NYX Ditech

Categories
Technology

5 Steps You Must Follow Before Building Your Mobile App

You might assume that you have a “never thought before” business idea which you will use to make a unique app. But, there is a big chance that someone would have already made such an app or at least someone is working on it. In order to stay competitive, it’s necessary to convey your message to consumers and build a strong relationship with them. This could be very well achieved through a mobile app. But it wouldn’t be wise to straight away jump onto building an app. Here are 5 steps you should follow before building your own mobile app.

1. Use Competitor’s App:

As mentioned earlier, it’s nearly impossible that there isn’t a single app already in the market similar to what you are trying to develop. It is essential that you differentiate your app from your competitors to get an edge over them. The best way to do so is by downloading their app and using it.

2. Get Involved With The Users:

Firstly, identify your target user groups. Once identified, you can form focus groups of these real users to get their opinion and feedback on your app. Extract information from them like what are their needs, wants and areas of concern. The app you are building aims at providing a solution to their need or problem. Involvement of real users will create a buzz among them about your app along with providing you the vital information required for development.

3. Decide Your Timeline & Budget:

It’s important to set timelines and budgets right at the start for a better planning and projection. You must analyze your resources and funds in order to plan the release of your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Knowing how much you want to spend and when helps in zeroing on the features that you want to implement in the first go. Certain non-essential features can rest in your wishlist for awhile.

4. Pre-Design Project Planning:

An efficient project initiation will assure the long-term success of your product. Pre-Design Project planning helps you to cover all essential information and details. This will help you in effectively conveying your message to the app development agency. When you have clear information about your vision, brand persona & a marketing plan, your agency can put in their technical expertise to drive you towards your goal.

5. Join Hands With A Perfect Agency:

Choose an agency which can fill in your shortcomings. There is a possibility that you may have a great product idea but require technical assistance. So go for an agency which has a strong technical background. You may have all the business logics in your head but might lack on artistic front. So go for a team who is very creative. If your marketing team is unable to market your idea properly, then look for an agency who has some marketing experts in their team.

Partnering with a single agency that can cater to all your needs like application design, development, and marketing will provide consistency to your product and the process of building the app will always be on track.

Reach out to our expert team today and our developers, designers, and digital marketers would be happy to help you with developing your dream app.

Categories
SEO

5 Essential Rules For Writing Title Tags

The most important objective of a web page is to climb up the ladder of Google rankings and sit as high as it can. But, it’s not as easy as it may sound. The are tons of Google logics and algorithms which determine the page ranking. HTML title tags are one of these important aspects which play an important role in determining a page’s ranking. Having said that, most of the times people tend to underestimate the importance of title tags and avoid them.

Avoiding title tags can be very critical in terms of page rankings. Here are 5 essential rules which you must keep in mind while writing the title tags:

1. Primary Keyword Should Always Be At The Beginning

It’s a universal rule that placing the page’s primary keyword at the start of the <title> tag is most beneficial in terms of SEO. However, some companies choose to place their company name at the beginning. Here, it’s a matter of brand power. If your brand name will attract more CTR, then go for it.

2. Include Relevant Keyword Phrases

Incorporate targeted keyword phrases in the title tag naturally (avoiding overstuffing of keywords) which are highly relevant to the page. Many experts believe that keywords don’t matter anymore, and Google semantically matches everything. But using the common customer language still matters. Google will always value crystal clear communication with regards to the content of a web page.

3. Test The CTR

The titles you write for your organic search snippet must be as catchy as your headline for a PPC ad. You can use PPC to test various headline options and then use the best title tag for the organic search snippet. But mind that users who click on paid ads have a different mindset than those who click on organic results. So consider this fact when you analyze the PPC headline test data.

4. Aim At The Searcher’s Intent

Every page on your website creates different needs for the users and must be designed accordingly. Some pages are informational in nature, and the title tags for those should be designed likewise. Other pages are designed solely to sell products or services. Their title tags should be written to aid their purchase decisions. The title tags must match the searcher’s intent. If the page was designed for searchers with a buying objective, the title must focus on buying and shopping. If the page was designed for a searcher in a research mode, use titles as “learn more” etc.

5. Write Tags For Your Audience And Not Just For Search Engines

We all know that the title tag is very crucial for SEO and page rankings. However, this fact shouldn’t overshadow the other fact that it is also for your target audience. Ensure that you communicate what the web page is all about in the most simple, user-friendly manner which is easily understandable by humans.

Reach out to our experts today to know more about SEO and how you can increase your Google page rankings.

Categories
Blog Technology

Everything You Must Know About An Internet Bot

The growth of bots is certainly in its early stage, but we can surely foresee a very bright future for it. Bots started off merely as chat bots but with the development of technological environment, they were infused with more and more features like menus, buttons and visual interfaces. Today’s bots have a variety of affluent features. So what exactly is an internet bot? Let’s try to find out.

What is a bot?

A bot is an application which performs tasks automatically without a one-to-one human interaction. It takes your message as a command or search query and performs the task or provides you the best results. The tasks could be anything from setting up an alarm, setting a meeting reminder, looking for flights, checking weather forecast etc. The best and the most popular example of a bot would be ‘Siri’ – The kind friend from Apple. Bots are everywhere on the internet ranging from malicious bots which contain viruses, to search engine spiders that crawl the internet and add web pages.

With technological advancements, developers created more and more enjoyable experiences for users and businesses. This emphasized on the fact that internet bots are much more than just chats. Text is not the only form of interaction with a bot. Users interact with a bot through UI, menus, and buttons as well. Voice commands are also growing as a popular medium to interact with bots. Moreover, text is not the best way to respond in all the cases.

Let’s say I’m looking for flight options from California to Athens. It would be great if I get a visual representation of the information rather than a text or maybe I’m driving and I’m looking for the nearest gas filling station. The best form of information would be an audio message. The bottom line is that a bot should not be restricted to be just a chatbot. It must be a mixture of all the possible ways of interaction to provide a complete user experience. Bots can even be human-powered. An interactive messenger chat with a customer service executive rather than an SMS is a much better user experience and has revolutionized the customer service industry.

What Can Bots Do?

Well, they can do a hell lot of stuff and that too in a jiffy. They can perform searches across the web to get you the best travel options (which can take hours for you). They can constantly check for price drops on your favorite desirable items and notify you whenever that happens. It lets you order food, get directions, look for places nearby, transfer money, set alerts, set reminders, manage finances and a lot more.

The Future of Bots

It’s bright and shiny. Bots act as a communication framework that allows us to get anything we want. This simply means lesser apps on our phone. Bots will dominate in the coming years and may very well kill a big chunk of mobile applications. Technology wizards have predicted that Internet bots store would soon be the biggest thing since app stores. They would also become the largest incoming after facebook messenger. Who knows one day we all will forget about the traditional websites and bots will become new websites for us.

Run with the time and be updated with the latest technology trends. Talk to our experts and understand how you can integrate the latest technology with your business to scale new heights.

Categories
Technology

Professional Web Development In Education Industry Is The Need Of The Hour

They say that education is a never ending process and we couldn’t have agreed more. It is the backbone of every society and plays the lead role in growth and development of any nation, even the world as a whole. The education process has transformed radically over the years. We have moved from one to one physical interaction module to paperless digital education. Education about every subject can be imparted through digital means which introduced professional web development for the education industry.

A professionally developed website can serve many purposes. Informative queries could be addressed by the institution besides imparting information about the institute for marketing purpose. All the announcements, examination information, updates for students & teachers, fees structure etc. can all be displayed on one single platform.

Why Is a Web Application For An Educational Institution Important?

If we try and curate the online education trends that prevail today, we can clearly point out the drastic changes as compared to trends which use to dominate a few decades ago. Previously, while looking for a renowned education institute for their children, parents use to rely on word of mouth from other parents, students, tutors etc. But today everyone is internet savvy and uses the internet to get their answers. Internet marketplace is full of educational institute websites showcasing everything about their institute, the curriculum, teaching staff, fees, placement details etc.

The websites are not limited to only higher education band. There are websites of kindergarten, pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher secondary, and even vocational education centers. The game is wide open with a lot of choices and hence if you are not jumping in the competition you are losing BIG.

What’s The Use Of A Web Application?

  • A student can get all the information related to exam dates, entrance exams, syllabus details, results, grade history, final exams and much more
  • Queries regarding lectures and studies can be answered through the portal
  • Students can learn via e-learning and e-library
  • The tutors could showcase their knowledge about a subject and offer coaching services
  • Tutors can provide live coaching sessions to students
  • CMS systems would help the organizations to update regular data and manage it systematically
  • The organization can market its services and add potential prospects.

Redesigning Of Existing Website

There’s a bright possibility that you already have a website for your education institute. But, is that enough? The answer is NO! A website that is not updated regularly is as good as dead. Your website needs to be constantly redesigned and updated using the latest technology. The User Experience and User Interface elements are extremely crucial and thus requires proper attention. Another important aspect is your page load time. The website must be light and should get uploaded within a few seconds. Lastly, students, parents, and teachers must easily understand your website.

For all the above mentioned important aspects you need a professional guidance. Talk to our web development experts to create a web application or speak to our design experts for redesigning your existing website.

Categories
Design

5 Great Ways Of Storytelling Through Design

A website is not a dumping ground to dump all your product info, services, portfolio, company information etc. It’s much more than that. A truly effective website must tell a story to create user engagement. This is one of the most important element which will compel users to stick around and that’s exactly what every website aims at. A great story might start with a mere thought but it’s the design which infuses life in a story. Here are 5 effective ways of great storytelling through design:

1. Create The Engagement Through Imagery

The most hard hitting method of engagement creation is through visuals. Use neat and clean visuals, appealing images, compelling videos, and interesting illustrations to create an everlasting first impression. Your story must be full of imagery with a mix of design techniques and words. Develop a color palette which mirrors the essence of the story that you are telling. A good story will always lead the user towards completion of a task or goal.

Engagement Through Imagery
Image Courtesy: candccoffee.com

2. Invite Participation

Create value to your design with interactive elements along with common actions. Add a bit of animation to buttons that users need to notice or help drive the eye to certain elements with directional cues such as arrows or images. Parallax scrolling is an engaging way to encourage motion on the screen.

Consider this example of Humaan. They use simple yet effective hover animations along with team photos. The staff poses quirky expressions that flaunt each member’s character.

Invite Participation
Image Courtesy: humaan.com

3. Construct A Game

The most difficult part of building a story is to know where to begin from. If you are clueless, start off with a simple game. A game can add the fun factor for users. The game needn’t be very complex but has to be rewarding. Take an example of Dropbox. It uses options like inviting others to use Dropbox, logging in from multiple devices, and connecting various email accounts as tools of gamification. It rewards people with extra space on dropbox. This helps it create a brigade of loyal repeat users.

Construct A Game
Image Courtesy: dropbox.com

4. Emphasize On Narration

Every story needs to have a proper flow. A story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s similar in the case of a website as well.

Beginning: The Logo and headline are your beginnings. Tell your users who you are and why they are on your website.
Middle: The middle comprises of a supporting narrative that makes you different from others. What can you offer your users who are on your site? What should they expect?
End: The end must have a call to action such as a form or ability to make a purchase or link to something else.

5. Establish A Character

User persona plays a very crucial role in the case of a website design. Elevate the user persona by introducing a character for your website. A wonderful example for the same would be the email platform MailChimp. The company’s cartoon mascot and logo pops up throughout the entire design of the website. The character clarifies the company name, portrays the fun element of the company, and helps to keep the company’s story fresh.

Establish A Character
Image Courtesy: mailchimp.com

When you’re designing your story try to be your own self. Portray what you really are. Users love authenticity and connect more to authentic stories. Talk to our team of experts and start your own story today.

Categories
Design

Top 5 Web Typefaces To Follow In 2017

Still early days of 2017, but a lot of new design trends have surfaced and look promising. The industry has shown fresh signs emphasizing on layouts and content. The year will be dominated by rich bright colors and bold typefaces. Having said that, the importance of typography would only increase to a brand new level altogether. Today, it’s extremely difficult to catch user’s attention and thus typography will play a pivotal role in the process. Let’s check out some of the most promising web typefaces that are bound to become mainstream in 2017.

1. Humger

Humger typeface flaunts a grunge style with capital letters. The lowercase option isn’t available in it and only uppercase letters are available. It’s inspired by an old-school style with dirty effects in the body. Its shape expresses a strong character of urban style featuring narrow texture, smudge effect, and an authentic vintage character. It’s a great option for artists who wish to create an everlasting impact on viewers. This typeface is best suited for headlines, titles, and infographics.

Humger typeface

2. Sophia

Sophia is distinguished by a hand-lettered style created by designer Emily Spadoni. In her own words, the typeface is “sweet, saucy, and little shabby” which makes it perfect for websites, infographics, and informal logos. Both uppercase and lowercase letters along with a set of special symbols are available. It portrays a perfect italic writing that induces a fresh feeling.

Sophia hand-lettered style

3. Tuna

Released in early 2017 by Felix Braden and Alex Rutten, Tuna has created quite a stir in the industry. Tuna is a serif typeface that can be used for magazines, books, and mobile applications with a well-defined calligraphic touch. The readability of Tuna is extremely good. There are five different weights (light, regular, medium, bold and heavy), available with italics. The serifs are a bit heavier and slightly arched ones, creating a dynamic structure and more contrast.

Tuna Font

4. Madelyn

Madelyn is a handwritten typeface which is very similar to real handwriting. It evokes a notion of individuality and style. The typeface replicates calligraphy pen writing along with some casual dry strokes. It includes both upper and lowercase characters, numbers, a large range of punctuation, and symbols. It’s perfect for logos, branding projects, greeting cards, posters, titles, and almost everything that calls for a personal touch.

Madelyn handwritten typeface

5. Proxima Soft

Designed by Mark Simonson, Proxima Soft shows off a rounded design that restyles the existing Proxima Nova. Proxima Soft includes 48 styles with eight weights in three widths and italics. It’s perfect when you are looking for something that is a bit more pleasant, more curvy, and playful than a traditional Sans Serif font. Considering the curvy style, this font is best suited for large headlines and eye-impacting words.

Proxima Soft

Trends will keep coming and impacting the overall lookout of the industry. It’s best to be abreast of the latest trends and use it to perfection. Talk to our experts today to know more about the latest happenings in the design industry and how you can use them to boost your business.

Categories
Technology

You Are Being Watched! Have You Heard About Data Encryption?

Imagine you’re being under the watchful eyes of someone round the clock. Sounds creepy right? But unfortunately, it’s true. Government across the globe keep an eye on you 24 X 7. Their intention is to protect you from international or domestic terrorism threats. However, the monitoring involves human involvement and thus it open doors for inappropriate use of this data. Not just the government, any individual with technical hacking abilities can also monitor your activities and breach your privacy. On a higher level, companies can lose millions and billions of dollars worth of information. It happens every single day but most of us are unaware about how data encryption works and protects our information. This article is an attempt to explain everything you need to know about Data Encryption.

First Things First, Why Is Data Encryption So Important?

Consider a system is password protected and there is only one user with no unauthorized access. You may think that even if someone gains unauthorized access to the system, they cannot access your data as it is password protected. But, they can simply factory reset the system and gain access. The primary objective of data encryption is to protect your data even if someone gets unauthorized access to it.

This is just for files. What about the private and confidential data that you share through emails, messages and various personal messenger services? There is something known as end-to-end encryption which is used by popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook to protect personal data.

What is End-to-End Encryption?

End-to-End encryption (E2EE) is a method in which the parties involved in communication are the only ones who can understand the delivered message. No one else can decode the message. Not even their ISP, telecom provider or even the app owners themselves. This type of encryption allows only the communicating parties to decode the message and hence provides absolute privacy and safety.

How Does End-to-End Encryption Works?

There is a specific way of securely exchanging keys over a public network commonly known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange. Let’s understand this with a simple example.

Let’s say Tom texts his girlfriend, Julie. When Tom sends the message to Julie the message has a private key which gets mixed with a public key while sending the message. Now when Julie receives the message she combines her private key so that she can read the message. The private keys are only available with Tom and Julie. So, they are the only one who can decode the message.

What Are Public & Private Keys?

As the name suggests, a Public Key is of course public. That means it’s readily available to everyone with directory presence. The Private Key, however, belongs to only the owner. Because of its mathematical and complex nature, the encrypted data using a public key may only be decrypted by a compatible Private Key and vice versa.

Why Does This Matter?

In today’s world, information matters. There are a lot of people who can misuse your information to get personal benefits. Governments can use information to protect the citizens or spy on them. Companies can use information to feature advertisements based on user behavior. The more the casual users produce information, the more susceptible we become to these entities.

It also matters because we need to protect our online privacy. You might think that what’s the big deal in opening your data to anyone, but it really is. Online security isn’t limited to emails or text messages, it is related to supercritical aspects like your banking, financial, and medical records. This is sensitive data and if it falls into the wrong hands, it can cause you some serious damage.

Moreover, let’s admit, we all have some or the other thing to hide. The real aim of encryption is to protect the privacy of people. If privacy is absent, democracy and good governance will become nonexistent.

We don’t live in a fairy tale world filled with all the good stuff. There are so many people waiting to get their hands on your private information and misuse it for their own benefits. Thus, data encryption becomes extremely crucial even though it sounds complicated. Talk to our team of web experts to know more about data encryption or any other website requirements.

Categories
Design

5 Best Practices To Design Exceptional Buttons

When we start listing down the elements to consider while designing a web page, the list surely goes on and on. There are numerous basic elements and then there are the complex ones. A designer always tries to cover most of the elements contributing to the user experience. However, often in a quest to get his hands on every element, the most vital elements are missed out. Consider Buttons; they are one of the most common elements of an interactive design. Even though they are the most basic ones, they are surely the most important ones. Here are 5 important tips to design better buttons.

1. Buttons Should Look Like Buttons

It’s pivotal that the users recognize a button in the first look itself. Visual cues guide users to determine clickability of an option. When it comes to shapes, a square/rectangular shape is universally used and is probably the safest bet. A square/rectangle with round corners is another popular variation. You can experiment with other shapes (round, oval, triangle etc.) as well, but the risk factor is slightly higher with these options.

Regardless of the shape that you select, the key factor is to maintain consistency across the interface controls. The consistency might not add wonders in terms of design, but users will surely get a familiar experience which is critical. Use Drop-shadows to make the element stand out against the background to make it identifiable as a clickable or tappable element.

2. Label The Buttons Appropriately

Another important thing to remember while designing buttons is to label them properly. A button must clearly send a message as to what will happen if someone clicks on it. Avoid vague labels like “Submit” or labels that don’t provide clear information. Users must know exactly what will happen when they click on the button. For example – “Create Account” button during the new sign up procedure clearly indicates the specific task.

fb-create account
Image Credits: Facebook

3. Place The Buttons Properly

Users should never waste their time in looking out for buttons on your website. Place the buttons exactly where users expect them to see. In case of a native app, you should follow platform GUI guidelines while selecting a proper order and location for buttons. Applying a consistent design in terms of user expectations saves their time.

While designing web-based apps, you should try to figure out which placement works best for your users. Use testing methods to determine the same.

Apple Insider
Image Credits: appleinsider.com

4. Keep The Interaction Between Users And Buttons Very Simple

Visual feedback and size of a button play the most important role in user interaction. The size of a button should be in relation to other elements on the page. At the same time, it should also be large enough for people to interact. According to a study, the average size of fingertips is 8–10mm, average size of finger pads is between 10–14mm that makes 10mm x 10mm a good minimum touch target size.

Usually, a button has multi-states, and thus providing visual feedback to users indicating the current state should be an utmost priority task.

5. Primary action Button Must Have Strongest Visual Weight

The most important buttons must be clearly identifiable with the help of visual distinction. If there are two or more buttons in your view, (e.g. dialog box), the primary action must have strongest visual weight. Distinguish between the two options clearly, by using different visual weight for each button.

Let’s get this straight! Buttons are not just Buttons for heaven sake. They represent more than mere boxes and tabs. Explore more about buttons and web designing from the User Experience point of view. Talk to our experts today.

Categories
Web Design

4 Easy Tips To Design A Photography Website

Photography is outrightly one of the most creative industries. The best way to showcase your creativity through photography is by setting up a photography website. It sounds a lot of fun and excitement, however, a lot of photography websites don’t live up to the expectations and are simply labeled awful. As a matter of fact, an outdated and buggy website can cause some serious pain. The potential clients are always looking out for best work and if your website fails to impress them in one go, they will simply neglect you forever. But don’t sweat! Here are a few tips to make a dazzling photography website.

1. Don’t Overcrowd Your Website

As a photographer, there’s a natural urge of displaying each and every picture that you’ve ever clicked. But, this urge can make your website look shabby and overcrowded. The design of your website must be pretty clean. Thus, choose a handful of your clicks for display. A narrowed down selection will make your website feel organized and well structured.

2. Make It Exclusive

There are tons of photography websites floating around the web. This makes it extremely challenging to stand out of the crowd. One must aim to create a unique website which doesn’t feel like a mere replica of any other website. During the initial phase, one will definitely refer to the available websites of same nature. There isn’t any harm in doing so but, this process should only be utilized for gathering ideas rather than simply copy-pasting a design template of any popular website.

If you want to create a memorable and delightful user experience, you must distance yourself from free website templates. They are FREE, so obviously millions of users would have already implemented them. Besides, there are reasons for which they are provided as free.

3. Avoid Complex Navigation

You want people to notice your work when they land on your website rather than figuring out ways to move across your website. It’s good to be creative and play around with the design aspect, but navigation bar would be the last place to infuse your creativity. Keep the navigation pattern simple. The most important links must be placed right at the top followed by secondary navigation links. Don’t try to show all possible links. Zero down on the most important ones and show them in the top navigation bar.

4. Create a Responsive Website

We have certainly evolved a lot over the years when it comes to accessing the Internet. Gone are the days when you had to wait for reaching home or office to access the internet through desktops. Today, a mere swipe on your smartphone screen gets you into the wide world of internet. The number of people accessing the web through mobile devices will very soon climb over the number of people accessing it through desktops. It’s quintessential to have a responsive website design so that your website performs flawlessly across all devices.

Our experts here at NYX Ditech ensure that we provide a 100% responsive website to our clients. There are many more complex tips which our experts have up their sleeves. This ensures that our client gets only the best. Talk to us today!

Categories
Blog

Top 5 Reasons To Outsource your Blog

Creating and maintaining a blog has become a common practice for businesses irrespective of the nature of business. A blog has become an effective medium for companies to showcase their expertise and also form a communication bond with customers. The idea of a blog has always lured business owners however, not everyone manages to come on top when it comes to creating top notch content. There are numerous examples of out of date blogs sitting idle for ages which force the customers to question “Are they still in business?”. The most effective way to boost up your blog section is to outsource it to an agency that has professional bloggers. Here are 5 reasons to outsource your blog section:

1. Everyone Isn’t A Writer

Your marketing experts and top level management might know everything about the business, but this doesn’t really mean that they can write it as good as they know it. Writing an effective copy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. An effective copy is persuasive, appealing and creates interest. Professional bloggers have the expertise to convert business ideas and goals into solid content which lure customers demanding for more and more.

2. Easy On Pocket

Hiring a full-time content writer means adding an employee to your company. He/She would be entitled to all the monetary benefits like special pay, bonus, PF, tax benefits, insurances cost etc. Even if the copywriter produces one blog article every day, he/she will still be an expensive candidate. Outsourced professional writers are much more affordable as they are paid only for the content that they produce. Moreover, they can be paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

3. Higher SEO Ranking

It’s really a daunting task to understand the exact logic behind Google’s ranking algorithm. Your top level management may have the best of ideas to boost the business, but they may fall short when it comes to your page ranking on Google. Professional bloggers spend time in researching the trending keywords related to topics of blog articles. They use these keywords in the copy and produce fresh content which is filled with appropriate keywords and in appropriate density. This really helps to scale up your page ranking in Google search.

4. Broader Content Perspective

As a company your thought process may get limited at times, doing circles around the day to day things that you come across. As a result, you may only be able to produce content related to those limited topics. An agency or a freelance writer has expertise in research. Research forms the foundation of every blog piece. This enables them to come up with trending topics and sometimes even ahead of trends. You never know, sometimes new topics might open doors for new business opportunities.

5. Professional Blogging Creates Repeat Users

An updated, appealing, enticing and informational blog maintained by a professional agency creates repeat users. Users keep coming back for more and more information which creates a trust in your brand. A well-written blog turns casual readers turn into loyal customers. A professional blogger knows the art of turning casual readers into loyal customers.

Are you having troubles in starting or managing your blog section? Reach out to NyxDitech for all your blogging solutions. Our content experts can manage your blog, boost page rankings with proper SEO and can convert users into loyal customers.