How Doxxing Threatens Your Small Business

Every day, as the Internet deepens, the lexicon also deepens. That is how Doxxing is suddenly becoming very popular even though it has been around for quite some time. As gleaned from the Internet, “The term Dox or Doxxing is derived from the word “Document.” It originates from the practice of researching information about an individual. Doxxing is often defined as an Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information (such as names, addresses, phone numbers, spouse, children, relatives, financial history and much more) about an individual.”

In fact, such information usually forms a total very sensitive package online about any individual. If it gets stolen or falls into wrong hands, such information can be used for real time impersonation or even identity theft. If you own a small business online and somebody steals your identity through Dox packages, that business could easily be taken over (even if temporarily) and misused by using it to perpetrate fraud or scams. That is how dangerous Doxxing can be to your business.

Very commonly online, when it comes to privacy issues, people focus much more on companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and suchlike social media sites. Quite often, that focus often ends up overlooking the real culprits. Many of these social media sites claim to be self censored and boast of being able to secure the personal information of their users. Even if we accept that to be true, many of their users may not be that careful with their personal information. In addition, other persons who post on their sites freely could be reckless with sensitive information when they take full advantage of the fact that many of such social media sites are interactive and very free to use. These careless postings could actually serve as sources which feed the practice of Doxxing and can lead to many different types of assaults on your business.

Now wait for it! Some companies using people-finder websites even now specialize in collecting sensitive information online and selling it to other companies. I bet you can you see the danger in that. Even though Doxxing in its earliest form was meant to gather marketing intelligence information for businesses, criminals have since latched on to it to perpetrate various forms of cyber crimes. That is why it is now a real threat to many small businesses online. Many of such businesses can easily be wiped out completely when hit real hard by cyber criminals.

Any viable remedy? Yes indeed! What to do is simple as ABC. Just protect your personal information online like never before. If you can help it, don’t allow your sensitive personal information online unless you have absolute guarantee that it will be securely protected from predators.
 

7 Ways to Automate Conversations with Your Customers

Maintaining an open line of communication with your customers is key to any successful business relationship. There is real customer satisfaction when your customers know that you’re behind them and are ready to support them every step of the way. This is a win-win relationship which does not necessarily mean you’ll need to spend extra man-hours to keep your lines of communication open. Even if there are a lot of customer service requests, you may not need a human being to handle them all. That is where automation comes in.

Putting automation to work in your business frees you and your employees up to continue to move your business forward, while still keeping a level of support that your customers expect. Here are 7 cost effective ways you can automate that process.

01. By Making Use of New Technologies: The commonest technologies that might assist in the automation process are the use of mobile apps. The most effective of these apps are those which help to walk customers through common issues so they can fix problems themselves without the need for your involvement. Others might use SMS to text a code to a number to get information on their account, a balance due, or to automate the payment process.

02. By Using Technology for Follow-up: Even after you’ve made a sale, it’s still important to keep the lines of communication open to your customers. The follow up helps to increase customer satisfaction by merely letting your customers know that you’re out there if they need you. That helps to address potential problems early on by addressing issues early. Common problems are easier to fix early on. For instance, using a simple automated email might be all that is needed to open a line of communication between you and your customer.

03. By Automating Your Social Media Presence: As many business owners have come to realize, Social media outreach is an important part of their business’ public face. It helps to give potential customers and customers a sense that they’re connected to you. Promotion of what your business offers through social media channels may open up new sales leads, while customers may turn to social media to contact you about issues. There are many social management systems such as HappyFox that can actually filter social media contacts based on the content of the message itself. That helps to take out the work of a middleman to direct queries to the right person. These same systems can also automatically post to your social media accounts, allowing you to automate your marketing strategy and give your content maximum exposure.

04. By Using Surveys: Surveys are fairly common methods of automation. Granted you’re not always going to get a high response rate, the data obtained from well designed surveys are great ways to not only spot potential problems, but also initiate a dialogue with your customers. It helps to keep them short, relevant, and to the point. You may also find it necessary to use your survey answers to initiate further automatic emails to gather additional feedback on areas where the responses might be a cause for concern.

05. By Using the Callback System: These days, even though many consumers may show a preference for using the Internet to communicate with businesses, many still appreciate talking to a human being. Call such people “old school” if you like but they are still out there and in large numbers too. It is because of such people the callback is still a worthy option to include in your customer relationship strategy. On the same pages where you might have a “Chat Now” button, a “Call Me” button might be just as useful. For example, MobiForge software has some great examples of Click to Call or Click to SMS solutions.

06. By Initiating Conversation without Prompting: Smart business owners do not wait for their customers to first reach out to them. They easily recognize such actions their customers may take that might be a clear sign of a need for assistance. For example, a website visitor spending a lot of time in your help pages probably needs some kind of support, while somebody looking through your products and services might benefit from talking with a member of your sales team to assure the sale. There are multiple great tools out there which can help initiate any conversation. Tools like LiveChat and BoldChat, both with customizable audience interactions can really be useful here.

07. By Using a Virtual Assistant to Handle the Simple Things: Just because you’re trying to be proactive doesn’t mean you’ll need to hire additional staff. A good portion of customer service requests are simple in nature, and with chat bots becoming ever more intelligent, automated systems can handle those issues quickly and easily. This frees up your employees to deal with more complex problems. Chat bots such as Botsify (for Facebook Messenger and other apps) can answer those simple questions that might arise from whatever actions your customer is taking on your site.