS systems

Plan for the Future of Customer Interactions

Customers want multiple communication platforms, knowledgeable answers to their questions and fast-issue resolution. To meet customer expectations, your call center software must be robust. It should provide an omnichannel system that lets companies seamlessly integrate all communication channels to improve the customer experience; a modular omnichannel system for your contact center can nimbly adapt as new technology arrives; and it should start collecting valuable customer data so that your company can continually improve the omnichannel customer experience for maximum CSat and strong, lucrative customer connections.

If you have already graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science or a similar field and you’re looking for the next step in your career, you might be considering what jobs are out there that you can apply for and what advancing your education even further with a master’s could do for you. After graduating, finding a job can be difficult, but thankfully there are many doors and options that a degree will open up for you; here are just a few.

Apply for further education

Graduating with a degree is a fantastic achievement for many, but for those that are looking to expand their skills further before applying for jobs, you might find that enrolling at a university to study a masters in computer science online is perfect. It gives you the opportunity to find a specialty that you love within the computer science industry and the chance to figure out what next steps to take in terms of your career.  

Studying for a master’s in computer science will provide you with the extra knowledge you need to be successful in particular job roles. As a bonus, it will not only provide you with the skills you need to theoretically succeed in the industry and in your dream position, but it will also provide you with connections you need to actually succeed.

One of the best things about studying a master’s degree is that it immediately shows potential employers that you are passionate and dedicated to your field of work and study; you’re ready and willing to go the extra mile to learn the skills you need and that you are willing to do the same in the position you’re going for!

Career Options You Have

1.    Computer Scientist

It comes with the name and it is probably the first position you think of when you think of pursuing a career in computer science. This type of career is versatile; you could work for virtually any company or organization that requires a software system to operate. If you have a strong passion alongside your interest in all thing’s computers, you can combine the two as a computer scientist and feel fully content in your career. Algorithms, databases, and software will be your key to success in these kinds of roles.

2.    Application Developer

Particularly for mobile phones and tablet devices, application developers are growing in demand as the growth of mobile applications and games continues to skyrocket. Apps are essential for growing businesses because of their significant and increasing popularity all across the globe.

To succeed as an application developer, you will need to be an expert with various programming tools and keep in mind that it is all about the user experience on the other end of the app.

3.    Database Administrator

If you know your way around databases and other related programs like they are the back of your hand or know that you could learn to with a further degree, then it would be worth pursuing a role such as this one. As a database administrator, you can also flex your creative skills and mind when planning and designing database applications. Put your own spin on the database you’re working on, fix a bug or user error that’s been plaguing your organization; it’s all in a day’s work in this role.

4.    Web Developer

If you find yourself looking at websites and thinking that you could create something similar if not better, then consider following this drive and becoming a web developer. Design, build and maintain websites; you can choose what you want to specialize in. If you love designing and creating something beautiful and pleasing to look at, you could make the perfect front-end developer by designing the layout and content of websites and making them both stunning and user-friendly.

If you prefer to work behind the scenes, you could take on the role of a back-end developer, ensuring that the site runs smoothly and works on a technical level. Both of these roles are important in their own ways, especially in the digital age our society is in, and require the knowledge that a master’s in computer science can give you.

5.    Computer Systems Analyst

If you have a knack for fixing technical things and solving software problems that seem to boggle and confuse everyone else around you, then just by simply developing your skills it could lead you to a career as a computer systems analyst. In this type of role, you would constantly use your problem-solving skills on the job, help to ensure that software operations continue to work effectively, and assisting when issues do arrive.

You will also have the chance to improve how the systems currently operate; if you have some hotshot ideas that you think can revolutionize an operating system, program or database, then this career is your opportunity to test your solutions and improvements.

Make Connections

While a career goal is no doubt what most people focus on, and for others it is about furthering their education, it is important to make the most of the connections within the industry that the university can offer you, especially when landing a role in your dream job is so difficult nowadays.

Your immediate connections, being your professors and your classmates, will have connections within the computer science industry outside of the institution, whether this is organizational connections or personal connections, and these are all very useful when you are trying to get your foot in the door to one of these previously mentioned positions.

Knowing the organization or someone who works within the organization is extremely valuable when you are applying for positions in an industry filled with talented and capable candidates.

— Choosing what to do after you have graduated is a momentous decision that can impact the rest of your life, and it is not to be taken lightly. It can open up many career opportunities and further education options that you may not have had the chance to pursue beforehand, which of course makes it valuable to you, but it also makes you valuable to potential employers.