Business growth – you probably assume that it’s something achieved purely with continued grind – the more hours you commit, the more you grow.
While this is somewhat true, there are tools that can help. Could you dig a hole with your hands? Sure, but you’ll dig it quicker with a shovel. Business is the same, equip yourself with the right tools and you’ll make the job a lot easier.
We’ll show you how tech can help you grow. Whether you’re a small startup or an established business, there’s cutting edge tech that’s going to maximise what you’re doing through various business processes…
1. SaaS
SaaS – or ‘software as a service’ – is a revolutionary new look at how companies use the applications they need to perform their business tasks.
In the past, using software required licences. Licences were bought upfront that then entitled you to use the tool on one workstation or for one employee. Buying software in this way obviously needed a large outlay to just get your team working with the latest version of Office. Then, when the next version of the product came out – it was time to pay for upgrades…
Fast forward 10 (or more!) years and companies realise that this licencing approach just doesn’t meet the needs of their business clients – hence, software as a service. Choose your tool, select the number of users, select a product level that meets their requirements and that’s it – a recurring monthly payment that can be bumped up if you need additional users – or cut down if you find you’re not using it as expected or need to tighten the purse strings.
This kind of flexibility is ideal if you see an opportunity for growth but don’t want to impact your cash flow more than is needed – and it’s all made possible with cloud computing.
2. Video marketing
Video is powerful – making it perfect for maximising the potential impact of communication between you and your customers or partner companies.
They say that words capture just 7% of the message you’re hoping to put over to someone when you communicate – the remaining 93% comes from the tone and body language that backs up what you say. With video you unlock that huge chunk of communication that’s lost when you’re sending emails.
The results can be evidenced too. A major international airline added to their existing safety instructions by showing travellers a short and simple video that illustrated the same points that they were shown by cabin crew and written instructions. Interestingly, people preferred the video over any other method of communication – and when asked, were able to recall safety instructions more accurately than those who hadn’t watched the video.
Want to deliver a memorable message that almost certainly going to up the conversion rate of communication to results in your customer base? Do it with video.
3. 4G WAN
4G Wider Area Networking (WAN) is a way of accessing your business IT network and everything it can deliver from practically anywhere in the world.
So, what does that mean for growth? Well, quite a lot actually.
Opportunities to break free from your office can be wide and varied, from expos and shows, to pop-up events, client site work, mobile office deployment and much more. While you might be thinking that 4G on your mobile devices already allows for this – you very definitely need to think again. Your guest WiFi access or tethered 4G might mean you can access the internet, but doing anything meaningful is difficult – and accessing your network will likely be impossible.
However, good managed 4G WAN providers can have a high-speed connection ready to go at very short notice – meaning you’ll always be able to deliver everything your staff and customers could possibly need, no matter where they are.
Missed opportunities because you can’t get your infrastructure in place as quickly as you like? 4G WAN could be the answer you’ve been looking for. This article gives a more detailed look at the technology and what’s possible.
4. CRM
A good customer relationship management (CRM) tool is like a good accountant – it is likely to generate or save you a lot more money that it costs you to have it in place.
Without an adequate CRM you leave every opportunity your business has open to the chance that it won’t be handled correctly – and I’m sorry to tell you that most of the mishandling of customer data is done at the hands of the humans that are tasked with acting on the data.
That’s not a criticism of any procedure or employee you have in place, rather, just a natural weakness in how our brains work when compared to an entirely objective piece of software. A CRM system can be configured to meet your company’s exact sales processes – meaning you’ll never drop the ball on any opportunity.
The figures (taken from a broad study covering CRM providers and businesses who use CRM systems) do some serious talking:
- Conversion rates can improve by up to 300% with CRM in place.
- Lead cost is reduced by 23% with CRM.
- Customer service can improve by 47% with CRM.
- 74% of businesses using CRM report better customer relationships.
Whatever your business is focused on, it seems a CRM could unlock some significant potential.
5. Chatbots
Chatbots might seem a bit of a pipedream for many businesses – but trust us, it’s not just the tech giants that will be rolling out smart chatbots in the foreseeable future, in fact, you might already have spoken to one without realising it.
At their best, a chatbot can quickly and efficiently put all your online customer service requirements into one very neat and fast package – and it’s all to do with scale. Essentially, a chatbot can communicate with 1 or 1000+ people at the same time in exactly the same way. Want to offer mass support for a recently launched product? Need to put some infrastructure in place for an unforeseen event without breaking the bank? Your chatbot could be quickly adapted to do exactly that.
The tech might be a little way off if you want a perfect human experience – but if you want to adapt to scale without the need for constantly juggling the logistics of an ever growing and shrinking service team, you might want to keep your eyes on how chatbot technology is evolving.
Photograph by Lalmch