{"id":65168,"date":"2022-03-22T14:42:12","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T20:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=65168"},"modified":"2022-03-22T15:19:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T21:19:49","slug":"digital-service-squad-supports-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2022\/03\/22\/digital-service-squad-supports-small-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Service Squad supports small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Home business:\u00a0<\/strong>Jamie Lee organizes nail tools at her home nail shop in the southwest of Calgary on Feb. 26, 2022. She is a nail technician who is interested in signing up for the Digital Service Squad (DSS) program to develop the online presence for her business. (Photo by Skyler Yang\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T<\/span>he City of Calgary announced the Digital Service Squad<\/a> (DSS) program to provide free one-on-one online support to local small businesses on Feb. 7, 2022. The program is made up of 15 post-secondary students, hired by the City, with digital expertise.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he DDS program is eligible for small businesses that are located in Calgary and registered in Alberta, have zero to 49 employees, and run as home-based or commercial. The program is not open to non-profits, charitable trust and franchises.<\/p>\n

Erin Chrusch, a leader of the business and local economy team for the City of Calgary, said that around 1,500 businesses indicated their interest in the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how many of them will actually sign up,\u201d Chrusch said. \u201cOur goal is to help around 2,300 businesses within the year that we have the funding for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DSS program\u2019s primary focus is to assist local small businesses that are struggling in the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall business owners nowadays have gone through a lot and don\u2019t have the time to understand what exactly would be most beneficial for them,\u201d Chrusch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe figured out that having a strong and ongoing digital presence would be the easiest way for the owners to grow their businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the City of Calgary<\/a>, the support includes digital transformation support, social media strategy, website building, point-of-sale assistance, search engine optimization tips, assistance creating customer databases and help streamlining business processes.<\/p>\n

Jamie Lee is a home business owner as a nail technician who has been struggling to find new customers during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am interested in signing up for this program to learn how to advertise my home business online,\u201d Lee said. \u201cHaving a proper SNS account or website is very important as the pandemic continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee hopes Calgary launches more programs like DSS to support small business owners like her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity to get support from the students for free,\u201d she said<\/p>\n

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Paint:\u00a0<\/strong>Jamie Lee paints a customer’s nails black at her home nail shop in the southwest of Calgary on Feb. 26, 2022. Lee and Angella, the customer, became friends after booking nail appointments regularly. (Photo by Skyler Yang\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City of Calgary announced the Digital Service Squad (DSS) program to provide a free one-on-one online support to local small businesses on February 7, 2022. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":722,"featured_media":65169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S3 Digital Service Squad SY","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,711,1560,1580],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-city","8":"category-featured","9":"category-pandemic","10":"category-post-secondary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/722"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65517,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65168\/revisions\/65517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}