Boxx Communications Ltd

Simplifying telecommunications for businesses large and small!

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Digital Strategy: Why every business should have one

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Digital Strategy: Why every business should have one

With the advent of a truly online business culture, cloud working and social networks, SMEs are now able to compete with the big guns on a more level playing field than ever before…..

But just because they can doesn’t mean it will be easy – and it is becoming increasingly obvious that having a digital strategy is becoming an essential part of business planning.

According to the latest research from Ingram Micro Cloud, who conducted a detailed survey of end users at this year’s Cloud Expo Europe, just over half of UK businesses have an active digital transformation strategy or are currently putting one in place.

The result, according to the research, is that 71 per cent of the over 200 surveyed will be ‘Digitally Transformed’ by 2018, with over 80 per cent saying that the Cloud is playing a very important or even critical role in their online plans.

Crucially, it is becoming clear that small companies can often use their size to their advantage. Being nimble and agile in their offerings where bigger companies are locked into set product paths, with existing suppliers or agreed timelines.

The important things to remember when creating a digital strategy include:

  • Be ambitious!
  • Play to your own company strengths, rather than trying to be something you are not.
  • Delivering value in your niche is key!
  • Keep an eye to how you can capitalise on and adapt to the fast-changing technological landscape.
  • Stay relevant to your customer base as you seek new opportunities is also important for continued growth.

The survey also identified risk-taking as a corporate norm for the first time and the desire of a large proportion of employees to work for companies committed to digital progress.

We already knew it but digital shows no signs of slowing anytime soon!

Helping MK future-proof it’s businesses

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Helping MK future-proof it's businesses

With BT phasing out ISDN, here at boxx we are making it our mission to ensure that businesses are ready…..

We’ve decided to grab the bull by the horns and encourage fellow local businesses to get together, learn what they can do to future-proof their businesses in preparation for the change and network with like-minded businesses along the way!

The first networking event went down a storm…..

Dean (one of the directors here at Boxx) gave a short presentation about why we are doing this and what businesses can do to get ahead of the game.

Dean Burgin - Director

We also had representatives from two of the industry’s leading suppliers GAMMA & Daisy.

Having them both present isn’t something that often happens, but it demonstrated how totally independant we are here at Boxx and not tied into agreements with any one supplier. We did have to sit them at opposite ends of the room though…. Only joking!

Prav - GAMMA Dylan - Daisy Wholesale

Everyone who attended seemed to not only enjoy the refreshments but also took away knowledge of the changes that are coming to the telecommunications landscape over the next few years and more importantly, what they can do now to prepare themselves and their businesses for this.

Chris - Walter Samuel Ltd Audience

We received excellent feedback from all those who attended and like anything successful, it makes you want to do it again! So we’ve just set another date for our next one – Thursday 30th June here in CMK.

If you’d like to come along you can register your interest here. We hope to see you there!

And because images speak a thousand words, this short video shows what you can expect from the event.

Starting a business: Why it has never been simpler!

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Starting a business: Why it has never been simpler!

Starting a business today is simpler than it’s ever been – and we have technology to thank for that…..

Having a great idea and choosing a name aside, a decade ago setting up a business meant finding an office, getting a phone line put in and buying a computer to put on your desk. So a substantial upfront investment in costs was required, including a lease, hardware, and often minimum terms which could leave you heavily out of pocket if you didn’t make a go of things straight away.

And now….? It really couldn’t be any easier. While you certainly still need that great idea and company name, setting up a new business now can, depending on your line of work, be as simple as opening your laptop and logging on to your home wifi. These lower costs mean fewer barriers to access, so starting a business is an option for a lot more people – which can only be a good thing for both competition and innovation.

There’s no need in many cases to even have a premises, although many still want that. Work can now be done on the go, in the café or local pub – in short anywhere that has an internet connection. Often it can be done direct from your phone – and who could have imagined that a decade ago?!

But of course, nothing in this world worth having is ever 100 per cent easy, and while you may be happily and successfully doing your work from the local café, you may well find that your customers prefer dealing with the sort of world they’ve become used to over the years.

Often, this manifests itself in customer service and conventional call handling – people like the sense of permanence and stability that ringing an office brings, even if the business they are dealing with is small or has staff who are often out and about.

Luckily, technology has kept up here as well. Products such as VoIP can be very effective, with the system allowing you to transfer calls seamlessly between users and offices. Perfect for set-ups where everyone is on the go but you don’t want or need the expense of secretarial staff. You can connect wherever you are – and the calls are cheaper too! But this innovation has not come at the cost of quality, as VoIP is also powerful and reliable enough for video conferencing too.

So look into VoIP now to see if it’s a good solution for your company – we’ll be happy to advise you on the options available!

Taking payments is changing – What you need to know

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Taking payments is changing – What you need to know

Taking payments is critical to many businesses both traditional and mobile – but with a lot of changes in the pipeline you need to know what your options are – and what your customers will be expecting.

Cash is going nowhere (well, as far as we know!), but cheques have long been rumoured to be on the verge of being axed, with the latest estimates that they will be phased out by 2018. Partly because so few people now use them and partly because of the high costs of processing them.

Frictionless payments are now increasingly popular and available – so card payments can now be contactless for amounts up to £30, meaning compatible machines simply read the card’s chip when it is presented, speeding up the payment process and taking away the requirement for a PIN number to be entered while maintaining high security.

And, as ever, mobile phones are also driving forward new change – the likes of Apple and Android both offer mobile payments on the go, with card and account details stored in the wallets of your mobile device.

With a huge surge in contactless payments since they were introduced, and one predicted imminently for mobile ones, it’s clear that these new technologies are carving out the future of payments.

So what does this mean if you are a retailer, either based in a bricks-and-mortar business or an on-the-go one? Basically that you have a lot more choices now – and that costs can come down dramatically once you look beyond the realms of the traditional high street banks.

At Boxx, for example, we offer a reliable and cost effective alternative to banks at a lower price point, and a variety of products to suit your needs, covering both online and terminal options.

We’re confident we can reduce your current card processing and banking costs, and you’ll also benefit from being able to hire terminals on a monthly basic rather than buying upfront.

So talk to us about our flexible and competitive payments options today!

Estate Agents: Keeping ahead of the Game

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Estate Agents: Keeping ahead of the Game

The online revolution has affected pretty much every type of business going and estate agents are no exception…..

Once a firmly face-to-face profession, many of the processes of house-buying now happen online, from the initial searching and viewing of house particulars to booking appointments and liaising as the sale progresses.

As viewings and enquiries can now happen around the clock, estate agents have had to evolve, both in how they work and how they make contact with clients and vendors – both of whom expect them to be available when needed, even when they are out and about.

Additionally, the whole end-to-end buying process is often much quicker and estate agents who can’t keep up to speed will soon find themselves overtaken by their peers.

So increasingly most have found that their standard office phones and company mobiles just don’t cut the mustard in this changing world, and have turned to companies such as ours for help and guidance to find out how their new contact and call needs can best be met.

As ever, technology has effective and competitive solutions that can help estate agents with their increased and changing needs, and Boxx Communications customers Deakin White, for example, chose one of our VoIP packages so that they can run their office seamlessly, even when they’re not actually in it.

As a fairly new start-up, with a small initial team but lots of local interest and big ambitions, it was critical to them to find a way to make all would-be buyers and sellers know they were important, even if staff couldn’t get to the phone immediately.

With our VoIP packages, office calls immediately divert to mobiles if required, they have a call queuing feature and the call monitoring helps them plan – and Deakin White, happy with their tech, are proof that estate agents now need reliable broadband and VoIP if they are to stay ahead of the game.

VoIP packages also feature the ability to put calls on hold, play marketing messages and move calls seamlessly between users and offices so that customers will get the best experience when calling any business, no matter how busy you are.

If you’re an estate agent, you literally can’t afford to be without it!

Facebook Services: How it will help local businesses

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Facebook Services: How it will help local businesses

Facebook has rapidly become the go-to social platform for every aspect of our lives, but the sheer numbers of accounts and pages on it can make it daunting to navigate, especially for small businesses and those looking to access them.

Most businesses now have a Facebook page, but it used to be hard to find a choice of a service local to you, or indeed pit them against each other to which best suited your needs as well as having the best reviews.

Well, no longer – Facebook, spotting a gap in the market for just this within their ecosystem, has launched a professional Facebook Services Page. People can sign themselves and their businesses up, and then users can search by profession and location.

Crucially results are displayed based on rankings, so those with the best reviews and rankings are at the top.

Facebook Services

So what does this mean for businesses? Obviously, Facebook is a massive platform with enormous reach (over 1 billion people accessing it each day), so the potential is huge – and chances are your potential customers are already using it.

Plus, it’s already a place that people go to find out about the lives of friends and family, plus local events – so using this search environment as a place to source local businesses, above and beyond personal recommendations, is a natural next step.

And, unlike other search services, Facebook is free to access for both users and businesses, so there is no cost barrier to entry – setting up a page is free, and so is posting to that page, including when customers leave reviews.

So it’s a definite win-win situation: customers are happy because they get the best local businesses delivered at the top of their search, and can quickly click through to each page to find out a bit more about the company, including contact details.

Plus, businesses have the chance to reach thousands of local people who are looking for their service at only the time cost of setting up and maintaining the page. They also have the added incentive of delivering top-notch services at all times in the hopes of getting appropriately good reviews and thus staying high, or climbing higher, in the rankings.

So, what else does this new development mean for small businesses? Well, keeping your page up to date is nearly as important as starting one in the first place, as there’s no point ranking well for a service or product that doesn’t match what you currently offer. And while Facebook never releases the secrets of its ranking criteria, it’s clear that the number of likes and reviews, plus how positive those reviews are, will both be important, so do what you can to maximise these.

So make sure you have the right location information and general descriptive keywords on your page and in descriptions. Then, as long as you have happy customers and can encourage them to reflect this via Facebook, you can look forward to increasing the amount of new business that comes from the social platform, for no additional advertising spend. Hurrah to that!

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