As a support agent, there aren’t many things as serious as hearing there’s downtime. If the very word made you sit upright, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The modern workforce looks a lot different than it did even a decade ago. If employees actually go to a physical office, their workplaces are often defined by open concepts, collaboration and frequent communication. None of this is by accident. Studies consistently show that happy employees are more productive employees, and autonomy and access are two factors that can make employees happy.

Nearly every single company uses email as the main platform for communication. The problem? Emails are among the easiest platforms to hack, intercept and carry company-debilitating viruses. Unfortunately for businesses, emails and free app communications will pose a permanent risk to companies who wish to maintain uninterrupted regular day-to-day operations.

Happy customers are key to business success, whether you are a small company or a large enterprise. Though the end goal is the same, how SMBs achieve customer satisfaction differs from their enterprise counterparts. Small and medium business can’t afford to provide the same comprehensive customer services enterprises do, so SMBS must maximize their customer service investments.

The myths around AI have been nothing if not sticky. Fifty years after Hal 9000 made moviegoers very afraid, consumers continue to believe both that robots will replace humans — and also that AI is a thing of the future. The reality? Neither is true.

Many customers have had the experience at least once. You call a company with a question and get a perfectly polite person on the other end who says “sorry, I can’t help you with that, let me transfer you.” The next person you talk to says the same thing. And maybe even the one after that.

Many factors are involved in creating an effective customer service strategy. The agents you hire, the support platform you use, and the internal resources you provide your team, can all have a significant impact on the level of service your customers receive. But while most business owners are aware of these major factors, there’s one that is often overlooked – Collaboration.

Too often, businesses don’t place enough value on building positive relationships with their customers. The term itself, “positive relationship”, is a bit generic and isn’t exactly easy to quantify. This means it’s often a factor many businesses ignore and takes on a lower priority over time.

From the beginning, we have aimed to help distributed teams work as if they were sitting in the same room. Through our journey, we discovered that the whiteboard was at the center of a lot of team ceremonies—a place where people would gather around, share their ideas, express themselves and solve big challenges. We called our product RealtimeBoard—this name was direct and defined a brand-new category of collaboration tools which help teams to align around a shared vision in real time.

We’re living in the era of instant gratification. The realm of customer support is no exception. Customers today expect companies to respond to their queries or complaints almost as soon as a ticket is raised, and demand a quick resolution of the issue. In fact, the First Response Rate is now increasingly gaining importance as companies are beginning to see the kind of positive impact it has on customer satisfaction.