IT

Why We Aren’t Making The Best Use Of Telecom

Telecom CompaniesTelecommunications technology has reinvented the 21st century. Many of the things we take for granted today would border on the miraculous in the 19th century and even for most of the 20th century.

As a nation, we are all interconnected. The President can speak directly to everyone instantly via Twitter and we are updated on any major global events usually within an hour of it happening by the major news media.

As individuals, we are also interconnected. If you’re stuck on the road and can’t get home for dinner, all you need to do is talk or text on your mobile phone to inform your spouse. If you need to find out about anything, you are only a Google search away from transitioning from ignorance to becoming well informed about something.

Unfortunately, telecom technology has become so ubiquitous, such an integrated part of our lives, that it has become almost invisible to us and we don’t use it as well as we should.

Let’s take a quick look at ways that we can make better use of the telecom technology available to us.

We are under Optimizing Business Telecom

No doubt, you are already using telecom in business.

Internally, you are using it to stay on track with projects by emailing or texting your boss, colleagues, or employees. Externally, you are using it to stay in touch with business contacts, suppliers, or customers.

Since everything is working smoothly, with business getting done quickly and efficiently, as well as cost-effectively, there doesn’t seem to be much room to tweak things.

However, you are probably not using telecom as well as you could. Let’s look at two examples: expense management and websites.

Expense Management

If you’re like most businesses, you probably don’t have an effective solution within your organization to manage expenses. However, there are services like Asentinelthat will automate your telecom expense management lifecycle and save your staff hours of labor and frustration.

Website

Again, if you’re like most businesses, you probably think you have a strong Internet presence because you have a website. However, have you ever tested it to see if a customer consider it an intuitive website design or is it something that loses customers every day without your being aware of it?

It’s well worth the time and effort to research what usability standards you need to use to upgrade the efficacy of the website. Since improving usability is not a simple thing to do most companies don’t bother to do it. As Sabine Idler explains in her article in the Daily Egg, Key Principles Of Good Website Usability: “Good usability is not attained overnight.

It requires thorough user research and an iterative approach to constant testing and refining.

Good usability depends on whether your website is available, clear, credible, learnable, and relevant to the people who actually use it.”/

We are over Optimizing Personal Telecom Tools

We are experiencing an unusual paradox in our culture today—the more information that is available, the fewer people appear to understand how to think clearly and build personal relationships.

It’s wonderful that we have mobile devices and social media networks and emails, but these are now being used to disengage ourselves from reality and fulfilling relationships.

Mobile phones:

It’s not unusual to see people sitting together at a restaurant and texting or chatting with someone on their mobile phone while completely ignoring their date, spouse, friend, or children right in front of them.

Social Networks:

It’s wonderful that we have the ability to network with people from around the world on social media. It’s also great to share ideas. Unfortunately, people now prefer to spend most of their time on social media than spending time with real people.

Emails:

It’s great to be able to communicate with others instantly via emails. Unfortunately, we have now reached a point where we get hundreds of emails a day, most of them promotional. In addition to dealing with this overwhelm and overspending on things that tempt them to buy, most people scan their emails several times a day in the hope of a few good emails that will make their day. Psychologists call this variable stimulus reward.

Is it time for a Shift in Priorities?

Imagine, if we did things in just the opposite way: We did our best to use telecom to maximize business growth and we started focusing on developing more real friends and less virtual ones.

If you have any questions, please ask below!