Category: Products

ProductsSaaS

How Seniors Are Using Technology

on October 1, 2020

According to an interesting article that broke down mobile connection metrics across the globe, there are now more cellular devices on planet Earth than people. That means, in a general sense, that people, young and old, are relying on these devices to facilitate their needs. While many mobile users fall below 50 years of age, many seniors are beginning to understand how valuable connectedness is. Located below are areas in which senior citizens can benefit from using mobile devices and apps.

Food Delivery

One of the daily tasks that become increasingly difficult for individuals as they get older is getting a meal to eat. While many of us have no issue going into a restaurant or store to purchase items, this task seems daunting for an elderly individual. Luckily for them, smart-device applications have been created to make the process of getting a meal easier for older users. 

Seniors will find their lives easier when they can open an app, place an order, and have the food delivered to their residence in a fraction of the time as the traditional method. Furthermore, on account of the current pandemic, seniors may opt for contactless delivery services to ensure their safety. Simply put, you can’t go wrong with this technology!

Tracking and Emergency Services

One of the biggest solutions for independent living that seniors can use to gain peace of mind is by using apps that can track their location in times of emergency. When asking seniors about their fears as they become older, they tend to express emotions about falling or becoming injured without anyone knowing. Their fear is real, too. Most injuries that seniors experience go unnoticed, as they’re unable to make it to a phone or computer.

The beauty of using these applications is that it allows an all-encompassing means of staying protected in the future. Should you decide to use a mobile application like this, here’s what you need to look out for:

  • Easy-to-use navigation and straightforward interface design.
  • The ability to talk to real people at a moment’s notice should something go wrong.
  • Predictive technology that allows healthcare professionals to remain alert in potentially dangerous circumstances.
  • Data points that allow caregivers to build a working history with the patient.
  • Peace of mind for both the user and the user’s family. 

Medication Organizers

One of the main components of a senior’s day consists of taking medication on a schedule, thinking about their next dosage, and making sure they didn’t skip any supplements. The beauty of mobile apps is that they can act as an all-in-one assistant that keeps seniors on track for the day. Do you know an older individual that has difficulty taking their medications on time? Do they often find themselves getting off schedule, or in worst-case scenarios, completely forget to take their prescriptions for days on end? If so, it’s time to use a mobile app to alleviate their worry.

Reminders and alerts will act as a gentle reminder for the individual in question to maintain a productive schedule. When they take their medications consistently, you improve their quality of life and allow them to lead their days more freely. These mobile apps are a must-have!

Transportation

Let’s face it, getting to appointments and running errands can be a hassle, more so if you’re older. We also run into the problem that most seniors cannot safely get behind the wheel of a car to travel from point A to point B. With transportation apps available on mobile devices, seniors can rest assured that they can get where they need to be on time. Should they need to get to an appointment, run a quick errand, or meet up with a friend, these apps have their back!

As you can see, technology is not a series of devices reserved for younger generations to communicate with one another. Millions of older people living around the globe are finding new and unique ways of improving their lifestyle by implementing proprietary software. If you know a senior that could benefit from using these technologies, discuss it with them in the upcoming future. Who knows, you may improve their quality of living and allow them to live life on their terms.

MartechProductsSaaS

Customer Data Platforms

on October 1, 2020

With increased businesses and competitors, most marketing organizations are looking for efficient ways to target customers. Customer Data Platforms (CDP) has become influential in helping marketing organizations achieve their marketing goals. They are assisting organizations to deal with several marketing channels and ways to counter competition. This article will look at what Customer Data Platforms are, their work, features, and examples.

What is Customer Data Platforms?

A Customer Data Platform empowers marketers with the client’s data and provides the full details of these customers. It brings together artificial intelligence and data science, which pulls together marketing data to create personalized experiences for clients. It helps support the company’s marketing activities based on the client’s experiences. They unify data collected from different sources to create one, full-detailed customer profile. These CDP mobile apps help marketers collect data in real-time, making them segment it and efficiently serve their clients.

How does Customer Data Platform work?

Customer Data Platforms have many capabilities and responsibilities. They are used to collect data from different sources, filter it, and restructure it in a manner suitable to fit marketing systems. The data is then used to offer personalized marketing activities to clients. CDPs come in various forms. They can also carry other functions, such as analyzing data, predictive processes, and content marketing. The main tasks of customer data platforms include the below:

  • They identify clients’ information.
  • They upload and store customer data in the systems.
  • They accept input of data from different sources and formats.
  • They compare and merge data of a client from various sources.
  • Provide the processed data to external systems, including marketing
  • It enables marketers to control and use the data in marketing activities.
  • Apply other processes that make the data usable in different fields of marketing.

How is a Customer Data Platform Important to Your Business?

There are different reasons why an organization will need a CDP mobile app in their organization. The main reason is that it benefits its marketers in their marketing functions. Its benefits are as below:

  • The CDP integrates the existing and future marketing tools of an organization. It is necessary because marketing systems come with different technologies, making them not compatible with each other in an organization.
  • It enables organizations to better understand their customer’s behavior on different channels when offering various media campaigns.
  • It provides real-time personalization of clients. CDP enables marketers to develop real-time personalized content for their customers based on personality and behavior.

Benefits of a Customer Data Platform

Below are some of the benefits of a Customer Data Platform app to businesses:

  • It provides a complete customer view: it helps companies get complete customer information, which is comprehensive and accurate, making their engagement more manageable. It maximizes efficiency by reducing redundancy and inaccuracy in the customer’s data. 
  • Leads to improved advertising: since a CDP helps to come up with customer’s data in a targeted way, it increases online advertising effectiveness. 
  • Simplifies customer data: traditionally, marketers had a challenging task of synchronizing data from different sources. CDP automates the whole process and gives marketers ready–to–use data, making them concentrate on other marketing strategies.
  • Web personalization: CDP allows companies to create personalized customer experiences directly to their websites. It’s only possible when companies get real-time information concerning website visitors.
  • Helps businesses gain insights: through data mining, companies can get more information regarding their customers.

Best CDP Software Providers

There are different CDP Software providers you can find online. Some of the best include the below:

  • Tealium: It’s the largest according to the employee count, and it’s the most recognized CDP software. It has over 1000 Pre-built integrations for business use and has a robust API toolkit.
  • Lytics: has over 50 employees and allows aggregation of data, which resolves data for individual customers. It has AI capabilities that are useful in most businesses.
  • Redpoint Global: It works with various vendors to create data solutions to clients. Founded in 2006, it has robust data segmentation and incorporates vendors for data enrichment. Gives quality data and provides data stitching services.
  • Segment: Provides strong, out of the box integrations and has over 200 SaaS vendors.
  • Treasure data: Offers CDP with over 100 connectors that help unify raw data to produce a single customer experience. 
  • Blueconic: Provides a highly scalable solution for businesses. It’s a suitable ML based product. Its software leverages several AWS services.

Customer Data Platforms are becoming popular in implementing marketing strategies. It helps companies and their marketers concentrate on other things by simplifying customer’s data, used in marketing strategies. They are must-have instruments that every company should have in its marketing toolkit.

DevelopmentInsightsMartechProductsSaaS

How Small Businesses Use Mobile Apps

on September 30, 2020

Mobile phones are everywhere, which has made staying in touch easier and has simplified many daily tasks. As technology grows, our lives become richer. Through filters, we are better photographers (and models). With voice assistants, we all have our very own robot secretary. Just about any fact-related argument can be settled anywhere by opening the encyclopedia, we carry around in our pockets. We don’t need a notepad and pen as long as we have our phone. For modest monthly fees, we can access vast libraries of music, movies, and television shows.

Mobile technology is great for our personal lives, but it’s great for our business lives, too, as you’ll see below. 

Time Saving Apps

One of the greatest conveniences of mobile app technology is saving time. To see what we mean, just look at how apps have changed something as ubiquitous as banking. Whereas a business owner (or manager) once had to drive to the bank with an uncomfortably large amount of cash and wait in line for the business teller, the majority of payments are now handled electronically. Checks can be deposited by snapping a photo. Mobile banking apps can save bundles of time.

It doesn’t stop with banking. If you travel for business, there are apps to help you manage business flights, hotel reservations, car rentals, taxis, rideshare services, and dinner reservations. Business travel, like personal travel, is made easier through review apps like Tripadvisor.

Metrics-at-a-Glance Apps

Whether you’re in the back of rideshare, flying in a plane, or waking up in the morning, you can now pull up a snapshot view of a variety of business metrics thanks to mobile app technology. You can most likely monitor your website analytics software, access your CRM, and whip up sales reports with a mobile app. NachoNacho provides a list of CRM tools at a reduced cost.

Physical Plant Management Apps

Many security alarm companies now offer mobile apps so that you can wait until you’re out of the building to set the alarm. If you have security cameras, chances are you can access live (and stored) footage from an app. There are apps to manage smart thermostats and apps to turn the lights on and off. 

Office Equipment Apps

Modern office equipment, such as printers and copiers, often comes with a bundled app. For example, Xerox commercial printers can be managed with the Mobile Link app. You can use your phone’s built-in camera to scan documents, manipulate PDFS, and send just about anything you want to the printer.

Cloud Storage Apps

If you use Dropbox, Google Drive, or another cloud storage platform to access electronic apps, you can download a mobile app to help you access and manage those files. This is especially convenient when you want to send a file with your mobile email app.

Social Media Apps

We typically think of social media apps as something for personal use, but you can just as easily manage your business accounts with a mobile device. It’s a good idea to always double-check which account you’re posting to; it can be amusing to accidentally post something for work to your personal account, but the reverse can be damaging. Facebook offers a separate app to manage business pages, but with Instagram, you simply switch between accounts in the same app.

Communication Apps

Typically we think of office communication platforms like phone, fax, and email. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, many business owners have discovered other useful technologies. Teams can–and do–hold video chat meetings with Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts, helping to eliminate the need for physical contact. Many office suites provide real-time collaboration features, improving productivity, and further eliminating the need for a physical office.

Asset Tracking Apps

No matter what industry you are working in, a significant amount of work is now done off-premise by employees working remotely, in the field, or simply in a different location. An asset tracking mobile app enables teams who are handling company equipment in the field to easily update information through their smartphones or tablets. They can scan equipment labels to quickly check items in and out, make maintenance requests, reserve equipment, and much more for simplified off-premise operations. Meanwhile, all this activity gets logged into the central system so the organization has visibility into the field operations.

 

 

InsightsMartechProductsSaaS

6 Mobile Shipping Apps for Small Businesses

on September 30, 2020

For small businesses, keeping track of your packages can be daunting and time-consuming. Choosing the right labels and shipping companies can ease your worries so that you can focus on your clients’ needs. Luckily, there are mobile apps that can reduce the shipping process for small businesses, as outlined below.

Package Tracker Pro

Package Tracker is a mobile app that lists shipping companies, including DHL and FedEx. The mobile application is available on Google Play Store with a small installation size at $1.99. Package Tracker is available for Android users in an all in one package that lets you track deliveries, keeps you informed, and allows you to customize your packages to suit your needs.

Package Tracker Pro has been in the market for a while and has a robust support system for the users. Some of the features that the app offers include:

  • Push notification to keep you informed about your packages in the form of ringtones or vibrations.
  • It allows you to add new options to your carrier list.
  • The app can show tracking routes on your screen if obtainable.
  • You can sync your tracking information from your PC to your mobile phone without retyping, which helps save you time.
  • You can archive tracking numbers to the sync site.
  • Generous support from the developers who are available to answer any questions you may have.

Package Buddy

Package Buddy is a free Android mobile app for shipment tracking purposes. The app that is downloadable from Google Play Store has an allowance of over 100 courier services. The free version is excellent for personal or domestic use to manage small packages. For small businesses, the pro version is available for $2, and you can integrate it with other android devices for your commercial requirements.

This app’s features include a barcode scanner that enables you to add a package to your tracking list and the capacity to share shipping data with others easily. It also consists of a filter function that allows you to sort your information by the status of whether you are sending or receiving parcels.

17TRACK

17TRACK is a mobile app compatible with both android and iOS users supporting famous couriers such as DHL and UPS. The app is great for businesses that order from China or have issues shipping to North America. 17TRACK is free with in-app purchases if you want to upgrade.

Features of this shipping app include push notifications to keep you updated on package status changes. It also comes with automatic syncing across your compatible devices and allows you to track multiple numbers simultaneously. The app can automatically detect your packages and which shipping companies they are on by entering a few digits of your tracking codes.

You can only track about 40 packages with the free version at a time. You can upgrade to a limit of 100 or 200 at a monthly charge of $2.99 or $4.99 consecutively.

Delivery Status Touch

This app is made for iOS devices and is available for download in AppStore for $4.99. Delivery Status Touch covers a wide range of shipping companies, both local and international, like Japan Post.

The features of this app include readable maps that tell you exactly where your package is. The app enables you to see the current transit packages and their delivery dates when you open it.

Delivery Status Touch allows you to sync your delivery dates to your calendar. You can also install it on your desktop and easily switch from the mobile device, depending on where you are.

FedEx Mobile App

FedEx is a development one of the biggest shipping companies which enable users to track packages and create shipping labels from wherever they are. FedEx app allows businesses to track all packages they send and receive. It also has a barcode scanner to add your boxes in the shipment list and enable you to sort it through using your tracking codes and references.

An upgrade to FedEx app that is available in some regions is the FedEx delivery Manager. With this addition, you can leave instructions for the courier services on when and where you want your packages to be delivered, sign digitally, and even send the package to FedEx location to pick later. 

While this app is great, if your business heavily depends on shipping companies, you might consider enlisting the aid of a company like Shipware to conduct a FedEx audit. Due to a service and billing errors, you may be eligible for a high number of small refunds from FedEx on an ongoing basis. Shipware doesn’t have an app yet, but they have a history of helping small businesses who use FedEx and other shipping companies, so we thought we’d mention them here.

JumpTrack

JumpTrack is another Android and iOS compatible app that allows users to store proof-of-delivery like photos and signatures. The app will enable you to track shipment status and even trucks that carry the packages with GPS. You can also share the tracking information via email to your customers. This app is excellent for companies with complex supply chains that want to oversee their shipping.

InsightsProductsSaaS

Mobile Apps for Families

on September 29, 2020

What are some of the top mobile apps for families? We polled our editors, and here’s what we came up with.

When Tracker Apps Aren’t Creepy

Tracker apps are best used by parents to know the whereabouts of children and other family members. A family tracker app will help parents track where the kids are at any time of the day, either school or playing. All you need is your child’s smartphone; download the app and activate it to be functional. There are lots of apps in the market you can choose from, starting with basic ones and also the advanced apps that require subscriptions. Some of the best tracker apps you can find in the market include Find My Kids, Life360 Family Connector, Glympse, Sygic Family Connector, Foursquare Swarm, FamiGuard, and Safe 365.

Exercise Apps Are Fun for the Whole Family

Every family needs to stay fit and healthy. Everybody with a smartphone in the family can download an exercising app to help them stay fit. Some of these apps are free, while others cost a subscription fee. Some of the best exercising apps include Nike Training Club, Daily Workouts Fitness Trainer, Aaptiv, Zombies Run, 7-Minute Workout, Sworklt, and Daily Yoga.

Apps to Help the Whole Family Learn Stuff

If you’re planning a trip to Spain next year and you want the whole family to learn as much Spanish as possible before the trip, there’s an app for that. Want to make your brain work better? There’s an app for that, too! Want to learn to read the stars in the night sky? You guessed it; you’re going to find something in your app store. Some of the best skills improvement apps include Duolingo, Lumosity, Sky Guide, and Pocket. They can bring the family together as they present learning in a fun, reward-oriented environment. And the learning doesn’t have to stop there. Try The Human Body to teach science, Hopscotch to teach technology, Minecraft to teacheEngineering, and Mathmateer to teach your kids mathematics.

These Aren’t Necessarily for the Kids, But…

Some of the most popular mobile apps for families have practical, everyday, boring uses, like banking and insurance apps. You can find these apps on Google play store or App Store for android users and iPhone users, respectively. Some of the most popular insurance apps include Allstate Mobile, Esurance Mobile, Geico Mobile, Progressive, and State Farm. Unfortunately, not all insurance providers have a mobile app, and no insurance app will answer all of your questions, such as: Can I buy life insurance without a health exam? Is life insurance taxable? Can I even afford term life insurance? To answer those questions, you’ll want to step back into the analog world and talk to an agent via email, chat, phone, or in person.

Just for Kids Apps

While your kids might fall asleep trying to make sense of an insurance app, you might have a hard time entertaining yourself with these apps. One of the top-rated apps for children is called ABC Mouse; it is geared towards toddlers, and it teaches shapes, colors, numbers, and letters. Epic! is an e-book library for children ages 2-12; with over 35,000 children’s books, it’s a great alternative to letting your kids watch TV on their device. There are apps for children that teach the ABCs, math, geography, creativity, science, and even coding.
But the “just for kids” genre doesn’t stop there. YouTube Kids screens videos for age-appropriate content for children up to 12 years old. And there are games galore, many with educational bents. Swift Playgrounds, for example, uses puzzles and other techniques to teach children a coding language. PBS Kids Games uses entertainment to teach reading and math. Just make sure you don’t send your little ones unescorted into their device’s app store. As we have reported, children’s safety can be a concern.

InsightsMartechProductsSaaS

5 Apps to Help You Make Money

on September 29, 2020

There are apps for entertaining you and apps to help you be more productive. Certainly, there must be mobile apps for helping you make money… right? We decided to look, and here’s what we found:

Money App

Yes, that’s what it’s called: “Money App.” This is an Android and iOS market research app which rewards its users for completing tasks such as playing games, offering opinions, testing services, mystery shopping, using free trials, and checking store displays. Using your PayPal account, you can redeem your money after completing tasks. This app is convenient as the user can redeem their rewards and get paid within two or three working days, which is rare in market research apps that tend to pay monthly and sometimes never even pay at all. On both iTunes and Google Play, the app scores 4.8 out of 5. Quite decent for being a couch potato.

iPoll

Like Money App, iPoll is another task-based app to help you make money while you’re waiting on the bus. It’s an Android and iOS market research app that rewards its users through completing retail missions, writing down diaries (for example, your meat consumption over a week), and taking market surveys.

Once registered, you are required to input basic information like your consumer habits and preferences, to determine your availability for tasks. You are then alerted when there are new available missions based on location and preferences. This market research app is unique in the sense that it is customized so that missions and tasks given to you are suited to you and could, at times, be enjoyable. On Google Play, it is rated 3.1, and on iTunes, it is rated 4 out of 5. Users enjoy the lack of glitches selection of topics. Rewards can be redeemed as gift cards or cash, which can be acquired through PayPal.

Foap

But what if you don’t want to take surveys for pennies? Foap is an Android and iOS money-making app that allows photographers to make extra money by selling smartphone-taken photos. It is a platform for marketing and advertising agencies and brands to search and buy images from Foap’s registry.

After registering for your account, you can upload your tagged photos (high-quality). The photos’ visibility will be higher if the rating is high. The registered community is responsible for rating photos. Each image earns you $5, but a photo can get as much as $100. Some agencies and brands sometimes hand out “missions” where they require specific images or, in recent times, even videos. The app is highly rated on both Google Play, where it is rated 3.8 out of 5, and iTunes, where it is rated 4.3 out of 5.

Helium 10

But what if you already have a way to make money online? If you’re an Amazon seller, the Helium 10 Chrome extension gives you an advantage over your competitors. This powerful extension includes a profitability calculator, an ASIN grabber, a review insights tool, quick-views of inventory levels, and more. We mention it in this list because there is a streamlined mobile app version for Helium 10 subscribers. The app version provides you with charts and sales trends at a glance, deep-dive product research tools, order monitoring, and suspicious activity alerts. You can get a great understanding of what is going on with your Amazon selling business just by looking at your phone. The Helium 10 mobile app is available on both Android and iOS.

Fluid Market

Our last choice for a mobile app that helps you make money is called Fluid Market. Many people have cars that they do not use often, and other people do not have cars at all. Fluid taps into this business opportunity by allowing someone to rent out their SUV, car, pickup truck, box truck, or cargo van by the week, day, or hour. The folks at Fluid claim that renting out your truck could make you up to $24,000. Tools such as hedge hammers, saws, and drills can also be rented. It is convenient for both parties in the car rental system. Users enjoy using the app. On iTunes, it is rated 4.5 out of 5, and on Android, it is rated 3.5 out of 5.

DevelopmentInsightsMartechProductsSaaS

Top Technologies Driving Laboratory Efficiency and Accuracy Forward

on September 21, 2020

For decades, clinical laboratories have played a significant role in advancing patient care within the nation’s healthcare system. Through effective testing processes, clinical laboratorians generate accurate results that support doctors and other medical experts in making appropriate diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients. As new diseases, strains, and the global spread of life-threatening illnesses increase, rapid testing and diagnosis become more apparent.

Laboratories around the world have stepped up to the challenge by adopting technologies that enable them to work more efficiently to support the growing demand for improved diagnostics and patient care. Continue reading to learn more about technological trends in clinical laboratories.

Cloud Technology

The adoption of cloud technology in clinical laboratories has worked to streamline lab processes, create controlled environments, and disseminate information in real-time. Advanced lab equipment comes with features that automatically record testing data and store it in the cloud allowing technicians, scientists, and other associated parties to access pertinent medical information quickly. 

Assisting scientists and technicians in maintaining a controlled environment, the integration of cloud technology in advanced lab equipment immediately alerts teams when issues arise in the testing or experimental stages. Such alerts provide teams with the support they need to accurately monitor and adjust processes as necessary to generate accurate results.

 Modern laboratories are also adopting cloud based test equipment tracking solutions to gain visibility into their disposable and non-disposable items ranging from expensive testing equipment to instruments and disposables such as laboratory reagents. This software helps ensure reliable reservations of equipment required for testing and enables timely preventive maintenance and calibrations to make sure everything is always in top-notch condition. Also, alerts can be set for important events such as expiring equipment leases or low stock levels of materials so testing cycles are not stretched out due to such shortages.

Lastly, cloud technology features allow scientists to share information in real-time with project contributors from virtually anywhere. The data can be accessed remotely, making it easier to collaborate with other employees and laboratories for improved productivity. 

Improved Equipment Designs

New technologies have enabled designers to create more efficient lab equipment compact in size with advanced capabilities for more efficient lab and testing processes. Microfluidic cell sorting, for example, can be done on a compact system, performing various functions, and helps to eliminate the need for traditional flow cytometry lab setups with simple, easy to use technology. Such innovations save laboratories money, time, and space.

Automation

The use of lab equipment to automate testing and experimental processes have been an ongoing practice for most clinical labs. As technology continues to advance, current equipment designs include features and automation tools that save time and improve efficiency in laboratory processes. The use of automation in laboratories reduces the need for manual tasks previously performed by lab technicians eliminating many daunting and repetitive steps in experimental studies resulting in authentic results in record time. Scientists and technicians are now able to focus their attention on critically analyzing data. 

Sustainability

As the general public becomes increasingly concerned about the environment, industries across the board have taken great strides to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. Realizing the extensive amount of energy used to operate labs, scientists and lab workers have begun utilizing resources that support a more eco-friendly and sustainable work environment. 

Many laboratories reduced their carbon footprint by improving their recycling efforts by properly and safely disposing of used supplies, equipment, and containers. Consequently, in purchasing recycled materials for experiments, testing, and lab processes, laboratories have also been able to save a significant amount of money. 

A new concept, referred to as open labs have also become an increasingly popular method for laboratories looking to reduce their carbon footprint. With technological resources like compact equipment, cloud technology, and automation features, sharing space, equipment, and data amongst other labs cuts down on waste while saving money. 

The investment in more efficient lab equipment has also improved sustainability within the industry. Newer models require less energy to operate without compromising the accuracy of results. 
At a time when the world is in the middle of what could be the worst threat to public health in history, clinical laboratories are needed in the fight. From increased testing and rapid results to the development of vaccinations and treatment options, scientists and lab techs around the world will ultimately save humanity. As such, laboratories need to continue to adopt technology trends such as those described above to deliver the most accurate results as quickly as possible.

DevelopmentInsightsProductsSaaSSEO

How to Set up a Print Server on Linux

on September 17, 2020

After years of working as a support technician, I can tell you one of the most frustrating pieces of technology out there is the printer. When they work, they are an indispensable tool in the office. When they don’t work (as it often happens), they are a never-ending point of frustration.

This is especially true when your printer is attached to a Windows machine that can cause any number of problems, without rhyme or reason. Getting that shared printer back up and running can take some time. Or you might wind up having to call in support. 
To make matters worse, printer problems don’t just plague end users. This almost universal bone of contention causes problems for every level of the user, even all the way up to JavaScript developers, like those at BairesDev.

Fortunately, there’s a way for your business to avoid the headaches brought about by sharing printers from desktop machines. That solution is to deploy a Linux printer server. Once you have such a server up and running, you’ll find it will serve you without fail (so long as the hardware and your network don’t become a problem).

Outside of reliability, the fact that you’ll be using open source means the only cost for you is the hardware. 

Requirements

First off, you need to have a printer that supports Linux. At one point in time, this was a challenge that caused many users to avoid the Linux print server. But that’s all in the past. Today, it’s fairly easy to have a Linux printer. To find out what printers are supported by Linux, check out the OpenPrinting site. 

With your supported printer at the ready, you’ll need to make sure it’s connected to your Linux server. 

You’ll also need to have a Linux server available. I’ll be demonstrating with Ubuntu Server 18.04, as that’s one of the most user-friendly Linux server distributions on the market. Do note, however, that Ubuntu Server 18.04 installs without a GUI, so you’ll be working from the command line.

Finally, you’ll need a user with sudo privileges.

And that it’s. Let’s get to work.

Installing the CUPS printer server software

The first thing to take care of is the installation of the CUPS printer server software. CUPS stands for Common Unix Printer Server and has been around for some time. 

To install CUPS, log into your Ubuntu server and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install cups -y

Once the installation completes, you’ll need to start the CUPS daemon and configure it to start at boot (otherwise you’ll have to start it manually anytime the server goes down). To start the CUPS daemon, issue the command:

sudo systemctl start cups

 To enable the CUPS daemon at boot, issue the command:

sudo systemctl enable cups

Configuring CUPS

With CUPS installed, it’s time to configure it. Only a few quick changes need to be made within the configuration file. To open that file for editing, issue the command:

sudo nano /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

The first change you need to make is the line:

Browsing Off

Change that to:

Browsing On

Next, you need to configure CUPS so that the web-based manager is accessible from within your Local Area Network (LAN). Look for the line:

Listen localhost:631

Change that line to:

Port 631

For our next trick, you’ll have to make sure that CUPS is listening on all network interfaces. Look for the following section:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

Finally, you’ll want to add access to the CUPS web-based admin console. Look for the section:

<Location /admin>

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location /admin>

  AuthType Default

  Require valid-user

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

If you do opt to make the web-based admin console available, you might want to lock it down to allow only a specific user. To do this, you would change the line:

Require valid-user

to

Require user @SYSTEM

Save and close the cupsd.conf file. Restart the CUPS daemon with the command:

sudo systemctl restart cups

If you opted to lock down the admin console to a specific user, you’ll want to create that user with the command:

sudo useradd -g lpadmin cupsadmin

Set the new user’s password with the command:

sudo passwd cupsadmin

With that configuration, you can point a browser to https://SERVERIP/admin (where SERVERIP is the IP address of the machine hosting CUPS). You will be prompted to log in with the cupsadmin user and the password you set above.

Share the printer via Bonjour and IPP protocols

You’ll want to make sure your printer is visible to your LAN via Bonjour (for macOS desktops) and IPP (for most other desktops). To make this work, you’ll need to install the avahi daemon with the command:

sudo apt install avahi-daemon -y

Once installed, start and enable the daemon with the commands:

sudo systemctl start avahi-daemon

sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon

Open the firewall

If you happen to have the UFW firewall enabled on the Server, allow Bonjour and IPP printer traffic through with the command:

sudo ufw all 5353/udp

Connecting your printer

At this point, everything is ready for desktops to connect. How you connect the desktop to the printer server will depend on which desktop you are using. For example, with Pop!_OS Linux, I can go to Settings > Printers, and (as long as the necessary drivers are installed) the new printer will automatically appear (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Our printer on the CUPS printer server is now available for connection.

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to set up a reliable Linux printer server. The only hiccup you will run across is if you have entities outside of your LAN (such as third-party JavaScript development companies). To allow those groups to use the printers connected to the server, you’ll need to employ a VPN. Otherwise, your printer server is ready and should serve you without fail.

DevelopmentInsightsProducts

Explaining why Fintech Industry Needs Blockchain with Use Cases

on September 15, 2020

Blockchain technology has emerged as one of the most popular data technologies that revolutionized the way data is stored, protected, and shared in modern organizations. This decentralized data management system uses complex cryptographic protection and stores data in decentralized blocks to prevent all kinds of tampering efforts. Blockchain follows a ‘write-only’ protocol that allows only adding data and disallows any changes, deleting or tampering data. 

 

Since the fintech industry is highly data-driven and data security plays a key role in the fintech apps’ success, Blockchain has become widely popular for solving many data security concerns of banking and financial firms. As CTO of Cerdonis Technologies LLC, Paul Osborne pointed out, “Emerging economies with an increasing volume of banking and non-banking investment and transactions are direct beneficiaries of Blockchain.”

 

Here are some of the credible use cases of Blockchain in the fintech sector. 

 

Blockchain-Powered Global Payments

 

 

The principal reason for the blockchain-powered payments to be tremendously secure is the personal cryptocurrency keys that every user can use for carrying out transactions. Moreover, Blockchain coming with a ‘write-only’ protocol doesn’t allow overwriting the transactions, and any changes brought to the transactions can only be facilitated with everyone’s consent. Any change is shared and distributed across the network in actual time to make sure that all the participants remain completely informed. 

 

Blockchain allows registering and evaluating every transaction so that there can be no scope of tampering transaction data. No wonder, leading Fintech companies around the world are increasingly embracing Blockchain for safeguarding payment. The best thing about Blockchain is that no longer global payments involving multiple currencies need traditional money transfer solutions.

 

Peer to Peer (P2P) Payments

 

A bulk portion of the international transactions belongs to the Peer to Peer (P2P) category involving considerable amounts of transaction fees for sending and receiving money. Apart from being exposed to risks from third-party platforms, such transactions end up adding more transaction costs that individuals and small businesses need to bear. 

 

Apart from the huge additional transaction cost that people and businesses need to bear around the world, the traditional international P2P payments also get delayed at various instances. Blockchain can offer a comprehensive and conclusive solution to all these and can ensure more streamlined transactions involving less cost. No wonder cryptocurrency-based money transfers are already becoming popular, and several players emerged in this sector, OkCoin, BitPesa, Ripple, Sentbe, etc. 

 

Reducing the Risks of Stock Market Manipulation 

 

Investors in various parts of the world are also relying more on advanced technologies for decision making. Blockchain is increasingly becoming a great technology choice in the equity investment segment for streamlining investments, improving efficiencies, and extending the market reach. 

 

Apart from helping with enhanced efficiency, Blockchain is also reducing the dark manipulations that big players in the stock market often practice. Lowering transaction costs is another major benefit of using Blockchain for the stock market. 

 

Credit Scoring and Rating 

 

Credit scoring and rating is an integral part of the evaluation of people’s creditworthiness. These days thanks to Blockchain, Fintech companies can even carry out such evaluating processes for populations still not covered under banking credit products. While evaluating precise credit scores is crucial to safeguard banking and non-banking credits from non-payment risks, Blockchain-based credit scoring can be used to make such scoring and rating more accurate.  

 

Maintaining Regulatory Compliance 

 

 

In the financial industry, the need for regulatory compliance plays a key role, and this is where Blockchain can play a great role. FinTech companies are facilitating regulatory compliance by using the latest technologies like Blockchain. Thanks to blockchain technology and its completely tamper-proof way of safeguarding data across distributed networks, it can play a great role in helping banks and financial institutions to remain in sync with industry regulations while dealing with the regulatory complexities efficiently.  

 

By maintaining multiple copies of transactions that constantly get evaluated, Blockchain based compliance platforms literally make it impossible for the firms to breach compliance. 

 

Minimizing the Identity Theft 

 

For the past several years, issues corresponding to identity theft and digital frauds are steadily increasing in the financial sector. This is why know-your-customer processes and anti-money laundering measures have become important for the banking and financial sectors. On the other hand, banks and financial firms still rely heavily on paperwork. Paper-based customer documents are finding it difficult to compete with digitally equipped banks and firms in terms of efficiency and data risk. This is where the role of Blockchain technology became important. 

 

By implementing a blockchain-based system, the fintech companies can streamline the entire process in which the customer has to evaluate their identity just once. The entire process of identity verification can be completely tamper-proof and free of a security risk as several blocks of data across the network will store the same document, and any change will be shared and distributed across the network in real-time. 

 

Blockchain-Based Reward and Loyalty Systems 

 

Besides securing data and streamlining processes in fintech firms, blockchain technology can also play a crucial role in making the customer rewards and loyalty systems more streamlined. Thanks to blockchain technology, businesses can utilize a multitude of less expensive loyalty programs and customize them as per different customer needs and preferences. Most importantly, Blockchain allows tracking the impact and traction of each and every reward program separately. 

 

Conclusion

 

Blockchain has started to play a key role in the scheme of things for all financial firms. From security to streamlining processes to data transfer and sharing, Blockchain’s huge positive impact in the Fintech industry is likely to continue in the years to come. 

ProductsSaaS

7 Best Customer Support Products for Better Customer Retention

on September 14, 2020

Building brand loyalty and retaining customers is one of the most important factors for the long-term success of your business.

If you feel like you’re constantly trying to keep up with your customers, we’ve compiled a list of 7 tools that will help you retain your existing customers so you can focus your time and effort on expanding your business.

The Benefits of Customer
Retention

If you’ve been running a successful business for any length of time, chances are you already have a number of returning customers.

Customer retention includes all the tools and techniques you can use to make sure customers like these keep doing business with your company in the long run.

Like with many other aspects of business, the 80/20 rule also holds here. This means that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your best clients, so focusing on customer retention should be one of your top priorities.

Another thing to consider is that keeping your current customer base can cost up to 5 times less than trying to find new customers. An investment in customer retention will not only bring more profits but also let you stretch your budget further.

Top 7 Tools for Customer Retention

Now that we know how important customer retention can be, we will go over some of the tools that can help make the whole process easy to set up and use. These tools will cover different approaches and techniques you can use to build customer loyalty.

Zonka Feedback

Even if you do all you can to satisfy your customers, Customer Feedback is crucial for your business to know how your customers perceive your efforts and how satisfied they are with the experience you provide. Zonka Feedback, one of the easiest Customer Satisfaction Software and Survey Tool serves this purpose. With this tool, you can create surveys to collect feedback from your customers and take action on it to improve Customer Experience, enhance satisfaction and retention.

Key features

  • Inbuilt Survey Templates – It provides 40+ question types and ready-to-use survey templates that you can use to create customized surveys of various types for your customers, patients, students, and guests to collect their feedback.

  • Multilingual Surveys – You can create surveys in multiple languages to survey customers of diverse backgrounds.

  • White-labeled Surveys – It allows you to Whitelabel your surveys and add your own logo, branding, and style.

  • Multiple Channels – You can send your surveys to the customers through multiple on-premises and off-premises channels like email, SMS, website, QR codes, iOS devices, Android tablets, and smartphones.

  • Real-time Notifications – It’s real-time alerts notify you for every response or the responses falling in the criteria set by you like negative feedback, low rating, etc

  • Collaborative Response System – It allows you and your team to view feedback, convert feedback into tasks, assign and manage tasks, take action, and close the feedback loop to enhance customer retention and satisfaction.

  • Metric Surveys – You can use the tool to create metric surveys like NPS, CSAT, and CES to measure Customer Loyalty, satisfaction, and perceived efforts.

  • Logic Surveys – You can make your surveys dynamic and sound more logical with the feature of Skip Logic, Hide Logic, and Survey Redirection as the questions change for the customers based on their previous responses.

  • Automated Surveys – You can trigger automatic surveys based on both events like a purchase, a bill payment, or a ticket closure, as well as, on a periodic basis like monthly, quarterly, or annual surveys.

  • Powerful Integrations – It offers powerful integrations like Freshdesk, Zendesk, Shopify, Google Sheets, Slack, and more to make your work seamless.

  • Works Offline – The tool works offline too. It can save the response data for weeks without the internet and syncs all the saved data to the internet once your device is connected to the internet.

Pricing

Pricing starts from @29/month. It also offers different higher plans:

  • Professional plan costs $79/month and offers white-labeled surveys and advanced reporting for growing teams.
  • The growth plan costs $169/month, designed for larger teams to manage a complete feedback platform.
  • Enterprise plan costs $429/month, is a Complete Feedback Management Solution with personalized support.
  • Custom plans are also available for businesses looking for a custom solution, price depends on business requirements.

Document360

Document360 gives you a full suite of tools needed to build and maintain a knowledge base.

This resource can be invaluable to your customers, offering answers to any questions they might have about your product. At the same time, it saves you the time and resources you would spend on customer support calls.

On top of that, strong customer support is one of the best ways to build brand loyalty. It lets your customers know you’re there for them and are ready to help with any problem they might have.

Document360 also has a handy internal knowledge base, covering all the
features they offer and showing you how to make the best use of their tools.

Key Features

  • Product
    documentation     – Tools that will help you create, preview, and
    publish your knowledge base articles.
  • Category manager – Lets you create categories
    and subcategories, use them to arrange articles, and manage user access.
  • Editor – Lets you manage article content and
    insert additional elements, such as images, code blocks, and tables.
  • Branding – Allows you to customize the look
    and feel of your knowledge base and bring it in line with the rest of your brand identity.
  • Security – Lets you backup and export your
    articles and determine the level of access for your team members.

Pricing

  • Startup ($49 per project, per month) – Offers
    a limited range of tools and storage for smaller teams.
  • Business ($149 per project, per month) – Full
    range of tools with expanded storage.

Upsend

Upsend is less focused on specific customer retention techniques, instead offering a multi-faceted approach with a range of tools that help you engage with your customers.

These tools range from automated marketing campaigns to live chat and even guided tours of your products and services. Upsend is great if you want one tool that will help you cover all the bases in an easy-to-use way.

Key Features

  • Customer data hub – Lets you capture and
    manage customer information, sort customers by categories, and validate
    customer emails for use in marketing campaigns.
  • Customer support – Allows you to set up a live
    chat with your customers, which you can also automate using chatbots. It also
    lets you integrate outside elements in your chat, such as pictures and videos,
    shared files, and articles in your knowledge base.
  • Marketing automation – Lets you create and use
    templates for email campaigns. These can then be additionally personalized
    using the information from your customer data hub. You can also set up
    automated email campaigns and instantly send the to customer categories you
    already set up.
  • Knowledge base – Allows you to set up a
    knowledge base for your products and sort articles by categories.
  • Product tour – You can onboard new customers
    quickly and easily through interactive product tours.

Pricing

  • Free – Only supports one team member, but
    offers live chat and a team inbox.
  • Grow ($39) – Supports up to 3 team members
    with limited features.
  • Pro ($99) – Unlimited team members, full set
    of features.

Crisp

Crisp focuses on direct communication with
your customers. It combines live chat, CRM, email campaigns, and knowledge
bases to help you set up a comprehensive customer support and marketing system.

Communication is key when it comes to customer
retention. The more you engage with your customers, the more they will keep
your brand at the forefront of their minds.

Key Features

  • Live chat – Provides a live chat service with
    an integrated inbox and lets you set up a video chat with customers.
  • Chatbot – Integrates with the live chat
    feature to make sure you provide customer support 24/7.
  • CRM – Helps you capture new leads and keep
    track of existing ones with ease.
  • Shared inbox – Keeps all incoming messages in
    one place, while letting you set up automated replies.
  • Integration – Lets you connect Crisp with
    tried-party apps like Slack, WordPress, Mailchimp, Shopify, and many others.
  • Campaigns – Allows you to create automated
    marketing campaigns using email or in-app messages.
  • Knowledge base – Create and manage help
    articles.
  • Status page – Lets you alert your customers
    about changes to your products and technical issues through live chat or in-app
    messages.

Pricing

  • Free – Two live chat seats and team inbox.
  • Pro ($25 per website, per month) – Four chat
    seats and a limited set of features.
  • Unlimited ($95 per website, per month) –
    Unlimited chat seats with a full range of features.

lemtalk

Similarly to Crisp, lemtalk tries to help you
make customer support easy and convenient. However, lemtalk focuses on
integrating customer support features, like live chat and email, with your
company’s Slack.

Key Features

  • Slack integration – Provides quick integration
    and expands the list of commands you can use in Slack.
  • Slack live chat – Integrate live chat with
    your company’s Slack workplace.
  • Emails in Slack – Integrate support emails
    into your company’s Slack workplace.
  • SMS in Slack – Receive and answer text
    messages directly from your company’s Slack workplace.
  • Facebook integration – Integrates your
    company’s Facebook inbox with your Slack workplace.
  • FAQ – Lets you set up an FAQ page for your
    customers, with any support tickets going directly to your company’s Slack.
  • Multilingual live chat – Allows you to set up
    live chat in over 150 languages.

Pricing

  • Startup ($48 per month) – Allows 1 widget,
    chat language, and rule for automation and includes lemtalk branding.
  • Super Hero ($96 per month) – Unlimited number
    of live chats, knowledge base articles, and automation rules, multilingual live
    chat and knowledge base, no lemtalk branding.
  • Agency ($249 per month) – Full set of tools
    with unlimited access, supports up to 5 Slack teams.

Woobox

Loyalty programs are an often overlooked
aspect of customer retention. This has a lot to do with how they are perceived
since they’re often associated with brick-and-mortar businesses.

Loyalty programs can be a great tool in your
arsenal even if your business is fully online. They encourage customer
engagement with a system of rewards. This is a small investment on your end
that can have a great impact on your bottom line.

Woobox focuses on helping you set up loyalty
programs and contests on your website, such as giveaways, polls, coupons, and
more.

Key Features

  • Templates – Use pre-generated campaigns and
    landing pages as a base for your contests and giveaways.
  • Customization – Change the design of available
    templates to bring them in line with your company’s brand image.
  • Participant management – Helps you easily
    approve and manage participant entries and pick winners.
  • Integration – Allows you to customize your
    campaigns for mobile devices and integrate them with social media profiles.

Pricing

  • Free – Unlimited campaigns with 100
    participants per month. Allows Facebook integration.
  • Basic ($37 per month) – Unlimited campaigns
    with 1,000 participants per month with access to all types of campaigns and
    full customization.
  • Standard ($32 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited campaigns and participants, all types of campaigns, and full
    customization.
  • Advanced ($99 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited access with up to 5 team members, custom HTML & CSS for your
    campaigns.
  • Power ($249 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited access with no limit for team members, custom HTML, CSS & JS for
    your campaigns.

Qualaroo

When all is said and done, you will still need
to know how satisfied your customers are with your brand. After all, this is
what determines your brand reputation and drives customer loyalty.

This is where Qualaroo steps in. It helps you
set up surveys for your visitors directly on your website and analyze the
results to get an accurate picture of your customers’ likes and dislikes.

Key Features

  • Survey templates – Lets you save time by
    choosing from a library of pre-generated surveys.
  • AI sentiment analysis – Allows you to
    automatically mine customer feedback and set up actions based on the sentiment
    score.
  • Mobile integration – Lets you integrate
    surveys with the mobile version of your website.
  • Nudge for prototypes – Allows you to set up
    surveys for design prototypes of your web pages.
  • Exit intent surveys – Set up surveys that will
    trigger with completed purchases or if a customer is about to leave your
    website.
  • Questions branching – Set up dynamic surveys
    where the questions change based on previous answers.
  • NPS – Include questions that determine your
    Net Promoter Score.
  • A/B testing – Integrates surveys with A/B
    testing on your website.

Pricing

  • Startup ($199 per month) – Full survey functionality with up to 500k Nudge views on one domain, logo & color customization, and Google Analytics support.
  • Growth ($499 per month) – Full survey functionality with up to 1 million Nudge views on three domains, full customization, and advanced audience segmentation.
  • Turbo Growth (starting at $2,250 per month, billed annually) – Full suite of tools and customization with up to 2 million Nudge views on 20 domains.

Final Thoughts

Tracking down new leads and attracting new customers can prove to be much more expensive and time-consuming than building brand loyalty with the customers you already have.

The 6 tools we listed above will help you with this process, tackling and automating different aspects of customer retention. Also, you can check Net Promoter Score, software that can help you measure, analyze & grow your Customer Loyalty.

This will not only free up your time and let you focus on the big-picture business decisions, but will also drive up customer satisfaction, and, finally, profit.

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 16