Category: Morse Data News and Events
Including Videos in Your Web Pages Can Help Search Results
If you didn’t get to attend the session called “Creating a content strategy to boost commerce” at the 2013 IRCE, check out the article “Credibility Matters” by Thad Rueter in the July issue of Internet Retailer magazine. The author discusses the importance of Google Inc.’s Product Listing Ads for online retailers – and how videos in retailer web pages can significantly help search results.
After you read the article, make your video and upload it to You Tube. Then add the video to your InOrder online store using the instructions in this article.
Improve Email Deliverability with Customer Email Preferences
A cutting-edge feature of the InOrder Email Marketing Enhancement provides the ability to let your opt-in customers specify a maximum frequency to receive Emails from you.
According to the report we featured in May by Listrack, “Don’t Be Left Out of the Inbox: Email Deliverability Tips for Every Stage of the Customer LifeCycle.” over-sending Email is the number one reason people unsubscribe.
InOrder’s Email Marketing Enhancement lets web customers determine how often they receive Email from you – for individual Emails or all. This allows Email customers to limit the amount of Email they get, and they can still be notified of your latest deals.
Separate Email settings can be configured for each type of Email / Notification / Confirmation, etc., as shown in the following sample. You can control which Email types are listed for the web customer to view, and you can define the choices they have to subscribe to each Email type.
Web customers can also control the format for their Email from your website. They can elect to receive either text or HTML format.
For more information on how the InOrder Email Marketing Enhancement can improve your Email deliverability, contact Morse Data Corporation.
Post IRCE 2013 Reflections
Whew! IRCE always takes our breath away — the size, the people, the new products — and the absorbing everything we learned in a few short days. Here are a few thoughts from myself and Dan Guerra post conference.
45 Tips in 45 Minutes
Fifth Gear and MindWare delivered a great presentation featuring 45 tips for creating the ideal customer experience, which they grouped into four categories:
- Make shopping painless
- Engage in two-way conversation
- Get order fulfillment right
- Plan to achieve the IDEAL
You can view the presentation here — and take away some great tips.
IRCE 2013: 45 Tips in 45 Minutes for Creating the Ideal Customer Experience from Fifth Gear and MindWare
Prepare your website in advance of a REALLY BIG promotion
When a company or retailer promotes their goods or services on a popular show (e.g. Today Show), the resulting traffic to their site can crash it. Solutions include preparing for your promotion by optimizing your databases and/or increasing the number of servers in advance of the promotion. You can also find services that will allow you to use extra servers to help with the trafficking. (Or, just call Morse Data — we’ll help you properly configure your servers using SQL Server High Availability with Automatic Failover.)
Trends in website design
Changes to your website can greatly increase your website traffic. Instead of linking to your sub-pages from the home page, for example, you can include information from other pages on the home page. (However, you want to be careful with this one as research proves that people only skim info — so you don’t want to overwhelm them. See this great post from website usability guru Jakob Nielsen: Website Reading: It (Sometimes) Does Happen.)
Did you attend IRCE? What was your experience? What ideas did you come away with?
Morse Data to Exhibit at the AAUP Annual Meeting
If you’re attending the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Annual Meeting June 20 – 22, 2013, be sure to stop by our exhibit and say hello.
The exhibits are open June 21-22 — we’ll be in attendance both days.
If you’re not an InOrder user and would like to learn more about how InOrder can help you manage delivery of digital goods, please do stop by for a demonstration. Our recently released Digital Delivery Enhancement gives you the capability to deliver digital products with flexible download options and terms — while still protecting your digital assets.
Morse Data Internship Program Gives College Students Experience
If you believe in people and give them the opportunity to gain experience and skills, it encourages people to learn and grow. This invaluable gift has been the philosophy of Morse Data Corporation since its inception in 1975.
Jim Morse, our founder and CEO, first hired Tony Marchese as a college intern in the fall of 1985 while he was attending the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Tony went on to earn a minor in Management and a Masters in Computer Science. Tony has been with Morse Data ever since, and is now the Vice President of Systems Software for the Orland Park office. Since then, Morse Data has been responsible for providing “wings” to several college interns and continues to do so today under Tony’s direction.
To quote one of our current interns, “I have learned more here at Morse Data than I could ever learn in a classroom setting.” We’re proud to be an employer who believes in paid internships, money which provides our interns with a little extra cash to help defray their skyrocketing college costs. We’re also happy to give our interns experience — especially now in a job market where employers want to hire those with experience.
We’ve seen many interns come and go over the years and a few have decided to make Morse Data their home. Doug Kasper was a Morse Data college intern during 2009 – 2011. He’s now a full time employee and is responsible for assisting in the development of the InOrder desktop along with the web cart and our corporate website, getinorder.com. Doug impressed us with his eagerness to learn and has made a tremendous contribution to many of the InOrder software changes that have helped further our clients’ needs. To quote Doug, “The experience gained at Morse Data is second to none.”
Jeff Grandt has been in our college intern program for the last two years. Jeff is pursuing his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is looking forward to graduation in 2014. Jeff has been a tremendous help with our corporate website and has often been called upon to assist with special projects and bug fixes.
Our newest intern is Dennis Lynch. Dennis, a freshman at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, joined us in May. He’s pursuing majors in Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as in Computer Science. He was also valedictorian of his Senior Class at Marist High School — so we’re thrilled he chose to share his summer with us at Morse Data.
Sadly we will be saying goodbye to Adeel Qureshi who will be graduating in June from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Adeel has been our “go-to” person to assist with changes needed in our software and he will be sorely missed. We wish him the best and know that the experience we have provided will allow him to flourish and grow as he pursues future opportunities.
If you know someone — maybe you! — who would be a great fit as an intern at Morse Data, feel free to submit your resume via the Careers tab on our Website or send an email to careers@morsedata.com.
Calling All Ducks — 2013 InOrder Duck Revealed
Morse Data is proud to announce . . . the 2013 InOrder duck. Woot! We think he’s pretty cool. We love the guitar and leather vest — and his cheeky flip side. 😉
You can pick up your 2013 InOrder duck at our IRCE booth (number 628).
We’re still looking for photos of collections of InOrder ducks. If you don’t want your colleagues to know you collect rubber ducks, we promise not to use your name. Send pictures to marketing@morsedata.com and we’ll post them here on the blog.
Get Your InOrder Duck at IRCE 2013
It’s almost that time – time to add to your collection of InOrder Ducks. Be sure to stop by Booth 628 during IRCE and pick up yours.
Handing out ducks has become a tradition, so much so, people come to our booth just to get the latest duck to add to their collection.
InOrder ducks from previous years.
We’d love to see your ducks! Do you keep them on your desk or at home? Do you have pictures of the elusive InOrder scuba duck? It’s quite rare so if you have one, we’d love to see it!
Please email us your pictures (send email to marketing@morsedata.com). We’d love to post them here on the blog.
Maximize SQL Server Uptime with High Availability
A few months ago, Marketing VP Tony Marchese wrote a two-part post about SQL server health. In these posts, he described how to help keep your servers running at maximum efficiency. (You can read Part I and Part II.) Happy servers means more uptime — and more uptime means you’re not up at night worrying about your servers crashing in the middle of a busy shopping season.
Since these posts were written, we’ve had customers ask us if we can configure their SQL Servers for them. The answer is, “You bet!”
We now offer full support for SQL Server High Availability with Automatic Failover using SQL Server High Availability technology, such as Database Mirroring and Always On Availability Groups.
In plain English, this means that once your SQL Server has been correctly configured, another sever in the group will instantly take on the load — with minimal or zero downtime or delay — if the main server in your group fails.
Keeping your servers running at maximum efficiency is crucial if you’re a multichannel merchant or an Internet retailer. Ensuring your servers are configured correctly allows ordering processing to proceed without delay — saving you thousands of potential lost dollars and system downtime due to server failure.
Want to ensure your InOrder system is working within an extremely fault-tolerant environment? Give us a call — we’re here to help you.
New! Offsite Prepaid Crystal Report Packages
We work with a lot of companies and the problem we see time and again is that companies have lots of data — they just can’t get at it. Being able to use your data is important — it’s how you make sound business decisions.
We now offer Offsite Prepaid Crystal Reporting Packages. Working with you, a Morse Data programmer will create custom reports using Crystal Reports. Once our programmer is done, you’ll be able to easily create, modify, and print reports — all geared toward your business!
These prepaid packages offer you a great savings over standard “time and materials” rates. And best of all, you don’t have to be a Morse Data client or InOrder user to take advantage of them.
If you’re using any type of business software and can’t get at your data, call us at 1-800-860-9515 or send email to support@morsedata.com.
Each of the following packages includes Project Management, Crystal Report programming, Testing, and Delivery.
- 2-day Package — $2,990
- 5-day Package — $6,975
- 9-day Package — $11,655
All packages are valid one year from purchase date. (Pricing is subject to change.)
The InOrder Advantage: A Friendly Voice on the Phone
At Morse Data, we offer something that is difficult to find these days. When you call Customer Service, you get an actual person to talk to for assistance for desktop, web and POS related questions.
Joanne Powell, the person who greets you when you call Morse Data.
Our clients have commented that they’re pleasantly surprised when greeted on the phone by Joanne Powell at our Orland Park, Illinois location. Joanne is our front line operator who makes sure that our client’s needs are taken care of on a timely basis. She’s the one who gathers the details necessary for further investigation and quickly gets back to people so that they get the proper attention they deserve.
In addition to phone inquiries, Joanne also monitors all support-related requests that come in through email during our normal business hours (8:30 – 5:00 CT Monday – Friday) — and yes, she responds to all of them promptly! She acknowledges all messages within two hours of receipt so you’re assured we have received your request and have taken action.
Thanks, Joanne, for being the “voice” of Morse Data — you make us look good. If you have any question about your InOrder software give us a call at 800-860-9515. Or, email your support question to support@morsedata.com.