by TimStone » Thu May 25, 2023 11:51 pm
Otto,
Over a year ago you "strongly encouraged" me to re-build my program for the internet. A year later, and you have 3 people working on this, you have made some nice advances. That is great for YOU ... but for some of us, it's not the focus for our business or clients. Here are a few observations:
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My clients hire me, and the service I provide. They are not interested in the internet
Most of my clients do not have internet connections strong enough to handle their workload.
My clients who do use internet services complain they never work right, constantly break down, and they can't ever reach support people
I have yet to see an internet program that provides anywhere near the complexity of what my package currently offers
With all the hacking issues, and data theft, my clients don't want to expose their business to net servers
For the small business, like myself, having to provide support to an internet server takes way too much time.
So many companies providing hosted servers last for a short time, and when they shut down, we would have to relocate everything to another server. Not worth it.
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This is just some of the reasons I have for not converting to a web based platform. I have not lost a single client because of this. Perhaps that is because my clients value the personalized service, and very fast timing, I provide. Also, my clients all run their businesses, and none of them will do it from their phone, ever. Convenient services like text messaging, text to pay, etc. can all be provided from their local computers and clients can respond from their devices. But no one is going to write up a complex, multi-page work order, with perhaps 20 or 30 parts, from their phone. If they want to work on a computer remotely, via the internet, no problem. They do that regularly with what we have setup.
You have every right to be proud of what you are doing, but to be very honest, for many, the web based platforms are not the great option.
I will give one classic example: EMAIL
Many providers now want us to use a web based mail program. For me, that is totally inefficient . I use outlook to monitor 6 different email accounts, all in one place. Emails come in, I see a quick notification, and I can respond right away, or when it is convenient. I keep everything in folders on my computer, and since they are all exchange accounts, they are live on all of my devices. The alternative ? I would have to open 6 different browser tabs, one for each webmail page, and keep them open, along with any other web based programs, throughout the day. I would then have to look at each one separately to view the traffic. HOW INEFFICIENT !!! Outlook puts all of those inboxes into one on my email client, which is fast, informative, and effective.
I've gone on long enough. Not everything belongs on the web. One of my clients summed it up perfectly. He had the opportunity to compare a web based management program to my system. In his words, it was far more expensive, yet couldn't begin to do the things that my software provides. And it was supposed to be the best alternative out there for our industry. He, and others who are solicited all the time, have no interest in making any changes ...