By: Dorothy Cociu & Ted Flittner
You’re at home with your family and working just as if you’re in your office… Everything is normal, right? Hardly… Being outside the office brings a host of security risks, and IT departments cringe when they think about staff working at home. If you’re an insurance agent or an industry rep at home, you’re expected to proceed, but you are hindered in many ways.
Is the “New Normal” impacting your company’s sales and service efforts? If so, you’re not alone.
Today, we are sharing with you some helpful tips on how to use technology to boost your sales and assist your service efforts during these trying times, while also protecting your business from online schemes and security blunders.
At Home Risks
In the office, your IT group can control all software updates and ensure anti-virus software is always current. They can control which programs are installed and which are banned. At home, you may have kids on multi-player games, an old computer running Windows XP, wifi-connected cameras, Alexa, phones and tablets.
The five most common risks while working from home include 1) use of a shared network; 2) wifi hackers; 3) vulnerable software; 4) unauthorized access; and 5) physical security.
Working with a shared network means everyone at home is working and playing on the network you are using to conduct business. To protect your business, we recommend using virtual networks or VLANs, or a VPN. You can install a “managed switch” and create separate networks within your home. One for work, one for personal, and even perhaps a separate one for the kids. Wireless access points (AP) can be used to create wifi VLANs. And of course, you can also use a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which are inexpensive and easy to install.
Wifi hackers are common. Often your neighbors can get into your wifi signal and routers won’t let you know hackers are trying. To protect you from this, you can install a hardware firewall. These guard your network at the electronic front door by preventing unwanted incoming traffic and hackers, and will allow you to set up your own private VPN through the firewall.
Old operating systems, programs and devices have known security exploits. To protect you from vulnerable software, you should update all of your devices- even the kids’ tablets and old computers. Don’t allow unsupported operating systems like Windows XP or Windows 7 on your home network. Use instead premium anti-virus protections like ESET and avoid free anti-virus programs or just using Windows Defender, as they are vulnerable.
To protect against unauthorized access, you should ensure that only employees are accessing company emails, data and resources. To do this, you need to use STRONG passwords. Don’t let work devices be used by other family members. Combine strong passwords with multi-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible. Connect to your office only by a VPN, which creates an encrypted data connection between your computer and those servers or remote desktops you are accessing from home. You can use inexpensive encrypted password keepers like Lastpass to allow you to create long, complex, strong passwords without your need to remember each one. Just remember one very strong one to get into the encrypted password vault. The program does the rest.
Physical security is important to prevent break-ins or theft. You should be treating your work devices like money; lock them up and don’t leave them lying around for kids to play with or to tempt thieves. Your work devices should be full-disk encrypted to protect the data in the event of theft or loss.
Using Technology to Boost Sales and Service Efforts
Just because you’re out of the office doesn’t mean that you’re unable to be productive, book sales appointments or complete sales or service projects securely. While confined to your homes to work, consider these basic technology functions… Using online meetings, webinars, and social media to keep you and your staff moving forward, and staying in touch with your clients and prospects.
I asked Brett Buettner, OCAHU Social Media Chair, to give us his thoughts on working from home. “When times are tough, everyone appreciates those that make it their mission to remain in communication, deliver promises, and make the rough times a little more palatable. As trusted advisors, insurance brokers during this crisis have a choice to be the face of service to improve the lives of their clients and create an atmosphere of reliability,” stated Brett. “A great way to do so is by leveraging social media, webinars, and informative email campaigns to show your clients that even while businesses may not be able to operate the same, you as a broker are able to position yourself in such as way that you services are still running at 100% for the good of your clients.”
For service needs, be sure that your account managers and service personnel have access to their client files to continue to provide valuable service, but avoid risks by implementing the measures discussed above. Use of a VPN to connect securely to your network allows your staff to use a secured file share program to access files from home during these times. You can use secure file sharing programs and cloud backup by using Dropbox, Box or Sharefile, which allows you to create secure links so people can upload files to you. You’ll have a cloud backup and a copy on your computer, in the event of a computer crash. You should be sure that your staff is aware of your security protocols. One of the first things we would do during this time is to have an online security training with your staff, to remind them of what and what not to do.
“Now is the time to show how your communication strives even in the face of crisis. If you already provide clients with Human Resource tools or portals, you can highlight certain services that will bring them tangible benefits, specifically for the situation they are in. You can make sure your clients are up to date on the latest legislation, be their guide in regard to questions moving forward, provide them with trusted professional advice gathered through webinars and other tools you have been leveraging during this crisis, and even providing other advisors to make sure your client is as taken care of as possible. Now is the time for brokers to be at their best and take care of their clients,” stated Brett.
How do you know if your service staff is working while they are being paid to work from home? An easy and inexpensive way is to load their company laptops with software such as Hubstaff, which will track how much time they spend on certain tasks… such as service files, your email program, creating spreadsheets, and even how much time they spent online. You can see online meeting time and how much time they are on google. You don’t want to use this to spy on your staff, but it will allow you to see approximately how many hours was devoted to key functions. Ask your IT department to install such programs on company devices; they can be installed remotely if you have IT programs such as Logmein.
If you’re using collaborative software like Zoom or Skype for both personal connections and work meetings, you can do so, but you should be sure first to turn on security settings like using meeting passwords (and not publishing those passwords online on social media). When hosting video or audio conference calls, log into the dashboard to monitor who is on the call, and disconnect unwanted meeting crashers. For video calls, practice in advance so that you can smoothly mute and unmute people, switch from camera to desktop sharing or pass the baton to another presenter.
For sales efforts, don’t be afraid to use social media for prospecting. There’s never been a better time to use LinkedIn. Many are working from home, so more business professionals are checking in more often.
So, even in these tough times, you can use the technology available to you to boost your sales, service your clients, and keep working! ##
Editor’s Note: Ted Flittner is a Technology Partner of Advanced Benefit Consulting (Dorothy Cociu’s company). Ted is a principal of Aditi Group, and they can be reached at (323) 776-9386 or by email at info@aditigroup.com. Learn more about what they do and read security news at AditiGroup.com. They offer all of the solutions discussed in this article and more.
