Earlier this week there was an article on SmallBizTechnology.com about how the biggest problem small businesses have in using technology is lack of education.  I absolutely agree with the sentiment – who has time to learn about technology when they have a business to run?  In the article Ramon Ray recommended spending an hour or two a week learning about technology.  From there, however, he talked a lot about technology that boosts a businesses online presence – Facebook, blogging, Twitter and local search.  These are all important but there is so much more!

So what else should a small business owner educate themselves about?  There are so many topics that it can seem like a maze but if you take a look at this list you can concentrate on a few topics at a time:

• How can you make things easier for your customer?  (easy online access to content and services)
• How can you make things easier for your staff? (remote access, simple processes, collaboration tools)
• How can you touch more prospects, close more sales and increase revenue? (CRM, email newsletters)
• How can you streamline your internal processes and maybe save money? (better integration, fewer but more powerful systems, remote hosting, cloud services)
• How can you get a better handle on your business? (reporting, analytics)

So here is a short round-up of good sources for technology information – these are examples but they should give you somewhere to start:

• online technology magazines and blogs like smallbiztechnology.com and smallbusinesscomputing.com.  I also like Laurie McCabe’s blog.
• industry specific online sources like the Law Technology News section of Law.com or Techtips on TheProgressiveAccountant.com
• online communities like American Express Open and Biznik.com
• local blogs like atlantasmall.biz

What technology topics would you like to know more about?  Where do you go to get your technical education?

When was the last time you took a look at your small business’s website?  I bet you set it up a few (or maybe not so few!) years ago, spurred on by your nephew, daughter, or friend and have not done anything to it since.  As part of your spring cleaning you should take a pass thru your website to see if it is up-to-date and correct.  Better yet, consider hiring a professional (usually a marketing professional) to give it a once over.  Don’t be afraid that they may want to redo the entire site – they may well suggest that.  That is how they make a living, after all!  Insist that they just do a review with a list of suggestions and a cost to implement each suggestion.  Pick what seems appropriate to you and that you can afford.  You may even be able to make some of the changes yourself.  Areas to consider:

• It sounds simple but I bet I can pull up 10 websites and at least 9 of them are dated earlier than 2010.  If I am a potential customer and see your website hasn’t been updated since 2007, it doesn’t give me warm, fuzzy feelings about your business.  Having no date isn’t a great option either; customers and prospects want to know that you are keeping up with things in and with your business.
• Re-read the text; does it still make sense today?  Does it still have the same voice you want to have represent your business?  Or is it too stilted and formal?  Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has driven the Internet to a less formal, more intimate voice.  You should still be professional online but you may want to consider your language in relation to changes happening on the Internet.
• Are your products, services and prices up to date?  You should certainly update them if they are not.  If you don’t specify your products, services or prices you may want to consider adding them.
• Consider adding links to social media (and diving into social media if you aren’t already there).
• Make sure you site is search engine friendly – and by that I mean with today’s search engines.  The search algorithms change constantly; your site might have performed well in 2007 but might not now.
• Update graphics or photos if they look dated.
• Make sure you site is loading quickly.  Not only does this add to a better user experience, the search engines are starting to “grade” sites on their performance.  Slow-to-load sites will be penalized.
• Your customers and prospects want to know about who they are doing business with.  Consider adding an ‘about us’ section and be sure to include affiliations, etc.
• Finally, make it easy for folks to contact you.  So many sites force users to use their sign up form – this is a convenience for the site owner businesses, NOT for the user.  Sure, it automatically updates your email list but if I want to talk to someone NOW I want to have a phone number available or an email address I can use directly.

These are a few ideas for “spring cleaning” your website, to add a little spit and polish to your online presence.  If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them!

As a small business owner we want to help our customers personally, to meet with them face to face or talk to them on the phone so that we build a connection and a relationship. Unfortunately, sometimes our customers want to help themselves. When you allow customers to help themselves, where it makes sense, you empower them to get what they need when they need it. In the long run they are more likely to come back to you for additional products and services.   It doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario – why not allow them to choose between self-service or in-person service?

So what do I mean by self-service? It can mean different things to different companies:

• As I mentioned in an earlier post, services firms can allow their customers to set appointments online.  You can tell from this post I am a big fan of being able to set appointments online at my own convenience.  It may not always make sense but is something to consider.
• Companies that have a product can include product manuals and warranties online.  This one has become near and dear to my heart lately; I have a 10-year-old son and I probably don’t have to tell you that instructions and new toys/games/whatevers they belong to are soon parted.  Just last night I had to go online to find the instruction manual for the rock-tumbler he got for his birthday.  What a relief!
• Firms that share a lot of documents with their customers can set up portals to allow them access and share documents.  Tools vary in their sophistication and include (but are certainly not limited to) Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs, Basecamp, et al.
• If you regularly do business with a customer why not present the invoices online?  Any then maybe even PAY online?  Cool, huh?  There are a lot of options for this and it is a topic worthy of its own post so we’ll leave it at that for now.
• Online ordering or online quote capabilities have been around a long time but it is surprising how many companies still don’t use them.  I think the mindset is that they want the prospect to all or come in so they can sell them in person.  Certainly some products and services are too complicated to handle online but, honestly, most aren’t.  I for one will likely look for another service provider if I can’t get at least a semblance of a quote online before I pick up the phone.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways for you to provide service to your customers online.  The additional benefit is that not only will you make your customer’s happy, you’ll reduce the customer service load on your employees, perhaps even freeing them up for other revenue generating task.  Sounds like a good deal all around to me!

Have you considered adding customer self-service to your small business technology plan?

I started to write this post about some other more specific examples of how small businesses can use  technology to improve customer service but some of them were related to a company’s website – and since a lot of companies STILL have awful websites and a few don’t have a website at all, I thought it made more sense to start there.  With the training wheels on.  Next week we can take them off.

A good, relevant website is essential to providing good customer service.  How?  Any time you can provide answers to  your customer’s questions at their convenience you are providing good customer service.  Your website can be accessed from virtually anywhere at anytime, giving your customers (and prospective customers) instant access to the information they need.  Descriptions of services and products, fees and costs, contact information, hours of operation and maps or driving directions are a great start.  If you get a lot of the same questions over and over you can include FAQs.  Testimonials or references from other customers provide prospects with references that they can contact.  If you have service manuals, installation guide, instructions or other documentation, you can allow them to be downloaded from the website.  You can provide video clips or blog articles with educational content.  The possibilities are boundless.

Your website can be a storefront and a vehicle for your marketing and branding but it can also be the hub of your customer service platform.  Once you have the basics covered you can move on to providing even more service online.  A few weeks ago I wrote about providing customer self-service by allowing them to schedule appointments online.  In my next post I’ll expand on this customer self-service theme.  In the meantime, how do you provide customer service online?

I have written a number of posts the past few months about how important it is for small businesses to be aware of and to improve their local online presence.  Local search is getting big on its own and with the advent of mobile search it is critical that small businesses stake their claim in local business searches.

GetListed.org is a great tool to use for this.  You simply enter your business name and it checks the presence of your business on (at this point) four websites – Google, Yahoo, Bing and Best of the Web.  If you don’t have a listing it gives you links to each for setting up your business on the sites.  If you do have a listing it shows gives you a snapshot of how strong your listing is – do you have pictures, citations (references from other sites) and reviews?

In addition to the four search engines listed above, GetListed.org links you to other search websites that frequently get referenced by Google, etc.  These include Superpages.com, Brownbook.net and Yelp.  Unfortunately this service seems West Coast based – sites that are used heavily here in the Atlanta area such as Kudzu.com aren’t included…yet.

There is a lot of helpful information about boosting your local search presence in one place with GetListed.org.  I highly recommend that every small business owner go there and get started with raising their local search visibility.  Set up your local listings and read the hints and tips.  In addition, I suggest adding it to your to-do list to go out there every few weeks and make sure you are listed where you should be.

How strong is your local search presence?

Technorati claim token:  5KC24UU5U39A  Everyone else can ignore

In an earlier post I touched on Google’s Local Business Listings in the context of other available online exposure resources for small businesses.  There have been a few recent developments that make me realize that I should dive a bit deeper into this topic.

Google has  had Local Business Listings for a number of years and there are some good really good things about it.  First, what it is: it is essentially a free advertising space on Google.  And every business can have one.  In fact, most businesses may already have one and not know it.  How is that?  Google  aggregates company data from a number of resources and creates  default listings for all the businesses it finds.  As a business owner, you can add a listing if there isn’t already one or “claim” yours if it is already there.

Which brings us to Reason Number 1 to pay attention to the listing for your company – it is there and you may not even know about it.  Which means it might not even contain the right information.  And that can’t be a good thing – you don’t want a potential customer finding your listing but calling a wrong number.  So as soon as you are done reading this post you should go right out and check your listing.  On second thought, you should go right now.  I’ll wait.

Since you have a listing whether you want it or not (and why would you not want free advertising?) let’s talk about Reason Number 2 to check the listing – the better the QUALITY of the listing, the better chance that your listing will show up in the “7-pack” or the list of  local businesses associated with a map.  This placement is different from your regular search placement which is heavily affected by SEO (but the placement of the 7-pack itself CAN affect your overall placement in search results.).   Now Google isn’t likely to share their algorithm but a lot of smart folks (here is one source)  have spent time studying this and, while they don’t agree on the exact order, they do agree that these factors (among others) are likely to affect the placement of your business:

• local address (presumably the RIGHT one)
• good categorization
• location keyword in business description
• videos and pictures
• reviews
• the fact that the listing is “claimed” by the business owner who presumably ensured it is correct and complete

Reason Number 3 to check your local listing is that Google recently (like last week) rolled out a new feature called “near me now” (as opposed to “hear me now” of course) that is available on iPhones and Android devices.  Essentially, if you have one of those devices and go to the main Google screen you can elect, by allowing your device to share your location, to see business that are near that location.  Here is a good article about the “near me now” functionality that includes screen shots and a cutesy video.  Of course, for your business to have a chance of showing up when folks are in your neighborhood looking for exactly the service you provide, it needs to have a good address.

So now you have a nice, complete, correct, good-looking listing.  You can just ignore it now and let it do its thing, right?  WRONG!  Reason Number 4 to pay attention to your listing on a regular basis is that there are bad bad people out there that may hijack your listing.  When they do this they leave your listing intact but do things like change the phone number or the url for the website so THEY get all your hard-earned leads instead of you.  This article talks about how listings get hijacked and unfortunately sometimes getting it fixed with Google can be a pain.  At this point I don’t have any good advice about how to avoid getting hijacked; for now, just be aware and check your listing regularly!  In the meantime, let’s hope Google is listening to the growing uproar and makes it harder to hijack listings soon.  The Local Business Listings are a good thing for small businesses in theory; issues like hijacking can turn a good thing into a bad thing in a hurry.

Here are 4 reasons to pay attention, regularly, to your Google Local Business Listing – have you checked yours today?

Inc.com has this good article about online reviews that reflects a lot of what I wrote about in my post Why Should Small Business Care about Ratings and Reviews? .  In it the author lists 7 easy steps to improving your online reputation, including monitoring and responding to the reviews you have as well as soliciting reviews from your current customers.  The last point they make is important – it is a numbers game.  Your small business will be reviewed and rated online whether you want it to or not.  You will sometimes get bad reviews.  Your best defense is to get as many good reviews out there from your loyal customers; let consumers see what a good job you do and how happy (most) of your customers are!

We’ve long relied on formal expert reviews and ratings to help us decide what to buy. I have had a subscription to Consumer Reports (originally the magazine, now the online version) and I wouldn’t think of buying anything electronic without checking CNET.com.

Over the years, beyond the experts, more and more sites are allowing individuals to rate and review items. I personally find this invaluable and will read consumer reviews if I am making a major purchase. I recently bought a camping tent and spent an hour or more reading reviews on multiple sites before I decided what to buy.

Now there are multiple sites that allow individuals to rate and review businesses as well. These include sites like CitySearch.com,  Kudzu.com, Angieslist.com (NOT a complete list!) as well as lots of local sites. It is important for small businesses to understand ratings and reviews and leverage them to their benefit.

First, it is important to note that you really don’t have a choice about participating on these sites. Some of them populate their listings based on public data. Others allow individual consumers to add businesses, if they aren’t already there. As a business owner you may already be listed and not even know it! Business owners are able, and in fact are encouraged, to assume ownership of their listing but even if you don’t, you are there. Once you are there consumers will write reviews – and more and more are doing this every day – so it is in your best interest to join ‘em, not fight ‘em!

What does this mean? To start with, identify the major sites in your neck of the woods. The ones listed above are in most metropolitan areas and many local newspapers and TV stations are in the game as well. Then, add your listing if it isn’t there and take ownership of it if it already exists. Make sure it is correct, up-to-date and appealing. Consider it a bit of advertising you didn’t have to pay for as well as an opportunity for additional dialog with new prospects!

Next, make it a habit to check your reviews on a regular basis. You should respond to each review. To positive reviews you should add a comment thanking the reviewer. So-so or bad reviews are harder. It is important to respond but you have to stay calm, cool and professional. Remember, the people that read these reviews expect to see a variety of reviews – what is important is that you demonstrate how you solve problems and the type of customer service a would-be customer might expect.

If you do get a bad review and respond to it once, usually it is best to just leave it at that. There are some people, commonly referred to as trolls, that like to get attention by being mean and ugly in the reviews. Generally “don’t feed the trolls” by continuing to respond or getting involved in an escalating argument in a public forum.

Finally, it is worth your time to encourage your customers to leave reviews. You can do this in a number of ways:

• with a follow up note or email
• with a link or links on your website
• by offering an incentive, say 10% the next service, for customers that post a review.

As the popularity of ratings and reviews continues to grow, the number of sites that include them and types of businesses they cover grows as well. All businesses, from auto repair shops to doctors, dentists and lawyers, can be reviewed at one place or another. Put this forum to work for you – you can gain online credibility, get invaluable feedback about your business, attract customers and connect with people online in a whole new way. Nothing wrong with that!

Over the past few months I’ve needed to local a variety of service providers for my home – oven repair, a new fence, and rodent removal all come to mind. Like I mentioned before, I don’t have a phone book. If the service providers weren’t online, they were out of the running.

In all of these instances it took more work on my part to find providers than I would have liked. Each time I started with a Google search but was quickly frustrated because of the lack of ratings and reviews and because local and non-local companies were co-mingled. I then went to Kudzu.com (a local business directory). I had to do several searches before I found companies to call; if (in the case of the fence companies) their website was to fancy or included ornamental iron work for instance, I skipped them; they must be too expensive or too big to take a small job. I skipped firms with no website or really really ugly websites. I skipped companies with no ratings or reviews. I skipped companies, in the case of the oven repair, that didn’t specifically mention my brand range.

I finally found satisfactory service providers and in all cases I was very happy with the work I had done. But, it should have been a lot easier. What could they have done to make me find them faster?

• If a company doesn’t have a website, it should get one. You don’t HAVE to – many of the local directories allow you to create a free ad without a website. There are, however, folks like me that question your credibility and reliability if you don’t have a site. You can use Google to create a free site now which should be enough to get you started. Eventually, though, I think you’ll find it worth your while to at least invest in a simple, well-designed site to represent your business.

• Companies should take business directory sites like Kudzu more seriously. Most companies have few reviews; encouraging your customers to review you on sites like Yelp.com or Kudzu.com can easily distance you from your competition. And don’t limit yourself to one business directory service; in most metropolitan areas there are usually 3 or 4, including some local area ones. You don’t know which one your customers might use so make sure you are up to date on all of them and that you encourage reviews on all of them. In most cases these listings are free.

• If they find they are getting a decent amount of traffic from one or more of these services companies could consider paying for an “upgraded” account that will often push you up in the search results.

• List your business on the Google Local Business center

• Learn about SEO or hire someone to help them improve their site rankings on the search engines. Particularly in the instance of the appliance repair, having their site show up high in a search for “Atlanta appliance repair Thermador” would have caught my attention.

• Consider adding their company to LinkedIn or adding a Facebook fan page. While these social networking sites might not seem like obvious place for someone to look for services, content on both is regularly crawled by the search engines and would improve site rankings. Besides, you never know WHERE you customer is going to look for you!

Today fewer and fewer people are using traditional media (phone books or newspapers) to find companies. They are using the internet and they aren’t just using search engines. To be successful small companies have to take the time to make sure that they have a wide-spread online presence and that it is appealing and up-to-date because ONLINE is where the customers are!

P.S. In each case, after I received good service from the providers, I went back to Kudzu.com to give them a good review. I happen to know it is good for them but not every customer will think to do that. Another suggestion is to remind your customers at the end of the service that you would appreciate a review!

Fence photo:

I don’t have a single phone book in my house.  I don’t subscribe to any newspapers.   Local small businesses definitely try to get my attention in other ways. I am mostly annoyed by companies that put magnets on or tape fliers to my mailbox, not called to action.  The worst are those that put fliers in plastic sandwich bags with a few stones and toss them onto my driveway. Really? That is how you want to get my attention?

Long ago, in a small town it was easy for a proprietor of a small business to let his/her customers know what goods or services they provided. Everyone in the town passed by the shop window or come in to visit.  And because everyone talked to everyone else, even if Jane didn’t know Bob could sharpen her knives at his hardware store, when she bemoaned her dull kitchenware to Sarah, SHE was able to tell Jane that Bob had the answer to her problem.

In her blog post Back Noise is so 1880′s Diana Baldwin likens online social media outlets to the local store where everyone gathered and shared information and gossip. I think that is an interesting analogy.

So if there is no local store and no yellow pages and no one reads a news paper, how do you as a business owner get my attention, especially at the all important time when I NEED YOUR SERVICE?  Like when I had to have my fence repaired?  Or when my oven quit working?  Or when my basement is flooded?

I have come to the point in my life where I want to find goods and services online, preferably with local companies. In addition, I want as many of my interactions with these companies to be, you got it, online. This is a problem for small businesses and it is a problem that will only get worse.   After me is a generation that has been brought up completely in a digital world; together we will insist on doing everything online.   We will require more than a brochure-ware website and email address that isn’t monitored. We will require that you do business online.  Completely.

I can hear you now. You are saying “I am in the relationship business and the Internet is so impersonal”. Or “I am in business to serve those in my neighborhood, not folks around the world, so why do I need to take the Internet seriously?”. Or even “All the technology is so expensive, it can’t be cost effective.”.

Right now lots of people use the Internet as a replacement for the phone book. We use it as mechanism for asking others for recommendations for goods and services.  We use it to shout out our wants and needs to any service provider that is listening.  The businesses that know and take advantage of this will prosper in the future.

What does this mean to a small business?

• It means, of course, that you have a website and use (and check) email. It means that I have to easily find your website. If I don’t know the name of your company I am going to search for “Atlanta appliance repair” – will your website show up?

• It means that if there is a local business finder site I will be using it. There are several of these around the country – are you on yours? Does it link to your website and have accurate contact information, at a minimum?  Have you proactively enlisted the help of your raving fans to make sure that there are good reviews on it?
• It means that you need to know what your customer does online. Do they Twitter in frustration because their oven doesn’t work? Do they look at recommendations on local business finder sites or Yelp or any other site? Do they become fans of companies on Facebook?
• It means that businesses need to be prepared to deal with leads that come from online channels and to reciprocate by serving customers online. Based on the needs and wants of your customers, your company needs the processes and systems to transact as much as possible online. Someone needs to respond to their emails and be available to chat. You should consider providing online methods for setting up an appointment, providing quotes, paying invoices, and responding to customer service needs.

None of this is new. Your competitors will be doing this soon, if they aren’t already.  Are you ready?