Customer service is important. If you run a business, you already know that. But you might not realize just how great an impact poor customer service can have on your company’s bottom line. The data collected by ClickSoftware explains: “Poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 billion loss by U.S. enterprises each year because of defections and abandoned purchases.” When dealing with customer service issues, it can be easy to focus more on the cost that might be associated with corre...

Business by Miles is a business automation platform that handles tasks like scheduling, human resources, billing, invoicing, project management, payroll and accounting in a single cloud-based system. Managing all of these tasks might require several different apps in another situation. The platform is intended to keep your employees aware of everyone’s schedule, availability, ongoing projects and more. A small business with a single person at the helm can deal with different apps that help get m...

Government contracts for small businesses were discussed this week on Capitol Hill. U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) asked the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday to include more contracting for small businesses in a defense spending bill for 2015. Graves serves as chairman of the House Committee on Small Business. Graves testified before the committee that a bill he proposed should be included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The act is a law passed annually specifying budget and ex...