July 2011
In this issue:

HTS Referral Program
The highest compliment you can give us is the referral of a new client. If you know of anyone who could benefit from any of the services we provide your company, please keep us in mind.

Click here to learn how you could earn a $100 American Express gift card in return for your referral!
 

Crisis Communications Planning Checklist

The success of any business rests firmly on its reputation. Unfortunately your image can be destroyed in a blink by one poorly handled crisis.

During an emergency, it’s imperative that those within your organization know how to communicate effectively, both internally and externally.

This crisis communications planning checklist will help you develop a plan, as well as provide you with preparedness tools to ensure continuous communications before, during and after a disaster.
 

Just for Laughs

Quote of the Month

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."

 — John Cage

Improving Customer Service - Our Daily Goal
by Connie Arentson, President HTS

Every company wants to provide excellent customer service. Serving clients is the reason that your company and our company exists. While we may never reach the goal of perfect customer service we work to improve every day. I’d like to share with you some of the ways that HTS strives for excellent customer service as we work to serve you.

First, many of you receive a post “Service Survey” via email after we close a service ticket. If you have taken the survey, thank you. If you haven’t, we encourage you to take a couple minutes to tell us how we did – good or bad. Your response is what helps us to improve. So the next time you delete the survey email, remember it signifies one way we seek to improve our service, and your input is critical to us.

Second, teams at HTS hold short morning “huddles”. We hear what has gone well and what has been a struggle from the previous day’s efforts. Historically, ideas from team members and from you have resulted in changes in the way we operate to make our client experience the best possible.

Third, we understand that beyond surveys you and your employees are participating in social media both personally and professionally. We want to use that as another avenue of feedback to improve our customer service. HTS has launched a Facebook page where we encourage you and your team to interact with us. Start a dialogue, make a suggestion or comment on our articles and posts. Your comments will always be addressed and used as constructive feedback to better your experience with our team.

Finally, our management team constantly looks for ways to improve. From our helpdesk staff, account managers, and technical staff - our goal is to communicate to our clients, vendors, and prospects. We want to actively improve how we relate to the large variety of contacts we touch every day. Larry, Jane, Arlin, and I encourage you to let us know how we and our team are doing. I personally want to thank you for the feedback you have provided through the years. We are dedicated never to forget any success we experience is a direct result of you - our clients.

HTS Recognized by Microsoft as 2011 Central Region Community Partner of the Year

We are proud to announce that we were named the Microsoft Central Region Community Partner of the Year earlier this month at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference! The Community Partner of the Year award recognizes the partner who has gone above and beyond to contribute to their local community as an outstanding representative of their organization and of Microsoft, and HTS was recognized for its response in the Joplin, MO community in the days and weeks following the May 22nd tornado.

Pictured are HTS CEO Arlin Sorensen and HTS President Connie Arentson accepting the award with representatives from Microsoft.

Click here to read the full press release.

Tablets & Smartphones: Business Tools or Toys?
by Randy Johnson, Vice President - Network Management Group, Inc.

Is this the year of the Tablet? Has the mobile Internet finally arrived? What business purposes are served by using mobile Internet devices, and how can they help us better serve clients? Whether you are working with products from Apple, Motorola, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung or a myriad of other providers, access to the Internet, and applications or "apps" drive the mobile world.

Today, you can use apps that give you access to paperless documents from your office, provide clarification of a business rule from a quick check of research, have the ability to take a note to jog an idea, or to take enough notes for an entire draft memo. You can initiate a print job from anywhere to shared Internet printers, read a document that has been synchronized to the mobile device after being scanned, read books, publications, news sources, email, and consume content from almost any popular source. Apps make it possible to listen to and see news feeds, video conferences, record video, take and view pictures, and access multimedia content from internet sources. While there are limitations, most users now agree that they are so few that a new age of mobility has arrived.    Read on

Ten Tips for Making Your Business More Efficient
used with permission from Cisco

To keep pace in an increasingly competitive world, your business needs to run as efficiently as possible. "Sooner or later, any company not operating efficiently will be out of business," says Laurie McCabe, vice president of small and medium business insights and solutions for research firm AMI-Partners. Efficiency is even more important for small and medium-sized businesses, McCabe adds, because their resources are limited compared to large global companies.

Here are 10 tips for using network technology to help your business work more efficiently, cut costs, improve customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the competition.

Do you have control?
Can you control which applications have priority on your network? Can you see which applications are using the most bandwidth across your network? Can you determine which users need access to what online applications (Facebook, YouTube, SalesForce, etc.)? Now you can with SonicWall Next Generation Firewalls and Application Control & Intelligence.

 This technology is changing the way your network is optimized and the way your users access both necessary and unnecessary applications. Watch this video to learn more about how you can operate your network more efficiently and make your team more efficient and be sure to contact us for more information!

www.heartlandtechnologies.com