Gamification is a strategy that’s been gaining increasing traction. But despite its growing popularity, managers are still in the dark about how to effectively use gamified tactics to their benefit – particularly when using it to improve customer service.

We have all had the Connection not secure warning pop up on our screens as we attempt to connect to public WiFi. But sometimes we really have to connect, particularly for business – an email must be sent, a document must be downloaded, or your Bria softclient must be used so you can make business calls.

Sometimes being ahead of the curve is a difficult place to live.  We are all familiar with products that we think will become mainstream one day, but are ‘ahead of their time’, and as such we don’t buy them. But jumping on a new technology bandwagon just as it takes off is very powerful for a business. You are saved all the niggles of the very early versions, yet receive the benefits of new tech before nearly everyone else.

CEB data from more than 100,000 customers across the world shows that interactions with service reps are four times likelier to lead to customer disloyalty than to loyalty.  As such it is no surprise that the tide is turning in the world of customer service.  It is now believed that companies should focus on sparing customers grief rather than trying to impress them with amazing service.

Amazon is now delivering the second generation of its popular Echo device—the home assistant that has become one of the most talked about gadgets in Britain. But is it worth upgrading to the newer model? Will the old Echo still work?

One benefit to email is that there is a ‘paper’ trail when you need to demonstrate that you did indeed communicate something. But emails are boring, and quickly becoming antiquated with the rise of chat and collaboration platforms. They also take a good few minutes to write, much longer than if you picked up the phone and called the person.  The good news is, there is a record even when you do pick up the phone – IF you have call recording.

In last weekend’s Sunday Times, style guru Toby Wiseman was asked by a male reader if it was ever acceptable to wear a smartwatch with a suit.  The answer was: not three years ago, but these days, yes. What surprised me wasn’t the answer, but range of available smartwatches that would actually look good with a suit. Around our offices, techy-looking smartwatches are cool, but clearly that is not the case everywhere. 

It is happening in industries across the globe. We used to revel in the money saved by large corporation’s economies of scale, but now everyone from the SME business owner to the average retail shopper wants the specialist version—the exact right product, for them.  One may think that the larger utilities may be an exception to this—things like telecoms for example, things that historically there was only one major player, or very little difference between the few that did exist.  But the telecommunications industry is going niche too, and businesses are benefiting.  Instead of telephone systems, and on-site PBX’s, businesses are opting for modern Unified Communications as a Service Providers—providers that can offer more than a telephony service, and instead introduce communications solutions that transform an organisation’s sales, service and operational functioning.  The communications solutions include telephony, but they also include integrating it into the core applications of the business—from CRM to Order Management, as well as other mediums of communication such as chat, browsers, mobiles, and more.

Perhaps web pages are loading slowly, or maybe your signal keeps dropping out. No matter what the issue, one thing is for certain: slow Wi-Fi can make the most patient of us very cross. This is particularly true if you use Wi-Fi for business, and you need it to function properly to get work done. Or if you use a soft phone like Bria with your VoIP business phone system, a good Wi-Fi signal is essential.

In what is seen as another blow for the traditional phone line, both Amazon and Google are reportedly investigating adding the ability to send and receive phone calls over their respective smart speakers. The capability would use voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology similar to services like Skype and VTSL’s business phone system.