How to use technology to make yourself more valuable…

by Jeremy on July 28, 2009

Orange Glow
Creative Commons License photo credit: Matthew Clark Photography & Design

Last week, I had to take my car into Midas to have the exhaust worked on.  I decided I would take my laptop and wander to a coffeeshop or something and get a little work done while I waited.  I was quite surprised when I found that the Midas had free WiFi available.  This allowed me to sit in their lobby and work on projects.  What a great idea for this business to offer to their clientele.

It made me think that many businesses could utilize this mindset and provide their customers with a technology solution to add to their value proposition.  Obviously, Midas saw that their clients sit in their lobbies and would utilize the WiFi services while they wait.  Maybe you need to offer something like online payment solutions.  Do your clients have the need to be able to send you electronic order requests instead of faxing you paper requests?  Would a web service that their system could connect to simplify their lives?  What about giving them a computer screen in your store to allow them to place special orders and pay their credit cards?

If we really think about what our clients need and what the technology can allow, I think that many businesses may find a way to add to the value that they provide the client.  By doing this you make them want to come back to you as their preferred vendor.  They start to view you as a better option than your competitor purely because you thought about their needs.

In today’s world, what is the technology solution that you could offer to make your customer’s lives more efficient and add value?

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Tagged as: Business, Customer Service, Efficiency, Technology

  • Jason Blumer

    Our firm has started hosting the QuickBooks Desktop Edition remotely online for our clients to help them eliminate the need to have their accounting always available to them resident on a computer somewhere.. Most clients love it and see the value!

  • http://www.refocusingtechnology.com Jeremy Lattimore

    That’s a good idea. I think that many clients would love to use much of their technology in a hosted way. This keeps them from having to support it and yet gives them the ability to use the software that they need.

    I’ve been using Quickbooks Online for some time. What is the major difference between Quickbooks Desktop and Quickbooks Online?

  • http://thriveal.com Jason Blumer

    Jeremy-

    As you probably know, the Online edition of QuickBooks is totally different than the desktop version. Many of our clients still prefer the desktop version because of it’s familiarity and the great resources Intuit still puts behind the development of the desktop version. Before remote hosting, clients had NO other way to put their accounting online if they wanted the desktop version – they HAD to migrate to the online version, which was sometimes unfamiliar to them.

    Now we can allow them to still use the desktop version, put it online and allow them to have access 24/7. It’s a pretty cool model and follows right along with the SaaS models, sometimes referred to as \cloud computing\.

    Thanks, Jeremy.

    Jason M. Blumer
    jason [at] blumercpas [dot] com

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