Coleman Technologies Blog

Customer Service
Your customers are one of your most valuable assets, so it’s natural that you want to build a powerful bond with them. If you can’t support the products you sell to them, you’ll have a difficult time keeping your business in good standing with both current and prospective clients. Technology can help you maintain this positive relationship through the use of a ticketing system to handle customer complaints and concerns, and it also makes it easy to handle support for various services you might offer.

Social media and social networking in general provides businesses with more direct ways of interacting with consumers. Sites like Facebook and Twitter essentially offer a platform to promote a brand and knowledge base. Of course, this advantage can quickly become a detriment if it’s not managed properly, as you’re (again) dealing directly with customers--if they aren’t satisfied by your interaction, they’re more likely to share it and complicate public relations.

Productivity
To be successful as a business, you have to accrue money somehow. This is where productivity comes in--technology helps by enabling workers to get more done throughout the workday, building more value for your organization in the long run. For example, time-tracking software can help with task scheduling, giving employees the opportunity to accomplish more during the time they spend in the office. Moreover, you’ll be able to assign a monetary value to the time your employees spend on various tasks and streamline their work processes.

Many of today’s most helpful technology solutions come with built-in productivity solutions that allow for collaboration through the cloud. These cloud-hosted applications provide flexibility to workers so they can communicate in the way most efficient for them. Since these solutions are flexible and scalable, your business can adjust them as needed.

Finance
Money is a big part of why you’re in business, but you can’t do anything without funding of your own. You have a bottom line to keep in mind, after all. Technology can help businesses better manage their finances through online invoicing services to collect payments and reduce paper expenses. If you use software to manage payroll and other accounts, you’ll be able to handle them easily and more efficiently. If you can streamline these processes at all, your business can run much better and you’ll be better off in the long run.

Security
Security plays a critical role in the sustainability of your business, both on your network and in your physical office. You can’t let workers or other entities waltz around your network and your office uninhibited, as the opportunity to cause major damage is practically omnipresent in today’s business world. You need to implement not only network security solutions such as antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and spam blocking technology, but physical security solutions like security cameras, biometric security locks, and other measures as well. Doing so ensures the protection of all your business’ assets, whether it’s from a hacker or a careless employee.

A lot goes into making a business successful, and technology plays a large role in doing so. How does your business use technology? Coleman Technologies can help you get started thinking about the future for your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Extension Restrictions
One of Chrome’s largest advantages over its competition has to be its library of add-on extensions. Unfortunately, any kind of functionality with these additional “programs” can lead to security concerns. Google has had to slow down the production of extensions to create new requirements for developers to adhere to. One example is how cryptocurrency continues to be a major talking point, prompting extensions to include cryptocurrency mining and cryptojacking in their features. Google is shutting down these supplemental programs, as well as generally holding developers to higher standards than they previously were. It now demands that developer accounts be protected by two-factor authentication, as well as paying closer attention to apps that require lots of permissions or host their code remotely.

Security Measures
Chrome 70 is also packing in all kinds of new security features to keep phishing attacks away from end users. In particular, Chrome is trying to push education of its native password management tools, as well as warn users when the links they are about to access aren’t secure. In essence, this simply states that websites need to be secured if they want visitors, reinforcing the fact that websites need to prioritize security these days.

Login Concerns
While some changes have been accepted with open arms, others… not so much. While Chrome has allowed users to use the browser without logging into the browser, some have noticed that Chrome appears to log a user in, even if they are only using one service out of the many provided. This is primarily an issue because Google could potentially share the user’s data (think browsing history), which is not something that users traditionally take lightly. In the time since then, Google has announced that Chrome isn’t necessarily logging users into Chrome--it’s more of an in-between measure to show a user which of their accounts is currently logged in.

As with any new solution, there will be roadblocks and concerns that users might be faced with during the experimentation phase. What kind of experiences have you had with Chrome 70 so far? Let us know in the comments.

VoIP Improves Inter-Department Communication
Landline telephones in the office have been dated for quite some time. Even if they were once necessary to get in touch with coworkers and other departments, they are now quite antiquated compared to modern solutions. After all, there’s no guarantee that an employee will be available to take your call, as the workplace is filled with countless tasks that often require their full attention. Sure, you could leave a voicemail, but there’s no guarantee that the employee will see the message until it’s too late to respond. Since Voice over Internet Protocol doesn’t rely on your employees having a traditional handset, and instead has them using more mobile devices, they’re more likely to be available when you need them most.

VoIP Is More Flexible
Some organizations have employees who aren’t always able to work in the office for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they are simply on the move for conferences so often that they are just never in the office, or perhaps you have employees who work remotely from time to time (or even permanently). VoIP lets you stay in touch with these employees in the same way you can with your in-house team. Since VoIP can be used on mobile devices, laptops, and even desktops, it doesn’t matter where your employees work, as long as they have the VoIP application and a headset. In this way, VoIP is much more flexible than any traditional landline.

VoIP Allows for Additional Features
Landline phone services tend to have features built into them, but many of them are decided by the cable company that provides your telephone service. These features are often not what your business wants or even needs. VoIP services give your business all the features needed from traditional landline telephone services, including conference calling and voicemail, but with lots of additional features that add a quality to your business’ ability to communicate. You can take advantage of video conferencing and instant messaging built right into your VoIP solution. By going through a VoIP provider in this way, you save money by only paying for services you will use rather than those your cable provider assumes you want.

To get started with a VoIP solution today, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

What is Breadcrumb Navigation?
As per the aforementioned fairy tale, breadcrumb navigation consists of a path leading home. In this case, home is the homepage. With breadcrumb navigation, you can more easily keep track of how you got to the current web page you’re on, as well as the path back to the home page. This path can typically be viewed at the top of the page. Each step includes a link that navigates back to a specific page.

Let’s say that you’re looking at a service page on a website. If the path you took leads back to the home page, you’ll see all of the pages in between in the breadcrumbs menu. For the sake of this example, let’s say the pages in between are the second menu item and the fifth menu item. It would look something like this:

Home > [Menu 2] > [Menu Item 5]

Since these breadcrumbs are links, you can click on any one of them to be brought back to that page. This lets you continue browsing with minimal chance of getting lost on the site trying to backtrack.

More Than Just Websites
You might notice that this navigation style is similar to the ones used in toolbars in file folders or files saved on your desktop. The reason is the same--it makes finding certain files easier at a later date. The location can also be shared with others who need to know where it is.

Breadcrumbs are typically meant for helping users with browsing and organization. Are there any other features out there you can think of that do the same thing? Let us know in the comments.

“VoIP is Too Expensive”
Businesses often think that VoIP is more expensive than your typical telephone bill, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The purpose of VoIP is to actually reduce the costs of your telephone bill by eliminating unnecessary services and the costs associated with them. VoIP does this because it uses your Internet connection rather than a phone connection, meaning that you don’t have to have phone lines all over your office just to give each of your employees phones on their desks. All you need to use a VoIP solution is a headset or handset and a desktop/mobile app hooked up to the Internet.

“VoIP Isn’t Reliable Enough”
In reality, VoIP is only as reliable as your Internet connection. If your Internet connection isn’t reliable, then you have a problem as is, so why not use it as an opportunity to both improve connectivity and communications all in one?

“VoIP is More Trouble Than It’s Worth”
Considering that VoIP would be replacing your current telephone setup, it’s reasonable to suspect that the amount of effort put into this implementation would be considerable. However, that’s simply not the case--VoIP requires minimal setup, as it uses your existing network infrastructure. All you’re doing is connecting your phones to the Internet, which takes no time at all.

“VoIP Doesn’t Sound Good Enough”
VoIP often doesn’t sound any different from your typical phone line connection, and if it doesn’t sound as great as you want it to, chances are it’s (once again) an issue with your Internet connection--not necessarily anything wrong with the VoIP service itself.

“VoIP Isn’t the Right Fit”
VoIP can be the perfect fit for your business precisely due to just how customizable it is to your business’ specific needs. You can mix and match the additional features you desire to save money in the long run. All of the features from any old phone company would be a considerably larger investment, and some VoIP features aren’t even offered by your standard phone company in the first place.

VoIP is simply too good a solution to not implement or at least consider. If you want to hear more about VoIP, our IT professionals would be happy to assist you. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.