We hope all of our clients are doing well as we continue to work through the Covid-19 pandemic. To say that the past year has been challenging for many people and businesses would be an understatement. Many industries have had to quickly adapt to the ongoing changes to help keep their staff and clients safe. Our local business is no different.
One thing that has experienced a massive change across all industries has been the way we communicate. Meetings have become emails, staff are encouraged to work from home when able, face to face meetings are handled over FaceTime instead of in person. One thing is for sure, our reliance on our technology for communication has become more important then ever.
As a local retail business we wanted to share some of the unique new tools we have implemented during the pandemic to help our staff stay in safe communication with our clients, especially during the current showroom lock down.
Phone and email are still very popular ways to communicate and help our clients with their computer needs. To help add to our existing comminution tool kit we have recently teamed up with a Canadian company called Chekkit to provide texting services directly from our store’s existing “landline” number. Not only can clients now reach out directly to our team by texting (or calling) 519-645-7633 but in addition our webpage has been updated to provide direct text chat access to our team. We can also use this service to communicate updates from our service department to keep projects running smoothly.
For curb side assistance, clients are asked to call or text from the comfort of their vehicle to help avoid the cold and line ups. But what if they need support for their iPhone that is not working, the very same iPhone they want to use to text us!? We have recently added a mobile pager system, similar to what you see in restaurants, to support communication between our clients when they arrive at our store without phone access and knock on our door. The client can return to their car with the pager and then we simply page them when their turn arrives. This continues to help keep things moving safely as we work through our client appointments.
As always, our service and business team has been hard at work keeping our clients’ Apple products up and running. Many clients have had to quickly adapt to working or attending school remotely and that means making sure their systems are fully operational and up to date to run the current communication apps like Skype, FaceTime and Zoom. Our Sentinel Monitoring program has been running 24/7 scanning for digital viruses and malware while our clients take precautions against Covid-19.
We are also hard at work helping local businesses switch between home and office and are playing a key role in developing new technology based strategies such as the ones listed above to help keep projects and staff on track. Please feel free to reach out to our team if you are in need of support as we are ready to help keep you up and running in a safe digital and physical environment.
Thank you for supporting our local business and continue to stay safe!
-The Mac Outpost Team