The way we communicate is always evolving. Look at technology and mobility – I got my first cell phone when I was a freshman in high school. I didn’t have any Internet, apps or inbound and outbound text messaging in a single location on that device. My parents got their first cell phones only a few years before that. Today, I babysit four-year-olds that are the proud owners of an iTouch and know more about apps than I do. Your business’ customers may not be these four-year-olds today, but they might be one day in the future. And they’ll be much more tech savvy and demanding than ever. Are you ready?

If customers want to find an answer to a question, the first place they tend to look is online. “I’ll just Google (News - Alert) it” is something I say to myself hundreds of times a day, and I’m not alone. This means access to your organization and contact center start here; online. This is the first channel your organization has to prepare for, because it’s the first line of customers finding, contacting and doing business with you.

This is particularly important for small business owners. It’s easy for consumers to discover and know the large enterprises – their marketing budgets are larger than yours, and so is their already existing customer base. You may not be able to control their reach, but you can control yours. And it all starts with your communications strategy.

There are some challenges when it comes to thinking about how to effectively and successfully serve today’s customers. They expect on-demand, 24/7 access to your organization and information, and are growing accustomed to multichannel service, where agents on the phone already know what the customers have searched for online and discussed on their last call. How can you keep up?

Join Erik Archer Smith, VoIP technology evangelist at 8x8 (News - Alert), on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT for a webinar on, “Re-Thinking Communications to Grow Your Business.” Smith will discuss how small business owners are rethinking their communications strategy and translating that into more sales, how these changes in communication can impede or accelerate business growth and what small business owners can do to be more available and responsive to customers and potential customers.