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CRM Offers Businesses Valuable Functionality

a computer screen with a magnifying glass on it

Customer relationship management is an essential operation for any business to convert leads to customers, maintain customer satisfaction, and increase the rate of returning customers. To make these processes more efficient, CRM platforms offer tracking and automation CRM features that take burden off of your employees and increase the functionality of your business operations. Let’s take a few minutes to review what these benefits look like, based on the features your CRM should provide.

What CRM Features should my Platform Offer?

Workflow Automation

The more your CRM platform automates customer service operations on your behalf, the more time you have to spend on other responsibilities and initiatives. Not only does this save time, but it eliminates the risk of human error in your processes. Even the best employees make mistakes sometimes, so why not guarantee flawless customer relationship management with CRM workflow automation?

Integrations

The more your departments work seamlessly together, the easier and more accurate your workflows will be. Therefore, seek out a CRM that offers many integrations like marketing automation, chat, call center, and web analytics. This will ultimately pay off in improved communication and organization for your business.

Contact Management

It’s essential to keep in touch with the people you’ve turned into leads, prospects and clientele, and to track where they fall on that pipeline in order to provide more individualized customer service and marketing content. Having a CRM that manages your contacts will automate an important process that needs to be constantly attended to and updated, taking a lot of busy work off of your employees.

Lead Management

Like contact management, one of the best CRM features to have is lead management. Tracking your leads automatically with a CRM makes the process much simpler by crunching the numbers and delivering your business with actionable metrics. That way, you can focus more energy on nurturing viable business leads when you know which targets are the most promising to pursue.

This is only a fraction of what a good customer relationship management system can – and should – do for your business. At AE Technology Group we can get you set up with a quality CRM that will perfectly suit your business’s needs. Give us a call at (516) 536-5006 to get started.

Wheelhouse IT Blog

3 Simple Problems That Cause A Slow Computer

a man sitting in front of a laptop computer

Sometimes you might experience a slow computer and wonder when it’s time to call in the experts. After all, you don’t know how much you might break your budget, right? Depending on the issue, you might be able to resolve it yourself. We’ve put together three of the most common computer repair scenarios that you might encounter and how they should be handled.

Your Computer is Slow

There are countless reasons your computer might be running poorly. One example is having too many applications or too many web browser tabs open at the same time. If you try to do too much on a device that is not meant to handle that much work, of course, it’s going to be slow. Granted, a slow computer could be a sign of other underlying problems, so you might want to call someone about it anyway, but for a short-term fix, try closing some apps or doing less resource-intensive tasks. You can always try the good ol’ restart, too.

A Bad Internet Connection

Sometimes your computer might simply be experiencing a slow Internet connection, especially if your business relies on cloud-hosted productivity applications like Google Workspace or Office 365. Check your Internet connection by clicking on the icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. If you are not connected to the network, or there is something wrong with the network (like slowdown, for example), you can try restarting the device or your router.

Your Computer Makes Lots of Noise

Computers are complex pieces of machinery that have countless internal parts. Due to the mechanical nature of some of these parts, they may start to go faulty at some point, and trust us when we say that any loud noise coming from your computer is a sure sign that something is wrong with it. You can replace certain parts easily enough, but we recommend just calling the experts at AE Technology Group and letting us handle your issues. This takes the guesswork out of the equation.

We mentioned earlier that you might be concerned about breaking your computer repair budget by calling in experts, but we want to tell you that with a concept known as managed services, you’ll never have to worry about breaking the bank again—at least where technology is concerned. See, with managed services, you essentially get access to all-you-can-eat technology help according to a service agreement. You’ll never have to worry about how much a call to your provider will cost because all of that has already been ironed out in the agreement.

AE Technology wants to be your go-to IT resource for any computer repair or technical issues that your staff experiences throughout the workday. With us on your side, you’ll never have to worry about technology problems derailing productivity for extended periods of time, because you know we’ll be on the case as soon as it’s reported. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 536-5006.

Ransom + Software = Ransomware: How to Prevent Data Hostages

The word ransom conjures images of true crime documentaries and ski mask clad villains holding your data hostage in cyberspace. In fact, the term “ransomware” is combination of the words ransom and software. This type of cyberattack typically operates by phishing scams, using malicious email links and attachments or drive-by downloading to gain access to sensitive information. Hackers steal company data, encrypt it, and charge unsuspecting victims an exorbitant ransom fee (typically in bitcoin so as not to be traced) to obtain access to their own documents, networks, and servers.

The good news is you won’t need a team of secret agents to put these villains in their place. Knowledge and simple preemptive action is key when it comes to protecting your company’s data.

A Targeted Strike

Understanding the ways hackers exploit vulnerable networks can save businesses a lot of time and money in data recovery costs. Hackers have become more sophisticated in recent years, targeting specific entities they know will pay a high price for the safe return of their data. Companies that handle sensitive and confidential information are the most vulnerable, with ransomware attacks becoming prominent in the healthcare industry as well as in corporations that utilize CRM (Client Relationship Management) systems.

The latest victim? Municipalities. According to a recent report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, although the number of ransomware attacks have decreased in recent years, infiltration attempts are becoming more targeted and devastating where successful. Hackers now have the ability to shut down entire cities and demand payment to restore vital services.

An Impenetrable Defense

Now that we know how ransomware works and who is at risk, we can begin taking steps to fortify our data security.

Foremost, always backup your data, servers, and networks. Cloud servers and SaaS can cut down on vulnerable infrastructure, provide reliable and automated backups, and keep your data stored in one, convenient location.

A dependable firewall is essential for any business. Strong antivirus software updates automatically to account for new and evolving threats, detecting risks before they become a problem.

Implementing basic technology training for your large or small business can enable employees to take cybersecurity into their own hands and learn more about common phishing scams, suspicious links, and malware prevention.

Of course, super powering your company’s security with a managed IT service is the best way to keep your critical systems information safe. Contact our tech gurus today to learn more about protecting your business from ransomware and other threats.

January 2020 is THE END for Windows 7: Here’s What You Need to Know

january 2020 is the end for windows 7 here what you need to know

As you may have heard, Microsoft recently announced that it will be ending support for Windows 7; in fact, they have set the end-of-life date for Windows 7 as January 14th, 2020. After this date, Microsoft will no longer be offering support, updates, and vital security patches for Windows 7.

What Does This Mean?

So what does this mean for you if you are one of the many businesses still running PCs that use Windows 7? While you don’t have to worry about your PC not working anymore starting January 2020, as Windows 7 computers will still continue to operate, you will no longer get updates and support from Microsoft. This means that you will no longer get automatic security and bug fixes from Microsoft, which can make it extremely costly, and dangerous, to keep operating Windows 7. In fact, without proper security support, Windows 7 computers will quickly become the target hackers.

What Should You Do?

If you still run Windows 7 on your computers, you may be wondering what your next step should be. Ultimately, your best course of action would be to upgrade to Windows 10 before the deadline, as this will ensure that you do not go through a period where your computer is not protected by vital security upgrades and bug fixes. Ultimately, putting in the time and money now to upgrade your business’s computers to Windows 10 can help to save you from the stress that a security breach would cause if you continued to use an operating system past its end-of-life date.

However, before upgrading your computers to Windows 10, you should take a moment to consider the age of your business’s computers and how much it would cost to update them to Windows 10. If your computers are showing signs of age, it may make more sense to replace them with new computers that come preinstalled with the latest version of Windows.

Ways to Get the Most from a Managed Help Desk

In any business, the customer is the King. For this reason, most organizations have a support desk to deal with the queries raised by their clients. However, understanding and anticipating consumer needs presents a challenge to many help desk managers. Why? Because the consumer gauges the effectiveness and service quality of an organization’s response to a raised concern based on their arbitrary metrics.

An organization’s help desk personnel adheres to internal guides and service-delivery systems to anticipate consumer needs. However, you can only provide excellent customer care by assessing clients’ experiences and requirements. For instance, if a consumer expects his/her query to get solved after 24 hours, then he/she should receive a response within that time frame. The only problem comes when the issue is urgent. Fortunately, we’ve compiled some useful tips on how to get the most value from a help desk management system.

Establish Smarter Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Help desk managers should agree and clearly define the services to employees and clients to provide quality responses to consumers’ concerns. That not only makes it easy to measure service excellence but also enables you to have informed expectations. Help desk management tools that have an SLA feature makes it easy to include SLA specifications into your business operations.

Promote Customer Self-Service

According to statistics, 72% of consumers would love to use self-service help desk tools. Therefore, businesses need to have user-friendly management software. For example, you can have a consumer self-service portal and Q&A forums where consumers can find solutions to their problems.

Establish a Helpful Culture

Most businesses’ help desks focus on reducing costs, which compromises quality of service delivery. Nonetheless, if your goal is consumer-oriented, you’ll not only offer useful help to clients but you’ll also cut down the costs. Additionally, it boosts the accuracy of your expectations on consumer’s needs, letting you have solutions before problems erupt.

Feel free to contact us if you think your business needs a revamped help desk management system. Also, if you have any further queries or need additional information on this, please check out our website.