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Posts Tagged ‘Smaller Companies’

Custom Business Application Software Development For Small Companies – A Brief Analysis and Review

Thursday, August 26th, 2010
David Claeson asked:




There are a number of custom business application software companies providing off-the-shelf business software which is customizable. The list includes companies such as SAP, Microsoft and Oracle. These companies’ solutions mainly target big companies though. Installations and customization work may not be within budget for smaller companies, with around 10-50 employees, looking to develop highly customized business application software for less than €20 000. Hence such smaller companies frequently rely on a futile jumble of Excel sheets, old macros, legacy applications and unfitting off-the-shelf software, ultimately causing its workforce to lose large amounts of precious time.

With pressing competition and the need for continuous improvement in efficiency, companies may find an investment in user-friendly and time-saving business application software equally important as educating employees, initiating customer satisfaction efforts and innovating the company’s products and services. The potential savings of improving administrative efficiency and making better business decisions with properly tailored business application software can be far greater than the cost of the investment in the custom business software.

So how do you go about developing your business software? Who will understand your business and its challenges? Some small companies turn to freelancers to help them develop a customized business application. However, freelancers with the right business software development experience are hard to find. Freelancers who develop for the web, which most do these days, generally have experience of a broad range of applications and do not possess the niche expertise that is required to develop suitable business software. Others turn to local business software consultants who have plenty of professional experience. These consultants generally have a favorite platform that they develop upon which can save you time and money. However, there’s also a risk that you will not get what’s right for you and that the software platform is not flexible enough therefore increasing cost instead of being a time-saving boon.

Outsourcing your custom business software development offshore is another alternative. But just like with freelancers, most of the custom software development companies in popular software development outsourcing destinations such as India and China, lack niche expertise. The time it would take the culturally and geographically distanced team to understand your requirements may drive costs up. Even though your local consultant charges 10 times as much, costs may finally even out anyway.

So who is the ideal business software development partner? There’s no such thing as “one solution fits all”. Some companies opt for a local consultant to lead an offshore team for example, reaping the benefits of clear communication and at the same reaping some benefits of the lower costs that offshore outsourcing companies provide.

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Customer Service Options For Your Website

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

When you’ve got your site ready to go, it is important to consider how you will be handling your customer service for your online business. It is a bit different than customer service for your regular physical business and it you may need to assign specific employees to help handle the load. Here are a few options that will help you keep your customer service top-notch.

1. A toll-free number. This is an option that most large companies already have, but smaller companies should consider adding this for online sales. Simply putting a toll free number on your site does a lot to boost customer confidence. You may get very few calls, but your customers will know that they have that option if they need to contact you. You can try a test run for three months to see how much your new toll free line costs and how much use it gets to see if you want to keep offering this feature.

2. Email service. This is the most common form of customer service for online businesses. However, you will need to make sure that you can answer your customer’s inquiries in a very short time period. It is best to respond within 24 hours, during the week, to make sure that your customers feel secure about doing business with you. Always remember to keep your emails professional and to go above and beyond.

3. Live chat. This is an increasingly popular option for many companies, especially if they do not want to offer a toll free number. It gives customers the option of speaking with a live person and you don’t have to worry about phone charges. Live chats give customers that instant gratification when they have a question and once again, you’re instilling that confidence that you customers need. It is a good idea to have a custom live chat application built for you that can be branded with your company information. Companies like the Royal Atlantis Group can easily build you an application that will integrate seamlessly into your website. They offer website design for Canada and other major countries as well as custom programming.

4. Help Desk. This is an option that works well for companies that deal with online services or informational products. Customers can leave a message and you can have someone on your staff respond to the inquiries as they come in. Once again, you may need to have a special application built for you, but it will reward your company with better relations with your customers.

Online businesses have to work twice as hard to make sales and interact with their customers. These tools can help level the playing field, especially if you are trying to compete against another large online company that offers a similar product or service. Your visitors will appreciate the fact that you are willing to go the extra mile for them and the reward will be their business and loyalty.

Disclaimer: The information in this Press Release includes certain “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of Provincal and Federal Laws. The public is cautioned that such statements are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including the future financial performance of the company. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will provide to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to successful performances of internal plans, the impact of competitors, and general economic risks and uncertainties.

For additional information on the website design and development services of Royal Atlantis Group, visit their website at www.royalatlantisgroup.com

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