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Worried About Cyber Security?

Worried About Cyber Security?
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Worried About Cyber Security?

A small business owner comes to his office at 9 o’clock as usual and starts his day by checking his emails. He also checks his bank account online in order to upload the payroll sheet and release the salary of his employees, but he is shocked to see that there is no money in his account. Worried, he calls up his bank and enquires about his account status.

The bank customer service tells him that the previous day, there was a transaction made from an unknown location and the funds have already been diverted to another account. In 2012 alone, some 6.5 million LinkedIn accounts and 1.5 million eHarmony accounts had been hacked.

It is not uncommon, so even if you own a small business, you are not immune to these predators and hackers. There are many inexpensive software programs that can be used to hack your account or website. All you need to do to crack a password is to buy a $300 graphic card and you will be able to run 420 billion simple lowercase password combinations every minute.

The big companies have the budget and resources to protect themselves from cyber attacks. According to the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) more than 50% of small business owners complained that they were subjected to a cyber attack in 2013 in the US.

In this article, we will suggest some of the most trusted methods to prevent cyber attacks.

  1. Stay alert

The first measure you can take against cyber criminals is to stay alert, because they know that the small businesses are vulnerable in terms of security. You can be a soft target because these criminals know that if you have regular cash flow, then you are also likely to have money available in your account.

  1. Use messaging apps with encrypted data transfer feature

Messaging apps are quite common and people randomly download it from Google Play and some other resources and start interacting with their colleagues and friends.

People also send files and other important data through these apps. In order to minimize the probability of data leaks, use secure messaging apps only.

  1. Be smart with your passwords

Many people do not change their passwords because of laziness and convenience, but it can be disastrous. From your email account to software and bank account, you should choose hack proof passwords and change them frequently. It is found that more than 55% people keep the same password for all their logins, which makes the task of a hacker much easier.

  1. Don’t use vulnerable software programs and browsers

It is important to know that old versions of software and browsers can be vulnerable to security threats as many software programs and browsers automatically save your passwords. If somebody is able to hack into your browser or software, they may also get access to your passwords. So, use the latest versions of browsers and software programs.

  1. General precautions

General precautions include using your own devices and computers, installing reputed antivirus software, and not sharing your passwords even with your employees unless it is inevitable and warranted by the circumstances. Change your passwords as soon as the employee who had access to your passwords leaves your organization.

  1. Enable 2-step authentication for all your accounts

A two-step authentication involves the login confirmation through a One Time Password to be sent to your mobile device. Prominent email service providers such as Gmail and Yahoo and banks use two-step verification.

  1. Secure your connected devices on Wi-Fi

If your mobile phone or tablet is connected to your company network, use pin code protection. Don’t use free Wi-Fi available at public places. You can rather use your own virtual private network and your own Wi-Fi hotspot.

  1. Make cyber security a habit

There is no written code of conduct or set of rules related to cyber security. You should make it a habit to implement cyber security at every level. Do not click links you do not trust, especially those that are sent by unknown senders both on social media and email. Do not use an infected USB drive.

  1. Use multi layer security if you are using Cloud

Using Cloud is a convenient and easy option for data storage for many companies and that’s the reason they use it to dump all their data.

However, that’s not a good practice from security point of view. Data should be segregated according to sensitivity and criticality. Multi layer security and permissions should be implemented preventing unauthorized people to access your important data.

Final thoughts
In the end, security is not just about preventing someone from unauthorized access; it is also about convenience and confidence to do things that you need to do to keep you in business.

8 years ago
Using Your Social Media Channels for Customer Service
Mohab Customer Experience 0

Using Your Social Media Channels for Customer Service

When social media platforms first came into being, they were perceived as a unique way to connect with friends, families and acquaintances. Over time, e-commerce stores or online businesses began to make their presence felt through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Why? Because they quickly realized that social media is an intelligent way to enhance brand awareness. It is also a rising trend to market products and services through social media channels and gauge customer reactions.

Nearly every website today has a social media page and a social media strategy in place, to listen to customers, receive feedback and resolve queries or complaints. Hence, keeping the social media connection with your target audience is essential to expand client base, improve brand value and retain existing customers. Here are the top things to remember if you wish to use social media for customer service effectively:

  • Fast response is a must – Most online stores don’t offer round the clock phone or email service. But customers expect prompt response on social media channels, whether they have a query or a complaint. Responding late can cause customers to escalate the issue through other channels, tell friends about the bad experience, and buy less from you. They might also choose not to recommend your brand. This can hamper your brand image in more ways than one. So, timely responses are always a wise idea.

For instance, on Twitter, customers expect you to reply within an hour. And if you cannot resolve the issue in 280 characters, you can lead them to direct messages. On Facebook, response time rates are always shown clearly. And you must reply within 5 minutes if you want Facebook to consider your business very responsive or fast.

  • Understand public and private resolutions – No matter what you sell online, you should be prepared for negative comments or complaints. So decide which kind of comments you wish to resolve publicly and which ones you want to keep private. As comments impact your brand image, think carefully. Consider what kind of comments you usually get, who handles them, and how you want to redirect negative comments. Decide if they should be moved to direct messaging, phone or email.

For example, if a customer makes a negative comment on Twitter, or something that requires the exchange of sensitive information, you can reply to them cordially and send an automatically embedded link to direct messages. Your reply should clearly show what to do next or where to click for further conversation.

  • Don’t ignore even a single comment – Always remember to acknowledge every review or post on social media and answer every query without fail. If you don’t “hear” a customer, he or she is most likely to leave you! Ignoring a comment would mean you are ignoring the customer and it’s not desirable.
  • Fight negative comments positively – If a customer posts a complaint or negative feedback, don’t start defending your business. Address them politely by their names or initials, acknowledge the issue, show empathy and offer a phone number or email ID to continue the discussion and take it offline. Remember that the customer is always right and a thousand other customers are reading the complaint too. So, if you show a positive attitude, you will gain everyone’s trust and support. You can collate negative comments from your past experience and make a list of positive replies which you can use later in similar situations.
  • Use tools to monitor social media customer service – Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite and Mention can help you monitor customer service activities on social media channels. Through these, you can handle customer comments and queries on different platforms, simultaneously. These tools also let you tackle issues or queries in posts where your name has been mentioned but you have not been tagged or mentioned with @. You will get notifications even when you are away.

To conclude, being positive, responsive, understanding how to deal with negative comments and using the right monitoring tools can take you a long way when it comes to offering customer service through social media. As long as you are prepared, you can offer customers a supportive environment where they will engage with your brand more and trust you enough to stay loyal.

8 years ago
6 Money Saving Tips for Your Small Business
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

6 Money Saving Tips for Your Small Business

If you are the owner of a small business, chances are that you are always searching for creative ways to save money and keep your business afloat. Even if your business is doing well, it always makes sense to spend frugally. Whether you are looking to cut costs or improve profitability of your business, here are some creative ways that make the entire idea of saving money painless and easy!

  1. Avoid having a full-time office space

Thanks to the advancement in technology, businesses today can be run from any location. Barring a few sectors, try to rent as minimal office space as you can.

Offer people work from home options and get only the core team to sit at office. This way you can cut down on not only office rent but also small overheads like paper, electricity, food and gadget expenses etc.

  1. Try inbound marketing rather than keeping a big fat sales team

Try attracting your customer online by implementing a good content marketing strategy. Focus on your SEO strategy, build on social media and invest in search engine marketing. Also don’t ignore your company blog, since that has a lot of potential in getting you traffic. This might work better than outbound sales, especially if you are trying to sell a product or service online.

  1. Consider used furniture

If having an office is the only option you have, consider buying equipment and furniture that is pre-used. You can find office chairs and screen at nearly half the price from most second hand or refurbished goods store. Delay gratification. What you offer to your customers is much more important than a fancy looking office.

  1. Outsource as much as possible

Full time employees do not come cheap these days. Add to it the additional benefits like leaves, medical expenses and provident funds, you might just blow up all your budget. So, if possible, hire independent and reliable freelancers to reduce cost. Needless to say, by hiring a freelancer you will also be able to save a lot since they are already an expert in their field while a full time employee would need to be trained.

  1. Do not shy away from negotiating

As a small business owner, you should definitely avoid paying retail prices as often as possible. So, try to negotiate with vendors, consider bulk buying to save on shipping charges or tie up with wholesalers. Figure out ways to save money on your buying charges. You can also barter with some companies and save further. For example, you can purchase raw material for your bakery at a lesser price and in exchange offer to provide free cake on the dealer’s celebration occasions.

  1. Hire a good tax accountant

No one likes paying taxes. So it makes sense to hire a good accountant who can help in claiming certain tax rebates and allowances that you might not be aware of.

To be honest, when it comes to saving money, there are numerous things you can try. Every business comes with its own needs and priorities, so you are the best judge of what works best for you. Having said that, always remember, if it saves money, it is worth it!

If you are looking for a reliable way to accept online payments and have a competitive advantage, you can visit www.PayTabs.com.

8 years ago
8 Tips to Drastically Improve Shipping for Small E-Commerce Business Stores
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

8 Tips to Drastically Improve Shipping for Small E-Commerce Business StoresYou shouldn’t be surprised as factors like customer loyalty and buying decision are directly related to your shipping policy. Earlier people were happy with free delivery, whereas delivery time was considered secondary. These days everything is important. Customers not only look for free delivery, they also want quick delivery.

The E-Commerce vendors should also wake up to this new market demand and plan their shipping strategy accordingly.

  1. Understand your business objectives

In order to offer a better delivery experience, first of all, you need to understand your business objectives. For example, if you are selling a product which is uncommon customers may not want one-day or two-day delivery.  They must rather be looking for safety and certainty.

  1. Offer value

Offering value to your customer is extremely important and it shouldn’t be compromised at any stage of the buying process. Always put customer expectations on top.

  1. Don’t minimize cost at the cost of customer loyalty

Some of the E-Commerce companies make a grave mistake of finding cheaper delivery options, but at the same time they forget that it might affect customer loyalty in the long term. They may lose the customer base as result. Customers do not want poor services especially in this competitive marketplace, even if you offer free delivery.

  1. Offer the combo of both low price and high speed delivery

The concept of low price and high speed delivery is not new. With the competition heating up across the E-commerce market, more and more customers are now looking for cheaper delivery and at the same time they also want same day, one-day or two day delivery. With plethora of options available in the market, if you are not providing the combo of both these benefits, the customer might switch to some other product or E-Commerce store.

  1. Go for multi-step and multi-vendor shipping arrangement

In order to optimize delivery, go for multi-step and multi-vendor arrangement, where in you will be able to reduce costs as well as delivery time. Finding a strategic mix of both will lead you to success. With plenty of opportunities available in the market, finding the right mix is not difficult.

You can find many local delivery partners, who can help you avail the best local delivery solutions as well as large shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, which will help you in rapid delivery across major cities.

Choosing a single shipping partner is not an ideal solution in today’s business conditions. For example, if your customer is in a remote location, you can break the shipping into two or three parts. You can send the product to the city nearest to them utilizing the services of your major shipping partner, whereas you can find a local shipping partner, who would leverage his local shipping capabilities to transfer the shipment from the nearest city to the door step of the customer.

  1. Optimize and plan delivery options

With increasing competition, you can find many delivery partners, who would help you in achieving one day or two day delivery targets. Their delivery vehicles run day and night in some areas and you can leverage their strength for local deliveries.

  1. Minimize cost using technology

In order to minimize cost, you can go for different options such as shrink-wrap pallets. You can also adjust prices with your shipping partner according to weight and volume factors. Proper tracking of consignment will also help you reduce cost.

Sometimes customers make false claims of receiving broken items or not receiving a product at all. Modern technology helps you track your shipment in real time using video surveillance that reduces the chances of any goof up by the delivery guys and also customers making false claims.

It will also help in improving customer service as the customer would be able to track the shipment online. It will also help them to make sure that they are available at the mentioned address at the time of delivery. Tracking can be enabled across the entire supply chain. The technology also helps the customer in receiving automatic updates about shipment.

  1. Review your policy every six months

You should review your shipping policy every 6 months in order to minimize costs and make your delivery even more efficient. This way you will not only be able to reduce cost but would also be able to improve customer loyalty.

Make sure to consider and implement these steps so that your delivery improves drastically.   It will improve your customer base and sales.

8 years ago
The 4 Step Procedure for an Easy Payment Gateway Integration
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

The 4 Step Procedure for an Easy Payment Gateway Integration

Payment integration is a technical process, but it can be made easier if you remember a few points. Nowadays a payment gateway can be integrated both into a desktop website and a mobile app.

So, first decide where you wish to integrate it because the processes for both are different. Here we will discuss how to integrate your payment gateway into a desktop version of an e-commerce website.

1.Determine your priorities

It is extremely important to determine your priorities and what you want from your payment gateway. It will help you decide how development should be done so that you are able to achieve your desired objectives in less development time and hassles. Before you decide to choose an integration solution, define your objectives clearly.

2. Select the right integration solution

As far as integration and its coding and development are concerned, we can select from the three major types that are as follows:

A.Hosted payment forms

This is the simplest way to integrate your payment solution as you require no coding in it. It is simply a plug and play option where you can pick a specific payment form for your website. You can also paste it into your mobile app. It will help you securely collect payment from different credit cards and debit cards. But it doesn’t happen on your servers as the hosting company that offers this solution processes the information on its own servers. However, you can choose from a host of templates. Customization of your brand is also possible when you choose a hosted payment form.

B.Payment module 

If you already have a predefined platform on which your website is based such as Drupal, UberCart, Shopify or iOS, then you will get the specifically designed payment modules for those platforms.

Obviously these payment modules have far more features than the basic hosted forms that we discussed above. However, the coding requirements are still minimal.

C.Use your own code for advanced e-commerce sites

This method allows you to use your own code and even modify templates. The API language support is available for various coding languages such as Java, C++, Python, C#, Visual Basic, PHP, Ruby and Pearl, etc.

3.Test the integration

Now that you have already integrated your credit card processing, test your configuration to make sure that everything is in perfect shape and your website is ready to go live. Conduct live transactions using a dummy account so that you can detect potential issues in the trial phase itself. At every step of the way, you can get in touch with the technical support team of the payment gateway solution provider you have chosen.

4.Activate your account 

Once your payment gateway is integrated and tested, you are ready to accept payments. Contact your payment solution provider to activate your account and you are ready to go live.

The payment gateway integration seems to be a challenging process but if you know your objectives, the entire process will become a cakewalk. If you need assistance, just connect with technical support and they will guide you in the best way possible.

8 years ago
PayTabs
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