Computer Support Blog

Online reviews are extremely important to small businesses that don’t have the massive advertising resources of large corporations.  In the days before the Internet, restaurants and local service providers would depend heavily on word of mouth and hope that customers would tell others of their positive experiences.  Now, with online review sites, it’s easier than ever for customers to relay their experiences with a company to as many people as possible all at once.   That means that each online review, positive or negative, can have a major impact on a small business trying to grow.  Cool product in technology Review Trackers is helping these businesses keep track of all the reviews they receive online and manage them accordingly.  Read more »

Any medical professional who runs a private practice knows that communicating with patients can sometimes be a major problem.  Patients miss appointments and don’t reschedule accordingly, causing havoc for a practice’s calendar.  Cool person in technology Brandon Rodman is the CEO of a company that’s coming up with a better system to communicate with patients for one type of medical professional: dentists.  Rodman’s company Weave provides communication technology and software to dental care offices with their specific needs in mind.  Rodman designed his company’s software to address specific issues related to dental care practices and their patients.  Rodman’s software connects telephone communication, text communications and scheduling all together for one seamless experience.  Normally, dental practice office workers would have to make calls and work with scheduling and customer directory software separately. Weave combines these systems to reduce hold time for patients over the phone and streamline the process for office workers to avoid careless mistakes.  Any office interested in Weave may be better off having strong business computer services available to them to help with the transition to Rodman’s software. Read more »

For many people, working from home and being able to sell items on sites like Amazon and eBay would be a dream job.  However, it’s not as simple as it sounds.  Marketing is a major concern, as is keeping track of how all items appear across different online sales channels.  Cool person in technology Jason Nadaf has created a platform that helps online business owners to unify their sales approach easily.  Nadaf’s program SureDone helps people sell their inventory across numerous online sales channels all at once without wasting time posting the same item on many different sites.  Nadaf’s platform lets users create one universal listing to ensure the same information and photos are on every site where a product appears.  Users can use SureDone to add new listings whenever they want or automatically edit current listings with new information.  Rather than having to update many different channels, sellers can update all their listings from just one page. Nadaf’s platform puts listings on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and Google Shopping. If product listings aren’t updating properly with SureDone, a small business owner may want to contact a computer support provider to learn the cause of the problem. Read more »

Most people do not perceive dairy farming to be a highly computerized or technology-heavy industry.  However, that doesn’t mean that the Internet, cloud technology and data tracking don’t have anything to offer the dairy farming world.  Cool product Farmeron is a digital platform that helps farmers eliminate paperwork and crunch numbers more efficiently.  With Farmeron, dairy farmers can keep track of all their business’s data in one place rather than in several complicated spreadsheets.  This cool product makes all of a farm’s data accessible and viewable in several different formats depending on what a user needs at a particular time.  Farmers create their accounts online and upload their data to Farmeron’s cloud-based platform.  Customers can then access their business’s data securely from anywhere, even on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.  Farmeron’s system saves farmers time by avoiding cluttered spreadsheets and makes it easier for them to make sense out of the data they collect about their herds. Any clients of Farmeron who find themselves unable to access their data over the web will need to contact a cloud tech support professional about the matter. Read more »

To say that starting a business for the first time is a difficult experience would be a massive understatement.  Young entrepreneurs with big ideas and dreams come onto the scene every day, but unfortunately, most of them don’t have the experience or knowledge to implement their ideas in cost effective ways.  Some people starting their own businesses have the benefit of a mentor or a dependable source of business advice when making difficult decisions.  Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky.  Many entrepreneurs make key financial or strategic mistakes in the early stages of their company and it ends up costing them dearly in the end.  Cool person in technology Dan Martell believes he has a better option for these entrepreneurs.  Read more »

When trying to engage customers, sometimes it’s just as important to let them engage you.  Cool product Zelo offers businesses a unique and interesting way for their customers to interact with them.  Zelo provides a cloud based platform for users to record video messages on a website and have those messages directly delivered to the site’s owner.  Rather than a typical comments section or impersonal email form for users to fill out, Zelo gives customers a chance to express their feelings on camera.  This concept is about as close as most users on the web can get to an in-person customer service experience and could very likely make people feel better about getting their voice heard.  Zelo delivers all video messages recorded with Zelo on the website directly to any inbox that a site owner dictates.  Owners can review all the recorded messages at their leisure.  Any customers who have problems recording video on a site using Zelo should investigate to see if their webcams need PC repair. Read more »

Many restaurants invest in large complicated websites, but many owners don’t realize that the time and money spent on these sites doesn’t always translate into value for their business.  For one, many of the complicated websites that restaurants make aren’t mobile ready, leading to problems for customers who access the site on their smartphones or tablets.  Another issue is that many establishments don’t realize that the vast majority of customers only visit their websites for a few key pieces of information. Simplicity is often more useful in a site’s design than complexity that inconveniences users.  Cool product in technology Cilantro aims to help restaurants by providing them a more effective web presence using one-page sites.  Cilantro lets companies design a simple site that provides all the necessary information for their potential customers, such as location, menu and hours, without the extra clutter that creates inconvenience for users.  Cilantro makes sure that all the designs that restaurants can create with their service will work well on tablets and smartphones as well.  Companies that experience trouble with their Cilantro sites on mobile devices should seek a mobile IT support specialist. Read more »

Craft breweries depend heavily on word of mouth for most of their business.  Unlike major corporate beer brands, people can only find specific craft beers in a limited numbers of bars, restaurants and retail stores.  Small breweries also do not have the proper resources to put large amounts of money into national advertising campaigns.  Enthusiasts telling others about specific brews and smaller companies is what keeps many of the regional craft beer companies alive.  Cool person in technology Kevin Bradshaw wants to help craft breweries extend their marketing reach and make it easier for craft beer fans to find particular beers they enjoy or discover new ones to try.  Bradshaw’s company Beerdog produces an iPhone application that that has customers take pictures of the beer they are buying. Bradshaw’s app the automatically recognizes the beer’s brand and tags the brand with its location using the smartphone’s GPS.  Users can search for particular brands in their area and see where others have found craft beers they enjoy in nearby bars, restaurants, and stores.  Craft beer fans simply load up the app to see what locations have the brews they want instead of having to ask around awkwardly.  Users who want to download the app should find iPhone IT support if they have trouble.  Read more »

Creating legal documents and contracts is a long and tedious process when done manually.  For companies that have to make hundreds or even thousands of these documents a year, the process can waste significant amounts of time that they would rather spend in other areas of business.  Tech company Exari has developed a cool product that helps automate the creation of legal contracts for business use. Exari’s software aims to help companies save time and focus on other operations besides tedious document creation.  Exari is trying to make the creation of legal contracts and other documents a non-issue for businesses by reducing a complicated process into just a bit of data entry.  Using this cool product, businesses don’t always have to have legally trained staff available to create documents. Exari aims for even average employees to be able to use their software.  This company makes their legal document creation products available through the web via a cloud-based system.  Any companies that have trouble accessing the system from their network should get in touch with a business IT support provider for assistance. Read more »

Many entrepreneurs and young businesses waste time on faulty business models or make early mistakes that all but destroy the potential of a promising core idea.  One of the best steps in forming a new company is creating a detailed business plan that lays out every step of a startup’s business model, as well as the purpose behind each step. Detailed business plans can help people gauge the potential costs of their company, including things like business computer service and operation costs.  When a startup team has this information laid out, challenges and opportunities become clearer to them. However, the process takes an extensive period of time, and it’s difficult to find ways to gauge a plan’s success before implementing it. Cool person in technology Cynthia McCahon founded Enloop to help businesses gain insight to their potential success based on their plans.  Read more »