Computer Support Blog

Customer engagement and conversion of potential customers to long-term ones is the driving force of any business.  Unfortunately, it is not always easy to pinpoint exactly how best to do this, and many factors can affect your company’s customer base for better or worse.  Sales leads are key in the process of building a customer base, and this is where a startup called realSociable comes in.  Simply put, a sales lead is a potential consumer of your product or service created when he or she shows interest and provides his or her contact information.  The main methods businesses use to gain access to sales leads are advertising, trade shows, and mailings or emails, among a number of others.  The Internet has been a great source of help to companies small and large with marketing automation platforms, which have made it simpler than ever to create a steady rise in potential customers, but many of these still lack the tools necessary to best analyze them and determine which are most important. Read more »

Brands of all types have made social media marketing a priority in the last several years.  From large corporations to small mom-and-pop businesses, companies have turned to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram to promote their product and remain in the public eye.  Social networking has become an important part of strategy for many companies in the current environment of the business world.  However, social media presence works primarily as a way to remain in the public consciousness and less so as a direct route to sales or new customers.  Soldsie is cool product in technology that may start changing that situation for many businesses.  With Soldsie, companies can sell their items and services directly from their social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.  Rather than link to outside promotions or simply post marketing material, businesses can pull in new customers right on their social media pages and sell their products directly.  With Soldsie, brands can use Facebook not just as an avenue for advertising and branding, but potentially as a direct source for revenue as well.  Any companies unsure of how to manage their social media pages should make sure they have good business IT support before using this cool product. Read more »

Augmented reality has many applications in the real world.  People can use it with wearable technology such as Google Glass to create head-up displays for when they perform physical work in an outdoor environment.  However, augmented reality isn’t only limited to wearable tech devices.  Cool product Augment puts the power of augmented reality in the hands of anyone with a smartphone or tablet.  Augment allows people to impose 3D models or prototypes that they create onto the physical world.  Users can view how their models would appear as real-world objects and get a better idea of how they would look before investing money to create a physical item.  Read more »

Every salesperson knows that repeat business is invaluable when it comes to long-term revenue gains.  Creating a strong customer base with people who consistently come back to the same company for what they need forms a foundation that allows businesses to grow.  Whether the business is a restaurant, office computer repair company, plumbing service or retail shop, this principle remains the same.  Creating repeat customers is one of the most profitable things a salesperson can do for his product and company.  Cool person in technology Kevin Dykes believes he can help online businesses increase their customer retention rates with his new service RetentionGrid. Read more »

Data entry is never anyone’s favorite task in a sales job.  Sales professionals always prefer to spend more time connecting with clients and working out deals rather than typing details into a computer system.  Filling out forms with customer information, dates, and progress reports often feels like wasted time.  However, these processes remain necessary parts of a sales operation, much to the chagrin of anyone who sells. Read more »

Small business owners who don’t have the technical knowledge or the right connections can have a lot of trouble setting up an online store for web-based clientele.  Cool product Volusion provides a complete e-commerce solution for businesses covering every aspect of the process.  Volusion distinguishes itself from its competitors by including every aspect of e-commerce for small business rather than focus on one particular point of it.  Other services provide help with an online POS system, social media marketing, or order processing.  However, these services usually come from separate companies, making the process less convenient and fractured for already-stressed business owners.  Volusion differentiates itself by offering solutions for all of these things in one complete package.  The company wants to be a one-stop solution of sorts and give small businesses one experience for all of their e-commerce dealings.  In theory, this sort of all-in-one solution could reduce the need for business IT support services.  However, in practice, that may not be the case, as people may need tech support to help them learn the ropes of Volusion’s software. Read more »

Since streaming media and cloud services like cloud computer support have finally reached a level where they are easy to scale, more and more service businesses are using subscription models.  Subscription models allow these companies to provide ongoing services that make it easier for many people to afford.  Many people who otherwise would not be able to purchase certain forms of entertainment or other kinds of services have the chance when a cheaper monthly price becomes standard.  However, many small businesses and startups who want to use a subscription model do not have the proper resources or infrastructure to institute a large automated billing system.  That’s where Krish Subramanian steps in to provide help with his company ChargeBee. Read more »

College textbooks are rising in price faster than college tuition, which itself is outpacing inflation.  Over the last thirty years, college textbook prices have increased by 812%.  This fact means that current college students should take every chance they can get to save money on buying books each semester.  Cool person in technology David Miller founded SlugBooks to help students in their quest for the best and lowest prices on their textbooks.  Many universities overcharge for textbooks in their bookstores because they know most students don’t have the time and information necessary to find better prices online or elsewhere.  Miller’s company SlugBooks takes the difficulty and time-consumption of textbook price hunting away with its online tools for finding good textbook prices.  Miller’s website lets students find the textbooks necessary for their classes and then searches the web to find the best deals available on those books.  Miller’s goal is to make it easy for students to find cheaper prices and spend the least amount possible on textbooks to help them save money for the semester but still got all the books that they need.  Whether someone is taking a class in Advanced Network Services or in Political Science 101, SlugBooks can help them find inexpensive alternatives to getting the necessary textbooks. Read more »

It’s difficult for any small business to become profitable without taking credit cards as a form of payment.  So many people pay exclusively with their debit and credit cards that incorporating some sort of credit payment system is pretty much a requirement, even for one-person ventures.  Unfortunately, integrating credit card payments into a business can incur both extra costs and complications.  Flint is a cool product that takes the recent advances in mobile technology and uses them to make adding a credit card payment system to a small business model much easier.  Flint turns smartphones into credit card scanners with no extra attachments.  Rather than forcing salespeople to carry around a separate device for credit and debit payments, Flint simply uses a cell phone’s camera to scan cards visually.  Users simply act as if they’re taking a picture of the front of a card.  The app then scans for the credit card number.   All users have to do after that is input the verification code from the back of the card to complete the transaction.  This system could save many one and two employee businesses much of the hassle that comes with accepting credit cards.  Any users whose cameras are broken will need iPhone repair or Android repair services to use the Flint application. Read more »

Email has the unique distinction of being both an essential resource and incredible problem in the workplace.  While it is an essential communication tool for any professional, email often piles up and leads to disorganization.  It’s all too easy to lose an important message when you’re digging through thousands of messages in your inbox.  Cool person in tech Matthew Bellows founded his startup Yesware to help sales professionals not only navigate and handle their emails more efficiently, but also actually leverage email to increase sales conversions.  Bellows and his team have created a Gmail add-on that attempts to tailor the email experience to sales professionals’ needs.  Bellows has Yesware track emails so it can alert salespeople when clients open their messages.  Bellows means for this feature to help keep all active leads fresh in a salesperson’s mind when they utilize email.  It also helps users estimate when clients check and read their email.  This could help users optimize follow-up emails based on when their customers are most likely to see them.  Anyone who has trouble integrating Yesware into their Gmail service can contact office tech support for assistance. Read more »