Focus

Connect with the world's leading business experts.

Get instant access to their expertise via world–class Q&A, Research, and Events.

daria lewis

Follow Following Unfollow

Sales/Marketing, Ted Woods, LLC/Ted the Telephone Guy

36 points

daria lewis and 8 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Jan. 29, 2012

Understanding Customer Service in 2012 [1/26 @ 1 pm]

Do you know of any companies that are offering support over Facebook successfully?

From the customer's point of view, would you go on Facebook to get customer support for a product that you purchased? I personally will not do business with companies that try to force me to "like" or "friend" them on Facebook. Yes, I have stopped ... more

Customer Service

Customer Experience

Customer Service Development

daria lewis and 16 other people answered this question

Jan. 8, 2012

Have you ever received a spam LinkedIn invitation?

I've gotten a bunch of requests lately which have been blocked by my malware filters as really being links to "unacceptable risk" websites. In other words, they are not coming from Linked In at all!
Pay attention! Don't click on links that purport to come ... more

Social Business

daria lewis and 6 other people answered this question

Jan. 4, 2012

What is the best phone system for a home-based business?

Aaron, I agree with you that a "well thought out" VoIP or cellular solution may well be what a customer wants/needs. "Well thought out" is key here. Yes, you can build your own--or you can buy a cost-effective VoIP solution. The same is true of ... more

Information Technology

daria lewis and 6 other people answered this question

Jan. 4, 2012

POLL: What phone type do you use for the majority of your business communications?

Panasonic phone system. Calls can be transferred or forwarded to cell phones as appropriate.

Information Technology

daria lewis answered this question

July 27, 2011

What should be considered when purchasing a phone system for a medical practice?

You need a telecommunications consultant instead of or in addition to an IT consultant. They need to work together to make sure that both your telecommunications needs and your data needs are met. These are very different specialties. Would you go to a cardiologist for ... more

Information Technology

Medical Practice

daria lewis and 2 other people answered this question

July 27, 2011

What are your thoughts on outsourcing proposal research and writing?

Good technical/proposal writers are not easy to find, but if you look for them, you can find good business-specific, industry-specific writers who do know the business, know and understand the subject matter, and can write about it in standard English. It is difficult to find ... more

daria lewis and 2 other people answered this question

Oct. 26, 2010

HR Management: Is it better to be an authoritarian?

Aha! So that's how it's said in HR-speak!

General Management

Human Resources

Human Resource Jobs

Mike Marion selected a best answer for

Oct. 26, 2010

Physical computer privacy

I want to share my computer with my son but he abuses the privilege. While I'm asleep he stays on the computer all night then says, in the morning, that he's too tired to go to school. Any safeguards to prevent this from happening? Even ... more

Human Resources

daria lewis and 5 other people answered this question

Aug. 20, 2010

Which is the cheap web hosting service?

The "Cheapest" web hosting may not be. What do you really need? Are you capable of designing and maintaining your site yourself or do you need to hire an expert to do this? For Bluehost, you'd better hire someone. GoDaddy has a reputation for dreadful ... more

Information Technology

daria lewis and 2 other people answered this question

Aug. 9, 2010

What credit card services do you accept?

Get a "real" merchant account--not the PayPal or Google type solutions. Try Merchant Warehouse--they seem to be as cheap as anyone who offers "real" solutions. You will need to buy a credit card terminal and ongoing it will cost you about $40/month* if you only ... more

American Express

Credit Card Services

daria lewis and 9 other people answered this question

Aug. 9, 2010

My customer is asking me to replace their switch telephone system that is not working well. Thoughts?

Just find a new vendor to maintain, repair, optimize the Partner ACS system. The current vendor does not WANT to maintain, repair and optimize it. Parts are readily available. Support should be inexpensive as those are pretty dependable systems. Find another vendor--preferable someone who specializes ... more

Information Technology

daria lewis and 3 other people answered this question

Aug. 9, 2010

What are the benefits of small business insurance?

What type of business are you in? Your customers may require you (at least indirectly) to carry product liability or "excess liability."
Having appropriate insurance was/is an important differentiator for our brand new business. We can have certificates of insurance in the hands of a ... more

Human Resources

daria lewis and 13 other people answered this question

July 4, 2010

What are your entrepreneurship tips?

In the planning stages, make a list of all the jobs/tasks that must be done to make the business successful and match these to your areas of expertise. Be honest about evaluating your competence to handle these tasks. Any tasks where you don't have the ... more

General Management

Entrepreneurship

daria lewis recommends this comment by Eric Hastings

May 16, 2010

What’s the scoop with “free” VoIP?

Several years ago it was said that in telecom there is a race to zero. It looks like we made it. To answer your questions, no. A company cannot survive providing something for nothing. If a company was able to offer their services for free ... more

daria lewis recommends this answer by Simon Rule

May 3, 2010

What are some of the best small business pbx phone systems?

VoIP systems are no good for small business. The only people who will get any advantage to a voip phone system are IT people who don't have to pay someone to set it up and who know how to use the features. For everyone else, ... more

Information Technology

daria lewis recommends this comment by Nik Kellingley

Nov. 8, 2009

How much do you penalize job candidates for various offenses committed during the application process?

I think recruitment has lost touch with what it is supposed to be about. Millions of CV's for a particular post? That's not a sign of well targetted recruitment campaigns, it looks like someone desperately shooting in the dark and casting the net as wide ... more

Human Resources

Following 0 Topics

Following 0 People

Followed by 0 People

Knowledgeable in 10 Topics

General Management

#338 of 1194

Human Resources

#493 of 1382

#206 of 457

Human Resources Management

#9 of 24

#19 of 22

Entrepreneurship

#93 of 150

#30 of 46

#1139 of 1411

Information Technology

#1756 of 2263

#153 of 243