Friday 5 April 2013

The positive impact the internet has made to my business.

How I interact with my customers



I was thinking the other day how the internet and the social platforms available have changed the way I find and interact with my customers these days. When I started my business around ten years ago the way I advertised to potential customers was through local mags, yellow pages and local papers etc. When the Internet and cloud computing started to take off I was slow to start using these avenues as I liked to stick to what I thought worked best.  Over the last three to four years all that's changed. My main advertising is all done online enabling me to reach customers further much afield which previously would have meant taking adverts in loads of magazines and printed publications costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds per month. As a mobile business it's important that I can receive and deal with enquires whilst on the road. Smartphones now can handle processes that handsets ten years ago wouldn't stand a chance. This means that enquires from my website are forwarded to my smartphone, including a photo of the damage, then using cloud computing I can respond with a written quote immediately. I'm able to interact with my customers in real time using social platforms such as G+, it amazes me that someone can follow a sitelink to my G+ page from my advert on Adwords and see a picture of a repair that I have completed maybe minutes beforehand.
Hopefully my reliance on the Internet will not implode on me, I hope not as it has had such a positive impact on my business and helped my customers interact with me in a far more efficient way.

How has modern technology helped you? I'm interested to hear if anyone else feels the same way as I do or If I've just gone Google mad!!

Thanks for reading

Paul
Scratch n Scuffs away