Prior to Cisco, I worked for mostly small businesses. This has given me pretty good insight into how small business decisions are made. As there are so few layers of management, often times the same person that weighs the pros and cons of free soda for employees is also deciding whether to make a major technology purchase. More than anything right now, I’d say that one of the most important decisions a small businessperson can make is whether to “go wireless or go home.”
The benefits of a good business wireless network and solid voice set-up extend beyond the office and can positively influence customer experiences. If you’ve ever been placed on extended hold because the person you were calling had to walk to another location or find someone, you know what I’m talking about. After a short time, that recorded voice over smooth jazz telling me, “my call is important” begins to lose its sincerity. Its hard to say what’s worse for me, listening to a cheesy recording or working through my fear of abandonment issues when the on-hold experience is just silence.
I recently read an article in a marketing publication that said most callers on-hold stay on for just shy of a couple minutes before becoming annoyed and hanging up. About a third of these callers never call back. Ouch! Remember all that money you spent on advertising just to get those calls?
As for me, I’ve been there, done that and wrote the Yelp review. In this era of everything immediate, and dare I say it, short-attention spans, I think we’ve all become programmed to judge a company by its responsiveness. That bar is getting higher and higher just as our threshold for Kenny G. gets lower.
The company that gets my repeat business and a shout-out to 500 of my closest Facebook friends is the one that can answer my question without putting me on hold. It’s the salesperson that picks up his business line from his mobile phone while he’s in the break room with the art director. It’s the dry cleaner that tells me his closing time even though he’s away from the front counter. It’s the jewelry shop owner confirming on his laptop from the showroom floor that the secret admirer who sent me diamond earrings was Clive Owen (OK so this last example is purely hypothetical, but you get what I mean, right?).
In any case, Creative Video Services is a company I am very familiar with. It’s a small business that understands the importance of wireless technologies. From producers, editors to salespeople they have lots of folks on the move. After seeing what they do firsthand, its tough to imagine how they were doing business without wireless. Then again, It’s easy to see that through the help of a Cisco partner and Cisco wireless phones and access points, how they are setting themselves apart and focused on getting things done.
Take a look.
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