Dear Friends,
The summer temperature pattern is changing and has been for more than a decade. Once upon a The ping of my computer announced a new incoming e-mail regarding Google Reviews. “Another solicitation,” I thought as I slid the mouse to “delete” but wait WHAT was it offering? To merge newly written reviews (provided by the sender) into our current list of ratings – to “fit seamlessly” with our legitimate historical excellent reviews!? How could they do that ? I raged!
Fakes and frauds are everywhere, but THIS really upset me. Our company is so proud of our Google Reviews, to know that companies that have not earned that trust can simply buy positive reviews is so wrong! That this could happen at all really upset me, but to blatantly sell fake reviews at a price of five for $100 ,or 100 for $1,600.00 Unconscionable!
They claim their reviews are written by real people, posted from local accounts, and delivered gradually so everything looks completely natural to Google! The email went on too promise, “And because they are posted from your region, they look completely organic.” This scam effectively negates every legitimate, hard-won accolade our deserving answering service has received in our nearly 40-year history.
OUR PLEDGE TO YOU – All of our reviews, testimonials and recommendations are legitimate and we take great pains to be sure we have corroborating information for the client who left the review for RTC!
With Appreciation,
Herb Chinoski
Life in 25 Words or Less: “Imagine something new, or you will only go where you have been.“
—Paul J. Meyer
How did AI get so “Smart”?
Artificial Intelligence isn’t “smart”. It doesn’t really think and it doesn’t really “know things”, it is a Large Language Model (LLM) created by feeding it billions of documents. Books, textbooks, blog posts, corporate memos, newspapers, magazine articles, and even emails have been fed into its knowledgebase. Was everything correct? No, but given enough data the cream will almost always rise to the top. Just be a tiny bit skeptical.
When you ask AI a question and it gives you an answer – that answer is actually a prediction of the words it has learned come next. It makes a calculation – “of all the words in my memory bank, considering the surrounding context, what words usually follow these words…and the next and the next” – that becomes your answer. Using all the patterns it has learned in its vast vocabulary, there is a very good chance it will all make sense.
There are several AI products that are popular right now, and each gives a slightly different answer to your query, based on the diet it has been fed. While “ChatGPT” is becoming almost as generic as “google it” and “needing a Kleenex”, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and several others are legitimate and have their own champions. Get acquainted with them; some are better at specific things than others.
Let us help you give your employees a great summer perk!
As we head into the summer season we have seen a new trend. Small businesses are offering their employees a four-day, (or four and a half-day) week during the summer months, thus allowing their loyal employees to enjoy an afternoon off (often Friday) or a full day every week or every other week, to enjoy the summer months with their families. These employers have realized that their call volume is lower than average on the final day of the week, and therefore they can turn their phones over to their answering service to schedule emergency service (with one of their on-call employees) or to schedule normal service for Monday or later in the upcoming week.
Employees are grateful for this consideration for them and their loved ones, thus building a strong rapport with between workers and their employer. Small businesses often have trouble giving their employees time off since they usually run a small crew, especially on weekends. Our special services are always available to you, even if you usually only use our service for weekend and after-hours phone coverage. When you offer this benefit to your employees it will rarely add enough calls to require additional staffing on our part, and you would never be charged for a slight ramp up of personnel anyway. You are charged ONLY for the additional time we spend actually speaking with your callers. The average service call takes about 2.5 to 3 minutes; a dozen calls would be unlikely to add more than $30.00 to $50.00 to your bill for the day. If you offer this perk to your employees without limiting their normal pay, it is an inexpensive gift on your part. One they will be grateful for. We are proud to be a part of making lives better by offering this service.
If yours is a business that requires an on-call team for emergencies, our equipment will provide a rotation list of on-call workers so that the same team is not called every time. Or if you have specific teams for certain kinds of repair calls, we can easily automate your account instructions to call the right team for the kind of service request that comes in. We have many options available to us that allow us to design exactly the service plan you need for your small business.
If it has been a while since you have talked with us about your service needs and our behind the scenes automation options, you owe it to yourself to see if we can lower your bill on a regular basis. Our vendor is very good about giving us alternatives that keep us competitive. Tell us what you would like in your ideal world – we may have it in OURS!
