Archive for Blog – Page 2

Apr
28

Content Customers – the Bane of Business

by grownadmin

Louisiana, and especially Baton Rouge, is very proud to be the home of Kleinpeter Farms Dairy. A short list of their accomplishments:

  • Sustainable Business Institute’s Seal of Sustainability Award
  • Department of Enviromental Quality’s 2010 Enviromental Leadership Award
  • American Humane Association’s Free Farmed Certification
  • One of the top 100 places to work in Louisiana
  • Louisiana Wildlife Federation Conservation Award

. . . just to name a few.

(By the way, their ice cream is out of this world.)

Kleinpeter is one of the most admired companies in Louisiana for many reasons, and it’s easy to see why after visiting their Facebook fan page. They have an intense focus on customer service. Here’s a recent post:

This is an absolutely great example of why social media in general, and specifically Facebook, is vital to any organization today.

Content Customers – the Bane of Business

Mr. Hoge wasn’t mad. Mrs. Hoge didn’t have to go to the dentist for a chipped tooth. They still love Kleinpeter ice cream and are likely to continue supporting Kleinpeter’s products . . .

. . . which is exactly why Kleinpeter would never have heard from them!

Most of the time, you only hear from customers who are extremely enthusiastic or extremely upset. If a content customer runs into just a small problem – like finding a piece of pecan shell in their butter pecan ice cream – it’s usually not motivating enough for them to call your customer service hotline, write a letter, or even drop an e-mail. But Facebook is a comfortable enough medium that a content customer can drop a quick line to let you know you may need to check something.

A merely content customer isn’t likely to go through the effort of telling you how great your business is . . . but on Facebook it’s easy to write a casual note saying how much they enjoyed your ice cream.

Make it Right

Kleinpeter did an awesome job of responding to Mr. Hoge’s note. They didn’t deny the issue, they didn’t delete Mr. Hoge’s comment, and they didn’t simply ignore it. They addressed the issue head on, apologized for the incident, offered a free upgrade, and – here’s the impressive part – told the customer how they were going to make it right.

I Need a Response!

Again, it doesn’t seem likely that Kleinpeter would have lost Mr. and Mrs. Hoge’s loyalty, but how many other slightly discontent customers have companies lost because the customer wasn’t angry enough to tell them – just angry enough to stop buying their products?

In today’s business world of constant change and light speed operations, your business needs continuous, real-time feedback. If a customer loves your company, you need to know why. If they hate it, you need to listen to them. And if they’re merely content or only slightly discontent – you definitely need to hear them.

This is why Facebook is such a radically new and important way to communicate – it takes down the barriers of communication between an organization and its customers and lets you have one-on-one conversations.

Now excuse us – there is an incredible quart of ice cream begging to be eaten . . .

Categories : Blog, Community, Small Businss Technology Tools
Apr
22

No More Fans – You Like It or You Don’t

by grownadmin

Like V or Independence Day (or a personal favorite, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Earthlings awoke today to a strange and mysterious message from higher beings that will forever change our lives.

Citizens of Facebookia: we have irrevocably revoked your beloved fan pages. Henceforth, you shall like it . . . or you shall not. And you may no longer have your own interests or activities. You can only like a Community Page . . . or not. And these Community Pages shall not be tampered with by mere mortals – they are reserved only for Wikipedians. The high priests of Facebookia have spoken. That is all.

So what does this mean for us lower beings who only inhabit Facebookia? Three things:

  1. Facebook will feel more like the rest of the web
  2. We will see our interconnectivity easier than before (super important for advertisers)
  3. Facebook is taking on the same impossible task Google is attempting: organizing the inherently chaotic web

Feeling like the rest of the web

Think about YouTube, a blog post, or a news article – you have the option to like it, give it a thumbs up, rate it five stars, etc. Facebook is moving towards having you interact with the web through Facebook, and so is gradually blurring the lines between Facebook and the rest of the chaos out there. “Like it” is a small step in that direction. In this regard, it’s really more for Facebook’s ultimate goal (see #3) than any utility for us, the inhabitants of Facebookia.

Seeing our connections

This aspect is actually pretty cool. Let’s say you love black and white photography and want to find others who have a similar interest in your area. Since anyone can write whatever they want in their interests and activities, they could write “b/w pics”, “black and white photography”, “b&w photo”, or “i like takin black n white pics of places.” You’d never find them by searching strictly for interests.

With linking people’s interests to Community Pages, however, Facebook is forcing people to actually find a Facebook page that exactly matches their interest, and then they can “like it.” So now, you can go a “black and white photography community page” and find others who have your exact same interest.

However, this tool is really powerful for advertisers (like many of Zalandas’ clients). With Facebook, you can target specific groups of people. You can have your ad only show up in a select a certain geographic area, for a certain age group, with a specific relationship status, and very specific interests & activities.

So if you’re a new photography teacher specializing in black and white photography, you want your Facebook ads to show up on people’s Facebook pages who live within 50 miles of your studio and who express an interest in black and white photography. If you told Facebook to only display your ad for people whose interest was “black and white photography” you would miss everyone else who typed “b/w photography” as their interest.

Now, with a community page, you can select everyone who likes the community page and lives within 50 miles of your studio. Your ad is going to show up where it’s supposed.

Facebook vs. Google

We at Zalandas suspect Facebook is trying to rival Google for control – or at least position of central organizer – of the inherently insanely complicated internet.

Hold on – let’s do a Google search for “black and white photography groups online” and see what we get.

3.4 million results and not one of the first page results is an actual online group dedicated to b&w photography. We could refine our search . . . and refine it again . . . etc.

This is what Facebook is trying to cut out to allow people to organize themselves through a familiar Facebook interface, and allow everyone else in their world to see their connections.

Why It’s Neat and Why It’s Not

We think the result is probably going to be like the reaction to the first time we experienced the Facebook newsfeed – eerie, Big-Brotherish. But it will quickly evolve into another great way to keep up with everyone’s life and to process the insanely complicated number of connections, activities, and interests everyone has.

However, the crazy angle is that there is no way Facebook will be able to organize the net, though it may help us organize ourselves a bit better. And maybe that’s all Zuckerberg intends to do.

Or maybe this is the beginning of Brave New World with telescreens recording our every move.

Nah, it’s got to be more like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – just plain crazy, but somehow it works.

Categories : Blog, Small Businss Technology Tools
Mar
23

T.V. – What a Waste!

by grownadmin

For all of you who have a reception area – heck, for all of you who have customers – why place a T.V. with cable in your place of business? I mean, your customers surely have cable or Netflix at home – why give them again what they already have?

If they wait for you or stand in line, why not make the most of their time and provide entertainment/education and do some marketing while you’re at it?

Cue Zalandas’ solution – a media viewer for showing videos, images of your clients or services, marketing material, customer education information, or anything else you would like to put in front of your customers but don’t have a regular opportunity to do so.

Our solution is very cost-effective and completely in your control. Once your flatscreen monitor and accompanying computer are configured with the media application, we train a member of your team. In just two hours, we’ve seen great looking presentations developed by team members who had never used the application before.

Highlights include:

  • Easy to Manage in-house by Team Member
  • Able to do PowerPoint-like presentations with Collages of Images, Education Videos, Customer Videos, etc.
  • Web-Based, so the Same Presentation can be Displayed on any other Computer or Presentation Equipment
  • Easy to Edit and Upload
  • Multiple Presentations can be Saved and Switched throughout the Day/Week/etc.

Our entire package includes the following, but can be adjusted depending on your needs:

  • 42″ LCD viewer
  • Asus Eee Box PC
  • Wall mount for display and PC
  • Windows 7 Operating System
  • Web-Based Image/Video Application
  • In-Person and Remote Training for Team Member

And with this application, what it does for your customers is limited only by your imagination. Companies have used it to demonstrate how involved they are in the community. They have used it to create infomercials which demonstrate their products and services, and they’ve used it to show how much fun their team is at work.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come…stay tuned!

Categories : Blog, Small Businss Technology Tools
Feb
17

We Fix $6 Haircuts

by grownadmin

An old-style barber had been operating in the small town for years. One day, a salon chain store opened across the street and advertised loudly, “$6 HAIRCUTS!”

The old barber stared across the street for a long while. He then flipped the “Come in…we’re open!” sign to “Sorry…we’re closed”, grabbed his coat and hat, and walked away from the business that had supported his family for more than two decades.

However, the next morning he was back and a sign in his front window loudly proclaimed “WE FIX $6 HAIRCUTS!”

Quite a bit of our business has been “fixing $6 haircuts” for our clients, and quite a bit of our learning experience has been from trying to compete with those same providers. Zalandas offers comprehensive solutions to your business and technology issues. Don’t expect a $6 quick-fix. Expect a real solution – one that will be cost-effective and appropriate for your situation – that may necessarily include some repairs.

Zalandas consultants – your IT stylists. :-)

Categories : Blog
Jan
19

Hometown IT

by grownadmin

Can you imagine flying a plumber across the country to fix your sink?

“That’s an hour for the sink and another to replace the pipes, at $75 per hour, so $150…plus airfare and hotel, of course.”

No, we can’t either.

But what if your business is Coke bottling? All of a sudden you don’t want just any Joe (pardon, any Joe the Plumbers out there) coming to fix your water problems. No, you want the best in the business who have a proven track record and know a complex water system from A to Z.

So what does this have to do with Zalandas?

If your computer is running a little slower than it used to, you may simply want to get your local “IT guy” (no offense, you female techs) to take a look at it. But if your business depends on your technology system functioning (and whose doesn’t these days?), then you don’t want Joe the PC Repairman. You want dedicated professionals – preferably who have technology AND business experience.

Enter Zalandas. We have an entire team of professionals with experience in small business consulting, software development, networking, IT support, and IT management. This is who you want to turn to for business solutions.

Not Joe the Plumber.

Categories : Blog
Nov
18

Finding the Cheap Lizard

by grownadmin

This is post 2 of 2 about 2 topics:

  1. A cheap lizard
  2. What Zalandas does

First of all, the name “Zalandas” has no real meaning, similar to Google (okay, it was rooted in some kind of mathematical term, but then horribly mangled) and Microsoft (really, “micro” + “soft” = IT?).

Second, we’re still trying to define to people (mostly our family) what Zalandas is.

Yes, we are believers in cloud computing. Yes, we strongly support Google Apps (and nearly everything Google). Yes, we provide IT networking services. Yes, we can fix computers.

But the story of finding the cheap lizard really demonstrates what Zalandas is: we provide custom business solutions through technology.

ZoJot’s Fun Inflatables, Inc. had approached us about their website. Then, the project was put on hold because they took a leap of faith and bought out a retail party store, drastically shifting their operations from primarily renting jumpers/moonwalks/inflatables on weekends to being a full-line party supply store, including seasonal product lines.

Everything was by hand because there had been no need for an investment of resources in an electronic system.

Enter: Zalandas’s innovators

ZoJot’s needed a point-of-sale system that didn’t require a huge investment in time or finances, was easy enough to be used by any current or future employees with minimal training, and was cloud-based so the owners could manage their store from home.

@ 8+ hours of internet research > NetSuite. Awesome. Did absolutely everything we wanted it to do. $25,000 to be up and running for the first year – then, you had to pay to renew annually after that. Back to the drawing board.

@ 12+ hours of internet research > BizAutomation. Great. Direct NetSuite competitor for only $100/mo.  Priced right! Oh, wait – they don’t support barcode scanners. Rats.

@ 20+ hours of internet research > Imonggo. (See the blog post on it.) Finally! $30/mo for everything - deceptively simple interface, scalable, cloud-based, etc., etc., etc.

So after hours of searching, multiple phone calls, a couple of false starts, and a few missed expectations, we finally found the perfect fit for Zojot’s in the form of a cheap lizard. (Gecko? Iguana?)

What Makes Zalandas Zalandas

Not only did we find it for the customer, but we walked ZoJot’s through the entire process – creating inventory lists to be uploaded via CSV, how to streamline their operations and customize Imonggo to fit their business, purchased thePOS system equipment (barcode scanner, cash drawer, magnetic stripe reader, printer, PC), talked to their credit card processing company to switch over their processing through Imonggo, and trained the owner how to use Imonggo.

It’s not enough to provide an answer. We provide complete solutions. ZoJot’s owners no longer face the overwhelming task of keeping up with an entire retail store on paper, nor do they have to worry about investing thousands of dollars in a new POS system. They have a unique solution, cost-effective and appropriate for their business.

(Now, if we could only pare that down into a couple of sentences…)

0 Categories : Blog, Small Businss Technology Tools
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