I’m not really the betting sort but I had a bit of a bet with a friend of mine who was pouring cold water over the effectiveness of search engines, which meant that in effect the UFindUs directory and our customer Rapidsites would struggle to get found on the likes of Google. Straight away I asked him for some trades that might be found on the directory. Then he decided on 4 locations which were from all over the country. I laughed when we got the results, more from the look on his face than anything else. Roofer in Edinburgh showed a UFindUs result in 3rd position, joiner in York showed in positions 1,2,3 and 4, plumber in Oxford showed as positions 6 and 8 and window cleaner in Lancaster showed 3,4,5 and 8. The links we found were either to one of our Rapidsites or to a UFindUs directory. Not only a simple and yet effective way to prove a point but now I’m a fiver richer and he’s invested £5 in becoming a little bit wiser. It just goes to show if you know what you are doing the internet is a great place to get found and make money! Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 31, 2007
May 30, 2007
National Learning at Work Day – UFindUs take it in their Stride
Last week there was National Learning at Work Day! (It never ceases to amaze me just how many “national” days we have), but its no different at UFindUs because every day is a training day here. We are lucky enough to work in one of the most exciting jobs around, but with the excitement comes the need to keep on top of things or you will miss opportunities for yourself and your customers. We have got our “training champion”, Emma, carrying out a refresher on emails. We make sure everyone gets regular coaching to ensure that all our teams keep on delivering a first class service. Emma has the patience of a saint and will make sure that, especially for a new training subject, everyone fully understands it before she will let them back on the phones again.
Another training session covers search engine optimisation (SEO) and involves about 30 staff from two of our offices. Our technical director regularly updates our training manuals and this is the first seminar run following the latest updates. Although the majority of the UFindUs web designers who are being trained know most of it already it never goes amiss to refresh their memory, stop bad habits from forming, and, as Stuart is a very hands on guy it keeps him fully in touch with any problems or queries the team may have. Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 29, 2007
Online shopping hits all time record spend of £10.9bn
The internet is ever growing in its power and SME’s shouldn’t underestimate the power it has on being able to capture new business. 2006 is now quoted as being a record year for online spending as it hit the £10.9 billion mark. What’s more experts predict that online sales are expected to almost treble to over £28 billion over the next 5 years. This is basically made up online spending on goods and excludes other things such as tickets, flights and insurance. The future prediction is an increase from £606 as being an annual average online spend in 2006 to £1,056 by 2011.Which show that those businesses which are investing in an online presence now will be well placed to reap the rewards in the future.
Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 25, 2007
Tell UFindUs what your thoughts are!
For anyone that wasn’t aware already Thursday 24th May was National Learning at Work Day. As I was sat at home last night it occurred to me that learning is so much more than just training staff. UFindUs is a great example of a company that puts this into practice. No one can say that we don’t listen to our customers. Everything we do is based around the needs and wants that our customers have told us they expect us to deliver.. By listening and learning it means that we keep happy customers and we make sure we don’t get complacent. The internet isn’t the place to sit back relaxing, so we will continue to develop products that ensure we stay one step ahead. If you want to help us then any comments, good or bad, are always welcome. Go on, drop me an email at ad@ufindus.com.
Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 24, 2007
Netintelligence Wins Prestigious Award
Netintelligence, sister company of UFindUs and part of the hugely successful Iomart group has won the prestigious SC magazines top award for Best Security Management System. This much coveted award saw some fierce competition with over 1300 nominations competing for awards. These awards reward excellence and are unrivalled in terms of prestige within the industry. UFindUs and other divisions within the group use the Netintelligence product to not only protect the network within the office but also any pc’s and laptops in remote locations. We know we are in safe hands. If you require information relating to how Netintelligence can help protect your business or home network then check it out now.
Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 23, 2007
UFindUs Delivering Customer Support
It has not been a surprise to see that over the last 8 months the level of complaints at UFindUs has dropped to an all time low. This has largely been due to the significant steps taken by our sales managers to make sure that the sales teams are giving out relevant information for customers to make the important decision as to whether or not they should purchase a UFindUs product. Feedback that we have had from our customer support department show that overall levels of customer satisfaction are now exceptionally high, and whilst we cant please everyone our support team is making a great impact in rectifying our customers problems on the first call. I have had the privilege of spending a morning sat listening to them in action. Considering that our support team has only been up and running since early March they have lived up to and exceeded expectations already. One more point to make is that the volume of second calls coming in, where the issues are still unresolved, are have now dried up to a slow trickle. It can only mean one thing, UFindUs are delivering on their promise to make our customer service experience second to none.
If you have had a recent experience of our customer support team then why not share it with us, we look forward to hearing from you.
Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 22, 2007
UFindUs Department Profile – Web Administrators
The new team of web administrators are settling into their new roles very well.
They have got to grips with the Rapidsite software and other systems and are now producing some great sites. I know that all of them are looking forward to the new Rapidsite software being released once it s makes it through development. For now however here is a sample of their work which includes putting together the script for the site from information that is provided to us.
Their sites today have covered everything from Villa holidays in Turkey to therapists, and central heating engineers to the Japanese art of Shiatsu and quite a few other things in between.
Graham Armstrong – Ufindus Ltd
May 21, 2007
UfindUs Feedback
UFindUs have made significant changes to the way that we have run our Customer Support and Customer Accounts Team over the last 12 months. If customers should have any problems or comments that they would like us to deal with then as well as contacting us on our Customer Support number (0845 013 5104) we can also be contacted through our feedback link on ufindus.com.
Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd
May 18, 2007
MacAphee approve UFindUs.com
It’s good to know that if you register your details with UFindUs.com you won’t be flooded with spam emails. MacAphee show us as being one of their green sites which means that they have been registered with us since May 2006 and have found no problems with us sending spam (unsolicited) emails.
May 17, 2007
UFindUs Terms and Conditions
Just a brief reminder that the terms and conditions for UFindUs customers can be found at http://ufindus.com/terms/UFU_TandCs.pdf
Graham Armstrong
UFindUs Ltd
