I will start this post with an admission – I am about to flog the horse that should have been dead, buried and forgotten at least 10 years ago.  Fax machines should be like phones with cords, tvs without remotes, ironing boards and other vestiges of electronics past.  They should be things that our children ask us about with a quizzical expression as if it to say “Really?  You sent documents over phone lines as sound?”.

Yet, I can pull up a handful of websites and there is the fax number, prominently displayed after the phone number and before the email address.  As if the small business in question would rather receive a fax than an email.  I can walk into a small business, like I did recently at the garage where I get work done on my car, and there it sits.  Again, really?

I wish I could say I am the only one to write about this but alas that is not the case.  I can f ind many articles on the same topic (like here, here and here).  And yet.  My hope is that none of you read those articles or, if you did, you just didn’t get the point until now, because of some pithy thing I have to say.  Because the fact is this:  fax machines are useless and should be retired.

Why?  Well first of all, to use a fax machines you have to first print a document, then stick it in a machine and then it prints AGAIN at the destination.  That means double the paper usage, especially if that document was electronic on your end and would never have been printed otherwise.

Second, some small businesses are still paying for a second phone line to support faxes.  The ones they get about 3 times a year.

Finally, faxed documents are almost always of poor quality, faint and smudged and often crooked with parts cropped off.  That is hardly a professional image to be presenting!

There are easy alternatives.  You can email that document directly from your PC.  If it was already printed and has a signature or the like you can scan the document and email it.  In fact for lots of reasons a scanner is a better investment today than a fax machine.  Not only can you get rid of your fax machine but you can scan and store your documents, reducing the amount of paper on hand.

So why do folks hold on to fax machines with white knuckles?  Inertia in some cases.  In others the business owners don’t  have the experience emailing and scanning.  Others have a faulty sense that a scanned document is “more official” or “more secure”.  Did you know that easiest way to forge a document is to cut out someone’s signature, glue or tape it to a document and then fax it?

For kicks and grins, how about keeping track of the faxes you send a receive each month.  Is there another way to send or receive that document?  Likely the answer is yes.  If you still have a few outliers (and I would honestly like to know what they are because I can’t think of any examples) you can use a service like efax.com to support those.

Let’s  the fax die its belated but natural death and simplify your technology this spring!

Photo courtesy:

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!

This will be a short post today to make up for not posting last week.  I’ll get back on track later this week, I promise.

What is keeping you from leveraging today’s technology to provide stellar customer service?  I’ve noticed a trend in the reasons I’ve heard from small business owners and it ISN’T money.  This surprised me because you’d expect the main reason to be cost.  In today’s economy cost IS something to consider and any changes or additions to the technology you use to support your business should be carefully thought out and carefully planned and implemented.

No, the reasons I hear most start like this:  ”I still have to…” or “I would have to change…” or “I want…” – in other words, it is all about the business owner, not at all about the customer.  When I hear sentences that start with these phrases the following questions come to my mind:

When I hear “I still have to…” or “I would have to change…” I wonder, have you taken the opportunity to rethink your operational processes?    You might not need that step any more.  Or I wonder if you really understand the solutions you are considering.  For example, if your response to putting in functionality for customers to self-schedule appointments is “I still have to call them to confirm or change the appointment”, you may need to look at what the services provide.  Most of them allow you to apply rules to the appointments, maybe only existing customers can self-schedule or you can specify dates and times for appointments based on the service selected.  In addition, most of the services include functionality that automatically emails confirmations and reminders for you.
When I hear “I want…” my ears really perk up – this is where it is GENERALLY about you, your sales technique and need to deal with your customer in a way you are comfortable with, your needs and not your customer’s.  When you start with “I want…” keep in mind that today’s culture is getting more technology-savvy and more technology-centric.  Your customers have lots of options on how to interact with business and more and more often they want to choose their communication channels and deal with your business when it is convenient for them.

If you keep thinking “I want…” instead of “They want…so I should…” you may find yourself left behind your more open minded and progressive competitors.

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?

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?