Digital Signatures and Their Validity

Digital Signatures and Their Validity

by Business Tips
Digital Signatures and Their Validity

Digital Signatures and Their Validity

In this new technologically advanced world, the internet has taken over indefinitely. The internet has become a significant equalizer in the business industry, enabling companies to compete on an evenly leveled playing. This gives many businesses a better chance at achieving success of any size.

Additionally, as most people are able to learn the most about businesses from online blogs, they may also realize how start-ups and medium-sized businesses will stand out from well-established businesses and bigger brands by being more connected and responsive.

This isn’t to say that larger companies don’t benefit from technology and don’t take advantage of the connectivity of the internet; they also optimize their workflow and various internal processes for maximum efficiency and speed.

However, it isn’t just the internet that has changed the way businesses work. For instance, online faxing services, not just provide more efficient and faster ways to deliver and exchange documents, but they also let you communicate directly from your smartphone’s (or a tablet or a laptop) screen.

And this technology allows digital signatures to be a possibility. These signatures are a convenient way to deliver signed papers and documents that are legally valid. You can send documents to other people in different locations, which gives the company the leverage they need to stay ahead of the competition, regardless of where they are.

Overall, you don’t have to worry about a digital signature being illegal or invalid; they are in complete adherence to the law, and all States have collectively recognized the validity of digital signatures.

Should You Use A Digital Signature?

If one was to listen to conventional sayings, they tell us to utilize the convenience and vouch how they are better for our lives. And considering how it improves the work life of most businesses and employees, it is considered a true conventional statement.

Working efficiently and quickly allows the employees to be able to cater to their customers and clients. This improves the company’s productivity and encourages clients and customers to spread the word about your company.

All the benefits of technology and the internet lead to the advantages of digital signatures. Digital signatures play a significant role in the business world today.

With an online faxing service, you can easily sign your documents from your smartphone’s screen. You won’t have to visit in person or appear to confirm your identity when you are using digital signatures.

Internet faxing services will feel more helpful when various signees are situated in different locations, or there is a scheduling conflict that has slowed the process. However, you can add a digital signature to a PDF, and you won’t have to worry about any of those circumstances again.

So, in short, you should use digital signatures for efficiency and ease. You can get your work done faster and without facing any difficulty and conflict.

Digital Signature Benefits

A signature done by hand is called a “wet” signature; for these, not only do you need to show up physically, but you also need to print out your documents before you are allowed to sign them.

Moreover, you won’t have to print out many documents if you are using this signature, which allows you to conduct your business and seal deals regardless of where you are.

While there is an innumerable amount of advantages to a digital signature, the most prominent ones are listed below:

  • It keeps you connected and responsive
  • You can seal deals faster and more efficiently
  • It is a greener option- environmentally friendly since it saves paper
  • It saves time
  • Increases efficiency and responsiveness
  • Overall expedite the signing process

Is Your Digital Signature Always Acceptable?

Signing a document digitally has many benefits, and while it would be ideal for most businesses and employees to have digital signatures always be acceptable, it isn’t. You can sign many important and valuable documents; however, you can’t digitally sign trusts, wills, declarations stated under oaths, or wills. These are extremely complex matters that require a “wet” signature.

When you are using an online faxing service, end-to-end encrypted audits trails along with your finalized documents. They provide assurance and confirmation that your digital signature has been successfully reached and your contract is now complete.

Digital signatures are offered the same legal protection and validity for the documents they are applied to. These signatures are overseen by ESIGN and UETA, which doesn’t allow anyone to question their validity.

Simplifying Your Work Life with Digital Signature

Considering how beneficial and efficient digital signatures are, you should start using them in your day-to-day life in no time. Instead of the old-fashioned and traditional way of signing different documents by hand, you should pick up your tablet or smartphone and start adding digital signatures with an online faxing machine.

With the help of a digital signature, you can avail all its advantages. You can set yourself apart from the industry’s various start-ups and small businesses and distinguish yourself from your competitors without any problem.

Additionally, when you use digital signatures, you increase productivity rates and allow your employees and team to focus more on the clients and customers. When your team isn’t struggling with managing paperwork, they will be a better fit to see your customers’ and clients’ needs.

Eliminating tardiness and ineffective workflow will greatly impact the overall success of your company. You will realize that an online faxing service and digital signatures can take your productivity rates to the next level by removing the extra steps involved to ensure security. As in, when you had to visit in person to maintain security by confirming your identity, you won’t have to do that anymore.

Final Thoughts

Digital signatures have much controversy surrounding them. Most people don’t think that it’s legal or valid. However, this article is to explain that not only is it legal, but it is also very advantageous. The most prominent benefits of digital signatures are that they increase efficiency and productivity rates. With the use of this signature, you won’t have to worry about hassles such as varying locations or fluctuating schedules.

Digital Signatures Validity

Digital Signatures Validity

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How Will Cloud Service Help My Small Business

How Will Cloud Service Help My Small Business?

by Business Tips
How Will Cloud Service Help My Small Business

How Will Cloud Service Help My Small Business?

There has been a sudden growth in the cloud computing industry, which has caused many incredible benefits to start-ups and small businesses. The main benefits of cloud computing are that it significantly saves costs and increases efficiency.

However, with such fame, there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about cloud computing and how it benefits small businesses. It’s understandable for people to feel weary and confused about new technology, but that is only until they learn more about it.

Moreover, there isn’t one straightforward answer to how cloud computing works. Different types of cloud computing includes Software as a Service (SaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSPs), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). These are only a few of the many cloud computing forms on the market, and the more you learn about them, the better you will likely understand the concept more quickly.

As for the “How does it help a small business owner?” question, here is an easy way to explain how it impacts and benefits any small start-up.

Cloud Services

Cloud services allow a business to expand its services while saving money. The typical expansion cost is intimidating and is the usual cause that most small businesses don’t branch out often.

For instance, virtual voice services or online paperless fax services allow businesses to take advantage of the many benefits. One of the most prominent benefits is that your business will have voice capabilities or professional faxing without paying for the PBX system or a fax machine.

Like online faxing, a small business or a start-up based in New York can quickly establish its presence in other cities such as Dublin, Toyo, or Ireland. They can expand by collaborating with an online fax provider.

It is crucial for the fax provider to have a network in the place/city you wish to establish your presence. If the fax provider doesn’t have the Tokyo or Dublin local numbers, they won’t be helpful to your company.

When you have the local numbers, your presence will be considered local too. Plus, it encourages clients to work with you because they won’t have to pay the long-distance fee, and they can connect with you more easily. Once you have established communication with the locals of a city, you won’t face trouble marking your presence among them.

Cloud Service Provider

When paying a sum for cloud services, you should ensure the cloud service provider is according to your needs and fits all your requirements. Often small companies make the wrong choice in hiring a particular provider, unintentionally, yes, but it dramatically affects their business and how they will expand in the future.

If you wish to hire a cloud service provider for your start-up, you need to think and hire them carefully not to disturb the steadiness of your business. Here are a few factors you have to consider when you are willing to hire them:

Is the Provider Service Reputable?

Finding out the answer to this can be tricky, but if you know where to look, you can find it easily. Many factors and functions make a business great, but if you want a reliable provider, ensure they have been in the business for longer than most.

The older their business is, the more experience and resources they will have; this is typically the case in almost every scenario. This is usually because they have handled more customers, had a vast range of clientele and had an overall better experience.

Another thing that significantly makes the provider reputable is its financial data. You can look at the data itself and determine for yourself whether they have a healthy standing. You first must check if the company is public or private.

Privately and publicly held providers have different approaches, and once you figure out which one your target provider is, you can navigate accordingly.

Does the Company Have Extensive Network?

This is a crucial factor when hiring a cloud service provider. If the cloud service company you hire doesn’t have an extensive network, you won’t be able to get the best out of the service, to begin with.

If the company has extensive networking, you can only take advantage of the main benefit of hiring a cloud service company, which is to expand and add another city to the radar without spending hefty sums. If the size of the cloud company is limited, your range will also stay limited.

This is a particularly negative characteristic of a cloud company. Imagine this: you are handling business in Los Angeles, and you wish to open a virtual office in the nearing area(s), but if your cloud service provider doesn’t have the network presence there, you won’t be able to. This will not only come in the way of your future success but also affect your current standing as a small business owner.

To gain the most business opportunities and take advantage of expanding your business without spending enormous costs, you have to consider how far the reach of the cloud service provider’s network goes.

Will You Be Able To Get Toll Free And Local Number?

The most important benefit of having a local fax number is that it will position your business as “connected” and “engaged” to whatever community you are marketing or providing services to.

Consequently, if you are based in Cleveland and want to do business in Los Angeles, having a fax number (with the Los Angeles area code, of course) will be excellent in the long run for your business.

You will soon be able to present yourself, and your brand as “local” and then receive faxes from different places on that fax number through your professional email address.

Final Thoughts

There is much to learn about cloud service, what it is, how it works, and how it benefits small businesses. Summarizing the length of an answer into a short one is challenging. Still, hopefully, this guide explained how there are varying benefits cloud computing has and what factors you need to consider before hiring a cloud service provider.

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Building a Remote Customer Care Team Everything You Need To Know

Building a Remote Customer Care Team: Everything You Need To Know

by Business Tips
Building a Remote Customer Care Team Everything You Need To Know

Building a Remote Customer Care Team: Everything You Need To Know

Around 86 percent of people are willing to pay for a good customer experience (CX). And around 49 percent of buyers are known to make a purchase when they receive a personalized experience. Due to these statistics, there are a large number of businesses that compete to have the best customer experience.

Your care team is the main touchpoint for the customer. Hence, it’s crucial for you to build a customer care team that will deliver an excellent customer experience.

Moreover, it’s cost-effective for companies to leverage a remote team for customer care. They will take advantage of the reduced costs, access a bigger candidate pool, and give round-the-clock support and care to customers in various time zones without any additional costs.

However, managing a remote team is challenging, especially if you wish to deliver a premium and personalized customer experience.

Common Challenges a Remote Customer Care Team (And You) May Face

They may face difficulty communicating with each other. Communication is essential, and considering sharing and discussing information is important because every team member needs to be on the same page.

Tracking each other’s progress and monitoring the results to see if anyone needs help; improves productivity.

Ensuring the team members are delivering a consistent and on-brand customer experience.

Enabling the individual members to work independently, especially if the supervisors are in different time zones.

Implementing endpoint safety measures to protect the customer’s data and information.

Here are some precise ways to improve and overcome these challenges.

Building a Functional Remote Customer Care Team: Tips

While these are tried and true methods, they will only work if you try hard to implement them in your team and they also follow through.

Start by Hiring A Team That Has A Customer-Centric Mentality

It’s a given that a customer can only have a quality experience when your remote team has good interactions with them. The interaction between the care team and the customers determines how the customer experience. Hiring a qualified team is the key to delivering a unique customer center experience.

However, hiring the proper team is challenging; you should learn about some pointers to look for when picking them.

  • The individuals should have standard soft skills like empathy, patience, the ability to read the customers, positivity, attentiveness, and communication skills.
  • They need to have technical knowledge about a general understanding of your business and your product or service.
  • They need excellent collaboration skills and a history of working virtually (it would be ideal if they had experience working in virtual teams).
  • They should be capable of thriving under flexible management.
  • Good time-management skills and self-management. They should also be motivated enough to complete their tasks on time.
  • They should have a customer-centric mentality that will drive them to think creatively and out of the box while prioritizing the delivery of premium customer experience.

Implement Could-Based Communication Along With Functional Collaboration Tools

Project management is an excellent example of a cloud-based software application. These applications increase communication and allow members to share their information and files without problems. This also acts as a cost-effective option, especially considering how the collaboration feature saves tons of money.

Moreover, a unified communication program gives the team members a more personalized interaction with the customers; they can contact the customers through phone, chat, social media, phone, etc. To have a seamless care experience, you should synchronize all the interactions in one centralized location.

Additionally, good software also allows the employees and supervisors to check and keep up with the progress regardless of being in different time zones.

It’s Best to Set up a Searchable and Centralized Knowledge Base

Typically, a customer will expect your care team to help them resolve their issues quickly. In fact, 99 percent of customers stated that interacting with knowledgeable representatives is a vital element of outstanding customer experience.

Moreover, a remote customer care team member shouldn’t walk over to the desk and ask for assistance whenever they have a question they don’t know the answer to. Because of this, you need to provide those members with adequate resources so they can resolve the queries the customers may have autonomously.

Additionally, your team needs to be capable of updating the information, adding answers, and asking questions on a daily basis. This creates a supportive environment, ensures the knowledge is up-to-date and relevant, and it also increases employee engagement.

You Should Implement Customer Care Software

A customer service software platform will allow you to manage customers’ interactions throughout the touchpoints in a particular location so that no team member can detect where the conversations left off; this improves the quality of the customer experience.

A few of the key elements to look out for in customer care software are a ticketing system, survey tools, live chatting, customer self-service, (customer) sentiment analysis, and communication capabilities. These software platforms will also allow the supervisors to oversee the metrics and customer interactions on a unified dashboard and so they won’t have to micro-manage the team members individually.

For instance, managers will see the number of calls taken and the hours worked. They will also oversee any high-priority issues, resolved issues, and tasks assigned to each team. This helps them ensure that each agent is being productive and delivering premium quality customer experience.

You Should Implement A Detailed Onboarding Process

A well-orchestrated and thorough onboarding process is especially important for getting remote workers up to date since they won’t likely have direct access to their colleagues and supervisors because of the time difference, yet they still have to make decisions autonomously.

To deliver an outstanding customer experience, your agents need to understand the internal process, operational procedures, and communication protocols so they can solve the issues adequately or so they can route the inquiries to the appropriate department.

Additionally, seeing how remote team members need to connect to your systems and have direct access to the customer information using their equipment and network, it’s crucial to ensure the security of these connections and check how private their networks are. Data breaches are costly and also negatively impact the customer experience.

Bottom Line

Caring for a customer care team doesn’t be as complicated as some people think. Once you learn and implement these tips into your system and hire the right team, you will be able to deliver a smooth and ideal customer experience.

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What Makes Customers Hang Up Five Common Mistakes

What Makes Customers Hang Up: Five Common Mistakes

by Business Tips
What Makes Customers Hang Up Five Common Mistakes

What Makes Customers Hang Up Five Common Mistakes

When the customers hang up during your conversation, it’s easy to figure out why they did that; they likely spend the last five seconds telling you what problem they had with the conversion. However, if a customer hangs up before you can speak to them, that is a different problem.

In these cases, often you can’t tell where you went wrong, understandably so. Some statistics say that around 80% of customers will likely hang up on the phone system when they feel like their call isn’t going directly to a voicemail. This means that you’re already behind if you don’t have an organic and robust phone system in your organization.

Knowing where you’re going wrong will help you navigate through various solutions or tell you if you can prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. When you establish your phone system, you avoid these common mistakes that often make the customers want to hang up.

What Makes Customers Hang Up: Five Common Mistakes

When you know about these mistakes, you will avoid them and have excellent customer service, which is quite a feat.

1) Giving Them Too Many Options: Paradox of Choice

It may seem counterintuitive, but it has the opposite effect. Often callers assume that the customer wants to be in the driver’s seat; they don’t.

When they are given too many options and choices, they tend to feel conflicted and torn in different directions. This effect is called the Paradox of Choice; this was initially popularized by Barry Schwartz, who was a renowned author.

There was a study where the shoppers were given a surprising number of garments; there were around 24 choices combined with samples.

The experiment’s result was that more choices attracted more attention, but fewer choices meant that customers were more likely to select an item and make the purchase.

How does this connect to your phone system issue? It’s similar: you risk them hanging up on you when they are presented with multiple options.

This isn’t to say that you should give them three options; you should minimize the selection. After all, you need to present your business well; however, don’t tire them by the constant call forwarding.

2) Making an Elaborate and Complicated Script

When customers call on the phone, they want to encounter a real person, not a machine. It’s important to give them the sense that they are being heard and understood.

However, when you have an elaborate and complicated script, you won’t be able to deliver that tone. Sounding like a real company can be challenging, but it’s possible.

The most common issue some companies face is that they often create scripts to sound authentic and “real.” Afterward, they often get carried away and make fancy and complex scripts.

The research found, some customers get a negative experience when they feel like they are talking to an automated machine. When customers perceive calls as unscripted, then they are more likely to stay and listen; the chances are improved by 78%.

When building a voicemail system, you need to make sure you have automated messages to guide the customers. This is the best way to avoid that complex script effect while remaining professional and authentic.

Remember to deliver the essential information to your customer but then let them move on their accord.

3) Developing a Lengthy and Constant Process of Call Forwarding

When a customer has been on a lengthy call, they will feel relief when they are switched to another line. It’s great, it keeps the customer engaged.

However, when they experience their call being passed frequently, they will start feeling frustrated because they will think their effort was futile.

The same effect happens when you design a system with a complicated overly phone system to answer customer phone calls.

While it’s crucial for the customer to receive the correct answers and appropriate responses from available experts in your facility, that doesn’t mean that you should forward them back and forth to multiple callers.

And when the customers are constantly switching back and forth, they won’t assume that you have good intentions to give the proper answers; they will only feel frustrated that they can’t get through.

4) Informal Voicemail and Unprofessional Greeting

Customers or clients with your personal contact number may feel a bit disoriented when they hear the difference between your casual and professional tone.

Regardless if you work from home, your phone system (and your voicemail) needs to have the same tone and it needs to have the same professional presence. Here are two main pointers for you to implement in your phone system.

  • Limit noise: The background noise of multiple family members doesn’t leave a good impression. But general office noise also negatively impacts the overall quality of your voicemail and its greeting.
  • Keep smiling: People often underestimate the power a smile can have on your tone. If you want to sound professional, cheerful, and positive, then you should smile while speaking on the phone.

5) Vagueness: Little Information

When you learn about the “paradox of choice” and wish to avoid the “complex script” part, you will likely feel tempted to provide little information and record a brief greeting that won’t deliver the proper message.

While there is nothing wrong with simplistic messages, your customers need to have an engaging experience to stay throughout the call. To engage your customers more, you should add a bit of character to your interactions, even in your automated responses.

As long as those additions are perceived as professional, you’re good to go. Yes, this is a minor difference that affects customer engagement too; if you aren’t seen as competent, the customer won’t likely take you seriously.

Bottom Line

When a customer hangs up during the conversation, it’s easy to figure out why they did that; in fact, they probably told you multiple times why they hung up. However, when they hang up before you get the chance to speak; it can be challenging to decipher the issue.

With this helpful guide, you can identify the issues while improving the quality of your phone system. You can attract and retain customers in no time.

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Managing Distractions While Working From Home Everything You Need To Know

Managing Distractions While Working From Home: Everything You Need To Know

by Business Tips
Managing Distractions While Working From Home Everything You Need To Know

Managing Distractions While Working From Home: Everything You Need To Know

Working from home comes with its own benefits and advantages; you can only use them when you know how to concentrate. Once you get the hang of working from home, you can easily manage it. However, unfortunately, most people struggle with focusing on their job when working from home with many distractions around them.

Managing work is challenging because there are multiple distractions causing people to divert their focus onto them instead of the task at hand. For instance, if you have pets or kids, you may likely get distracted by their noises. Children and pets often get antsy when they don’t get enough attention, but when you play with them, you neglect your work in the process.

Most people have heard of this one statistic that says a person is most likely to take around 25 minutes to refocus on their work after a distraction occurs. Regardless, distractions are caused by a multitude of factors and reasons. Let’s discuss a few of the most common distractions, how they affect your speed and which strategies work best.

How Distractions Affect Your Work From Home & Ways to Manage Them

Distractions may not seem problematic but they significantly affect your workflow and speed. If you face many drawbacks or you think your work speed got slow since you started working from home, you are likely struggling with managing the distractions around you, which subsequently affects your work.

Don’t Let Interruptions Come Between Your Work

Interruptions are a common problem when it comes to handling distractions. There was once an experiment where researchers got some volunteers and gave them each a task to handle. When given the task, the researchers also were given their phones, where they constantly kept getting phone calls and emails.

The volunteers weren’t supposed to answer any of those notifications, and while they knew that too, they couldn’t help but feel distracted throughout the job. This made them slower and affected the quality of their content.

Remember, they weren’t indulging or responding to those messages; they only knew they were getting them. The point of the experiment was to make people aware of how interruptions have a detrimental impact on the overall performance of an employee. The volunteers didn’t have to reply, yet they couldn’t focus on their work. Imagine if they were receiving emails and call that needed responses.

To conclude, interruptions aren’t just distracting; if you allow them to invade and burden your brain, then they will lower your IQ levels by 10 whole points. The researchers wanted to convey that interruptions have a detrimental impact on your overall performance.

The best way to solve this is to have an open conversation about your problem and job with your family members and housemates. Create a chart or a sign using any term; it can be “busy,” “in a meeting,” or something as straightforward as “not now.”

Using these signs, you can communicate how you’re busy and working and don’t want to be disturbed. Once you establish a boundary, you can focus on your task more efficiently, and the people in your house won’t text or contact your phone and create any interruptions that may get in the way of your workflow.  

Don’t Switch Between Multiple Tasks; They Will Drain More Energy

A study at the University of Minnesota discovered “attention residue.” This term is used to define the delay in your attention span that occurs when you switch between one task and another.

Many people assume they can handle multi-tasking; however, it’s more challenging than it sounds. Often people struggle with keeping up with multiple tasks at the same time.

The mental capacity to switch gears quickly is less efficient than one may think. The brain takes more energy and requires a stronger attention span. This leads to different intriguing conclusions, one of which is that the people who indulge in extreme multi-tasking in media struggle between switching tasks worse than people who don’t multitask.

This is to say that people who don’t multi-task have a powerful mental capacity and usually have a stronger attention span.

This means that people need to consider asking themselves questions about their multi-tasking habits:

  • Are they capable of multi-tasking, and can they do it often?
  • How long do they take to switch their attention?
  • Do they often put off specific tasks because they require more attention?
  • Will they benefit more from using their attention on a single task?
  • Where can they combine their concentration and multi-tasking skills?

When someone asks themselves these questions, they will be able to recognize their habits and whether their work is leading them to lose concentration. So, it’s best to think again before assuming that multi-tasking is beneficial in all cases. When your speed gets affected, then it defeats the whole purpose of multi-tasking in the first place.

You First Need to Focus on Difficult Projects; it’s Called Cognitive Fixation

There is a term called “cognitive fixation.” If you are often multi-tasking, you may notice how the first activity of the day often receives the most effort. Therefore, it’s best to finish the difficult projects/tasks initially. It’s also proven that the first attempted project is often the one you retain the most information about.

This shows that it’s best if you handle your toughest projects first because you will likely remember them the most and use the most effort. Then throughout the day, you can focus on other more menial tasks.

Some people believe that your work speed may even improve. This usually happens because once you’re done with a difficult project, you won’t have a psychological burden on your mind.

When the burden is alleviated, you can easily focus on the simpler tasks without worrying about a tough project hanging over your head.

Final Thoughts

Working from home can have many advantages, but you can only benefit once you can manage the distractions. When you have a handle on managing distractions and interruptions, you won’t be late or slow, and you will be able to easily tackle all the challenges (that come with working from home) easily.

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