4 Challenges Your Home Business Must Be Wary Of In 2019
Every business will face different challenges throughout its life. Some of these start from the word go, while others may establish themselves over time. These challenges will vary but it could be anything from hitting profit to having the right field service scheduling software to help you keep on top of things. This blog post is going to discuss some of the key challenges that are likely to face your business during the next twelve months. After looking at some of the key trends, these are the things that could cause you more concern than most.
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Data Protection
No doubt you’re absolutely sick to death of hearing about data protection. It’s been on everyone’s lips for the past 18 months, and it continues to be a challenge for small businesses in 2019. The main problem is that technology makes it easy for people to hack into networks and take as much data as they want. To make matters worse, small businesses often don’t have the means to fight this.
Is there a solution?
Of course! VPN’s are a brilliant way to protect yourself and the data you process online, both in your personal and business life. There are lots of Torguard VPN lifetime coupons that make it more affordable for you to get a VPN for your business. However, if you want to be extra secure then bring in some cybersecurity experts to run an audit of your entire network system. They identify your weakest points and help you create a far more robust system that keeps hackers at bay. Likewise, you should explore more secure data storage methods as well. If you keep things locked away in safer places, then it’s much harder for people to get to them. Protect your customers and your business by protecting all the data you have access to.
Identity Theft
Much like data protection, identity theft is something that’s become more challenging thanks to technology. It’s now remarkably easy for someone to gain access to another person’s details by posing as them online. All it takes is knowing one password and email address, and you’re in. For your business, this is an issue as you have to protect your customers from these threats. If someone accesses their account and starts ordering products or uses the information from there to go and withdraw money, then you’re somewhat to blame.
So, what can you do?
The only thing you can do is protect the identity of your customers by upgrading your security measures. Think about paying for a service that lets you determine the authenticity of IDs easily. Make it harder for people to pretend to be someone else, and this will decrease the chances of identity theft. Protecting your intellectual property is incredibly important. Based in Houston? Try contacting houston business attorneys such as Vethan Law Firm, P.C. to learn more about legally protecting your business.
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Customer Service
The customer service landscape is changing, and you can see clear examples of this wherever you look. Gone are the days where you could just have a number for people to call or a form for them to fill in on your website. Now, people need instant gratification. They need answers, and they need them right away. The modern consumer is done waiting around for you to email them back, they’re finished with the idea of waiting in a phone queue to try and talk to someone.
What does this mean for your company?
Well, you now have to explore other customer service methods to keep up with the trends. Primarily, focus on the idea of instant responses. Open up your DMs on social media so consumers can message you privately and get an almost immediate response. Install a chat box on your website where people can get customer service right away. If you’re not providing instant help, then it’s going to be an issue for your company.
Customer Retention
Retention is critical if you want to continue running a successful company. You won’t grow if you’re never retaining customers, regardless of how many new customers you find. Your customer base can only really get bigger if people keep coming back along with your new customers.
Why is this a problem?
With customer retention, there are more businesses than ever before. The online world means anyone can start a company, so competition is rife. This makes it hard to make people stick to one business.
How do you deal with this issue?
Firstly, focus on making your customers feel valued. Give back to them, reward their repeat business. If someone knows that they get something extra out of coming back to your company, then they’ll return. Also, try and offer something that they can’t get anywhere else, like a very personal service from you. There are other customer retention ideas as well, but there’s not enough time to run through them all.
Challenges are meant to make life difficult for you, but they’re not impossible to overcome. Hopefully, by knowing what could concern you, it’ll be easier for you to overcome these potential challenges.
