Cappuccino Chat - Episode 14 - Leasons Learned During Social Distancing

welcome back to another episode of cappuccino chat where we talk a little Tec over a good cup of coffee this time it's going to be a little different we're talking about lessons learned during social distancing all right this time we're gonna talk about lessons learned during social distancing and lesson number one I don't like social distancing at all I enjoy getting out and meeting with people talking to our clients meeting new prospects and shaking their hand I didn't think I would miss it as much I'm not a very outgoing person but when it comes to interacting with people I guess I am a person who likes to be social if you will yeah I'm not digging what's going on right now I hope we get through this quickly so we can get back to the way things were before I saw a meme the other day that I really liked it asked if we could reload 2020 because this version has a virus so definitely want to get back to some of the practices that we had prior to all this social distancing being one of those so there are some good things that have come out of it some lessons learned just you know the honey-do list if you will around the office but having more time to get some of those items done plan for the business think creatively on ways to work within the business and do different things be more efficient be more productive how can we communicate better with our clients things like that so really you know have had the time where you can't say eh we're too busy to get this done too busy to get that done so having a little extra time has been nice on the other hand side of that having this much time can be not as much fun for everybody as well some other things we're glad we did internet so I know I talked to clients a lot of times and they asked about what kind of internet should they have what kind of band which that they have who should they get it from a couple years ago we made the decision to move to spectrum fiber here at our building because it was at the building which one downside is it's not everywhere here yet in the valley but we made that decision a couple years ago even though it is more expensive the the quality and the way in which the fiber technology works having the same upload and download at the same time has been very nice that quality of service as they call it where you don't get the drop packets and the load and the technology isn't affected by the number of users that are out there so what I mean by that is probably during this time while you're been staying at home you got the kids and your neighbors and they've got their kids and everybody in the neighborhoods on the internet more doing Netflix and online streaming videos and all that kind of stuff and zoom meetings you've probably noticed your internet at times slowing down and lagging well the system really wasn't built for this kind of load I mean think about soom prior to all this they had a couple hundred thousand subscribers to their system and overnight they went to a couple million subscribers so had some hiccups they found some issues things they needed to fix those issues were there all along they just weren't brought to the forefront if you will so Internet technology is the same way so very happy that we made that decision to go with fiber internet it's made a big difference here our voice quality the ability to take the phones and home with the different technicians while they're working from home has been great and the fiber has really allowed us to do that that leads me to my next one is the decision to use voice over IP so your traditional phone systems if you still have on with the analog lines or even a PRI line those are more difficult if you needed to send a phone home with your employee while we're doing this social distancing and get it to work right now you can certainly forward to someone's cell phone but then you get into different you know laws and labor laws they're using the cell phone or you're gonna reimburse them for their cell phone bill that kind of thing so the ability to send that phone home with the users and have it interact the same way it did on their desk has been really nice some of our technicians are working from home when you call in for support or they call you they pick up the handset and it comes from our phone number rings our phone number they can transfer extension to extension works just like they were here in the office so that voice over IP has been very very helpful to us very glad that I went with it myself a couple of years ago so we they actually have a soft phone app so you can turn your cell phone into your extension as well so again if you're on the road and doing stuff that way you can also be connected to the phone system if you answer a phone it'll look like you know what's coming to your extension you dial out from that app it'll come from your office phone number not your cell phone number so you won't be exposing that number to people that you may not want having it and those types of things so what kinds of things have you learned during all of this might be interested to know if you're a client of ours please reach out let me know what you've learned maybe some things we need to talk about help implement maybe some things that have gone really well for you while you're working from home I know a lot of our clients with the firewalls and stuff that we put in with the VPN capabilities built right into it we've enabled that for a lot of people who didn't have it before and it's and it's made working from home that much easier and secure during these times now one of my hopes for this time from a technology standpoint is that some of the shortcomings that these technology firms have run across during all of this for instance like zoom and the issues they've had will start causing them to innovate and really move their technology forward so a little kick in the butt if you will so really hoping that some of these different vendors and we are seeing it you you know we've seen Microsoft kind of ramped up a little bit faster with Microsoft teams and what they're doing because of the shortcomings of zoom to try to compete there and do some stuff so but I'm really looking forward to everyone innovating more so when something like this might happen again in the future or if we decide to hey you know what this work from home that really worked for my business I'll be able to downsize my footprint in my building my rent will go down my heating air conditioning electricity demand will all go down because I won't have the users at my office so that could be something that's good for your business and maybe you've realized now that you are able to work more remote could be on the other side of that where you can't work remote and you're learning that working remote is not for your business and the way you do business and there's nothing that you can do to change that to make it work better for you and if that's the case good lesson learned you now know that need to make some adjustments so if something like this does ever happen again that we can make sure things stay as smooth as they are I know for us we were able to send our employees home and work and service our clients but it it worked but it didn't work the interaction and the camaraderie and the ability to help each other out working on tickets and issues and just discuss things out loud has gotten a lot harder of course so yes they can text yes they can email or pick up the phone and call one of the other guys but in our bullpen kind of area where they were all together you could you know have conversation amongst everyone all at once now they're having to contact each person individually and ask those questions and have those conversations and it's just made it not as efficient as it used to be so there's always some pluses and some minuses with everything we do so again let me know how things are going for you I hope all is well with your business we are in this together please reach out if there's anything that we can do for you our number here at the office is seven six zero seven seven zero five two zero zero you