In comparison to brick-and-mortar establishments, an eCommerce firm is more reliant on the goodwill of its customers. It’s actually quite straightforward. When a customer enters a typical physical store, they are more likely to make a purchase. After all, they went through the trouble of visiting the store. Furthermore, they are looking at the merchandise with the intent to purchase something. Therefore, few consumers leave a real store without purchasing something.

An eCommerce business, on the other hand, does not have this advantage. Since they are not actually ‘in’ the store, the customer can just close the link. Moving on to another site, the customer leaves no trace.

Here are some things you can do to make sure this doesn’t happen in your eCommerce store.

1. Downtime for eCommerce means off time.

One of the best aspects of an eCommerce site is that it is constantly open, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore, you can take advantage of the fact that more and more people are using the internet to purchase goods and services. As a result, you can be selling your wares even while you are asleep.

That won’t happen, though, if your site crashes on a regular basis. If your site is unavailable, your target audience will most likely move on to another site rather than wait. Therefore, do everything you can to make sure that your site is stable and secure.

2. Customers don’t flock to slow-loading eCommerce websites.

An internet buyer’s typical attention span is roughly 3-4 seconds. Therefore, if your site does not load quickly enough, your clients will most likely leave. They will go elsewhere for another solution. After all, why shouldn’t they? There are millions of other online eCommerce stores to choose from. Therefore, make sure your site is as fast as possible if you want your customer to stay with you.

3. Make sure that the CTA is clear and in plain sight.

Why should your clients choose you above your competitors? It’s because of your call to action. This is the thing that leads people down the web marketing rabbit hole. You will lose a lot of clients if this call to action is not easy to see or not there in the first place. In addition, your shopping cart should be easy to find so that the customer understands how to purchase the items.

4. Get rid of things that aren’t selling well.

There are things that sell quickly and there are those that do not sell. This happens in every store. Therefore, concentrate on the former. Furthermore, removing the latter from your store is a great way to clean up your website and make it look and feel better. Dead products can halt your cash flow and, over time, bring your business to a halt.

Of course, you don’t have to throw them out. Instead, you could have a real sale. This is, of course, not a fake sale where retailers inflate prices, then cut them down to give an impression that they are on sale. Customers will buy your slower-moving products once they perceive that you are offering an opportunity to provide real value at discount prices.  You’ll also be able to get your cash flow rolling this way.

5. Check to see if your website is mobile-friendly.

The number of individuals engaging in eCommerce shopping on their cellphones has risen considerably in recent years. Furthermore, there are no signs that this trend will slow down anytime soon. This means that a website that isn’t mobile-friendly will miss out on the entire market. Therefore, it is critical that your website become more mobile-friendly. That way it will be easily viewable even on a small screen.

Apart from that, you should improve your SEO tactics. This will help your site appear in organic search results.

6. Include a live chat feature on your eCommerce site.

By answering all of your consumers’ inquiries, live chats will help to gently encourage them towards making a purchase choice. It’s an excellent approach to increase conversion rates and keep your target market happy. Even if they don’t buy the product, they’ll return back because of the timeliness and quality of your response. They will, at the absolute least, bookmark your website.

7. Use residential proxies to help you improve your business’s eCommerce shopping experience.

You can use residential proxies for market research to gain valuable data on your target audience’s purchasing behavior. At the same time, they’ll keep your identity hidden.

If you truly want to increase sales and improve your business’s eCommerce shopping experience, you must ensure that your site is free of latency and downtime. Furthermore, you should employ residential proxies to assist you in conducting market research on your target audience.

Image Credit: Pixabay; Pexels; Thank you!

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So, think about it: “What do I provide clients that will make them feel good and keep them coming back?”

Don’t worry if you’re not sure about an answer. Here are five customer service gems for retaining your consumers, getting on their “loved” list, and, best of all, getting their repeat business:

Pleasantly Personalize to Keep Customers Returning

Do you have frequent interaction with your customers so that when they need your product/service, they will think of you first? Sending thank-you notes is a big part of this. The ones that are handwritten and personal have the most impact. Customers will remember that you took the time to write them a custom, personal note.

Here’s a suggestion: take a picture. Nature, sunrises, animals, sunsets, or anything else appropriate is good. The argument is that people have a difficult time discarding images. On the back, include a label with your name, phone number, company name, address, and website URL, as well as a short thank-you note. It’s likely that they’ll pin it to their desk or bulletin board and think of you every time they see it.

Politely Persist

The line between persistence and annoyance is thin. Therefore, when you try to pitch your goods or service too hard, you will annoy people. When you address and fill the needs of your customer, however, persistence pays off. Polite persistence is a proactive attitude. Annoyance is a reactionary emotion.

Here’s a tip: call to follow up on a sale or service. Inquire about the customer’s experience. Inquire if there is anything else they would want or require. Make them aware that you are there for them.

Advance Alerts Keep Customers Returning

Nobody enjoys finding out that everyone else had heard about your great deals before them. If you’re preparing to launch a new product or service, reach out to your customers and let them know. It’s a fantastic method to stay in touch with them.

Here’s a hint: your message might be as basic as: “I wanted you to be one of the first to hear about our great offer before we made it public.” What a powerful statement!

A Product or Service of the Month will Keep Customers Returning

Having a product or service of the month is a terrific approach to get your consumers’ attention and develop excitement.

Here’s a hint: practically every month of the year has a holiday in it. Consider monthly product/service of the month goods that are thematic to keep customers returning. You could also use the seasons to divide your Product/Service of the Month. For example, “Spring Into Action”; “Hot” Summer Deals” and so on.

Anniversary Announcements – Remembering Older Purchases

Wish them (and their product or service, of course) a happy anniversary on the anniversary of the date they purchased your goods or service. Of course, anniversaries can be used to commemorate birthdays, company anniversaries, or anniversaries of a product or a service.

Here’s a tip: tell your consumers about your company’s or product’s anniversary. In addition, tell them that they, the customer, are the best gift you could ever receive. After that, thank them for their business.

Additionally, consider including a small “something” with their purchase that day as a token of your appreciation for their devotion. This might be a loyalty card, coupon offer, gift card, or any other type of promotion you see fit.

Customer service is a Choice, Not a Chore!

There may always be some clients who aren’t a good fit. However, if you follow the “5 P’s of Positive Customer Service,” you’ll feel like you’ve been able to double or even triple your customer base. How would this happen? It’s simple! Customers will keep coming back to you.

In addition, they will tell their colleagues and friends about you. Furthermore, their colleagues and friends will tell their friends and colleagues…

It goes on and on like this. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it? When you give honest and excellent customer service, the dividends keep coming, just like your customers.

Image Credit: Jopwell; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 5 Customer Service Gems to Keep Customers Returning appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

What is call monitoring in small-business marketing, and why is it important? With powerful cellphones and laptops, and virtually ubiquitous Wi-Fi, we all increasingly expect current consumers to research goods and services online. Surprisingly, many individuals still prefer contacting a company’s phone number to filling out cumbersome online forms or chatting live.

Call monitoring may be a handy tool for small companies as it can help them assess their performance and uncover possibilities based on the phone calls they get. Any agency knows this because we utilize a unique marketing plan that integrates with our clients’ calls to maximize their marketing investment and help them build their company. Confidentially, it’s all edge technology.

What is the term “tracking?”

Measuring which marketing initiatives are generating calls and creating interest among prospective clients is known as call tracking. You may use this data to determine your next marketing strategy and budget.

Call monitoring also collects useful caller information that you may use for customer service and marketing. Therefore, small firms may use call monitoring to make data-driven marketing choices.

What is the mechanism behind it? There are two fundamental components of how call tracking works:

1. Set up a call-tracking system.

When you set up call monitoring for your company, the questions you will answer are if you want a toll-free number or a local number.

You may also choose to have calls redirected to your workplace, home, sales department, third-party answering system, or even your mobile. Your provider will match them with your phone tracking number.

2. Gather and analyze data.

Your provider will notify you whenever a prospective client contacts your number. The contact service records the origin, time, and duration of each phone call and whether or not the customer answered the call.

However, caller information, such as the caller’s complete name, location, and purchasing history, will also be revealed. Above all, call monitoring will reveal which marketing effort prompted a prospective consumer to dial a phone number.

What are the benefits of call tracking for small businesses?

Call monitoring is helpful for small firms for a variety of reasons.

Analyze and enhance the marketing return on investment.

You may gain insights into which keywords, advertising, or campaigns attract new clients via call monitoring.

It’s possible to increase conversions and ROI by learning which marketing methods work for your company.

You will miss no more calls.

Customers may be disappointed if their calls go unanswered owing to congested lines.

All tracking delivers a real-time notice through email or voicemail every time a call is lost. Once call agents are available, they will be able to take quick action.

Conversion rates should be improved, and lost leads should be recovered.

Conversion numbers are accurate when you use call tracking. You’ll be able to track the source of the call back to a specific campaign since you’ll be using a unique phone number.

Call monitoring also records phone conversations to examine a lost lead’s interests and worries. Then build retargeting advertisements or emails that address their concerns.

The company should improve customer service.

You may determine your target audience and learn how to pique their attention with call tracking. Contact tracking will offer crucial caller data to enable the customer care agent to customize their encounter with the consumer when they call you.

You can analyze your sales procedures to understand the client’s journey better.

You will have a thorough insight into your sales processes and your consumers’ experiences when they contact your organization if you use call tracking.

Call tracking allows you to learn more about:

• the days of the week when the most people contact you;
• when individuals contact your company throughout the day;
• how successfully your team members deal with incoming calls;
• who answers the phone;
• if your call takers are doing well or if they need further training;
• if you can turn leads into appointments, and how often;
• the caller’s intention; and
• whether the company should improve employees’ call-handling abilities.

Leaders may use call tracking to record both incoming and departing calls. Therefore, they may assess your staff’ customer service skills by listening to recorded calls.

The company may evaluate its agents on their ability to follow call scripts, handle bookings, and sell effectively. You can figure out which call takers require more training.

Get detailed information on the caller.

Call monitoring provides detailed caller information for marketing, customer service, and quality assurance. However, you may provide the following information about the caller:

• number to call;
• the caller’s first and last name;
• the caller’s current location;
• whether they’re calling for a campaign;
• if they’re a new or returning caller;
• the call’s length and quality;
• the reason for the phone call;
• purchase history of the caller; and
• explore uncharted territory.

Small companies may utilize call tracking to find new business possibilities and develop their firm.

You may examine the location details of the individuals that call your firm when you monitor calls. You’ll learn where most of your calls are coming from, which you may utilize to create new marketing efforts.

During high call hours, be more efficient.

You may determine when your firm gets the most calls from prospective clients by monitoring calls.

Consequently, with this information, you may effectively organize your employees’ working hours so that you can handle all calls during peak hours.

Call monitoring is a simple yet effective practice that may help small companies in various ways. It will help you better understand your consumers and develop your marketing tactics.

The post What Is Call Tracking? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Listed below are five technological developments and how they may affect your organization. Zoom is just for starters. Did you miss these items?

1. Zoom is branching out into customer service.

Zoom has unveiled its new Zoom Contact Center solution. That is to say, it will broaden its customer care offerings.

Zoom Contact Center will continue to operate with video conferencing. Consequently, it allows businesses to engage with consumers swiftly. Zoom hopes to consolidate all parts of customer support into a single, easy-to-use solution for managers and operators with the expansion.

Why is this significant for your company?

• With pandemic demand fading and more employees returning to work, Zoom has to find new ways to make money, and delivering video-based customer support tools strikes me as a brilliant idea.
• For small organizations to consider Zoom Contact Center a realistic alternative, greater integration and collaborations with other customer care, help desk, and customer relationship management applications are required.

2. Self-driving vehicles are becoming a thing.

Self-driving trucks are causing a land grab in the vicinity of major cities. Consequently, they have fewer incidents to report.

As the demand for driverless cars grows, some speculators rush to buy property outside of major cities. However, they aren’t the automobiles you’d expect to see. It’s not the automobiles. It’s all about trucks. And in-house technology.

As autonomous trucks become more ubiquitous — and a few large businesses have huge aspirations for this technology — suburban stops will be needed. That is to say, places where people can climb in the cab and take control of the truck for the last few tricky kilometers.

Why is this significant for your company?

• We’ve heard about self-driving vehicles, but they’re still a long way off. That’s because many talented individuals, including Uber employees and even Elon Musk, have stated that these tasks are more complex than they anticipated.
• But what about autonomous trucks? Now there’s a thought. That’s because trucks can safely drive themselves along a highway, saving money on petrol and decreasing insurance premiums. As long as humans finish the remaining part.
• Therefore, it’s logical, and it might be the first generally accepted use of autonomous technology in the coming years.

3. Walmart will deploy technology to assist customers in trying on garments.

This week, the retailer launched a test version of its “Choose My Model” try-on option, driven by neural networks. Customers may choose models that “better resemble their looks and body type” then try on virtual replicas of their clothing choices to see how they’ll look.

Walmart adds it will continue to increase its model choices over time, according to TechCrunch. Walmart has plans to debut over 70 new models in the coming weeks to provide greater variation in terms of size, skin tone, and even hair color.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Will this be the last time they use the dressing room? Most likely not.
• However, it’s another tool that innovative businesses will use in the following years to assist shoppers in purchasing their goods.
• Additionally, it’ll be fascinating to see which “models” people pick to represent me. Experts like the George Costanza look…not.

4. Pittsburgh firms introduce technology to analyze bridges from the ground up to the sky above.

Following a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh, Penn., local firms have leveraged their associated technologies to construct their bridges and develop their businesses in January.

Mach9 Robots, a local company, was the first to respond. They were there using robotics and sensor technology to survey subsurface and surface regions and generate geospatial models of critical infrastructure in minutes.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Unfortunately, necessity is the mother of creativity, and it takes a catastrophe — or the threat of a tragedy — to generate chances for entrepreneurs.
• The collapse of a bridge in Pittsburgh provided an excellent chance for local entrepreneurs to show how their innovations might enhance infrastructure safety.

5. Etsy’s post-pandemic aim is to increase the number of guys who shop there.

Etsy is looking for its next move now that the masks and home décor purchasing frenzy have subsided.

Etsy recently reported that half of the male buyers in the United States had no idea what Etsy was, according to a study performed in 2020. According to the same report, 80 percent of Etsy consumers are female. Therefore, Etsy attempts to attract more male buyers to the site by placing tailored advertisements on male-dominated channels.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Small companies might consider selling on Etsy. However, they mainly serve a female audience.
• If you’re an Etsy reseller – or thinking about becoming one – make use of the platform’s new options and focus on male clients.
• It’s an opportunity to save money on advertising while potentially reaching a larger audience.

The post Zoom Is Getting Into Customer Service appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Most small businesses typically have limited resources, including employees, time, and money. Therefore, small business owners must be resourceful. This is especially true when planning how to best use these resources to meet the needs of customers.

Use customer relationship management (CRM) data.

CRM data can be used in a variety of ways to improve customer service.

Because it contains a database of customer profiles, including contact information and birth dates, small businesses can send customers personalized birthday cards, thank you notes, or holiday cards. These digital greeting cards can also include an incentive, such as a promotional offer.

For example, if CRM data indicates that a customer frequently buys a certain product, employees can send the customer a coupon for the product along with a birthday greeting. Marketing strategies such as this one can improve customer service. They also increase customer retention, and build brand loyalty.

Respond quickly to customers’ concerns.

When a customer shares a concern about a product or service they have purchased, it’s time to act.

It is not only essential to address the customer’s concern. It is essential to do so as quickly as possible. That’s why high-profile service providers such as private doctors and lawyers are turning to human answering services. For instance, a human answering service for a law office instills trust in callers as well as keeps your staff immediately informed in case a client has an urgent issue that needs quick attention. 

Addressing a customer’s concerns with a lack of urgency makes the customer feel as if they are unimportant and unappreciated.

Provide opportunities for honest feedback — positive and negative.

Small businesses can collect feedback from customers through surveys, online forms, or social media reviews.

Some companies censor their reviews when possible by requesting that negative reviews be removed. However, small businesses can use honest feedback as an opportunity to improve customer service.

For instance, if a customer reports a negative experience in an online review, small business owners can address the feedback publicly and privately. When small business owners publicly address negative feedback, current and future customers can see whether the business owner responds professionally and whether they are willing to offer a solution.

As small business owners address negative reviews with customers privately, it gives them an opportunity to change the customer’s perspective and regain their trust. When small business owners respond to positive reviews, it shows current and potential customers that the company appreciates and cares about their customer base and their customer service.

Use feedback to improve.

In addition to addressing feedback from customers, small business owners can also use the feedback customers provide to improve their services.

For example, let’s say a small business owner is a grocer. They receive several reviews from clients stating that the organization of the store is confusing.

They could consider reorganizing the grocery store in a way that makes more sense to customers. Customers see that small business owners are not only taking their ideas into consideration but are also taking action. They are implementing changes based on feedback. As a result, they feel more invested in the company and its success.

Wrapping Up

There are several ways that small business owners can distinguish themselves from larger businesses.

Big businesses can make customers feel as if they are only a number. By taking the time to improve customer service, small business owners can create a brand that earns customers’ loyalty.

The post How Can Small Businesses Improve Customer Service? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These cashiers factors determine the shopper’s experience. Despite being low-paid or even entry-level employees, cashiers collect most of a grocery store’s payments. So, why is there an increasing tendency to automate, self-checkout, and cashier-less technologies?

Until recently, cashiers were essential in retail. But upcoming federal rate hikes are causing small business owners to lose sleep.

Cashiers are the front-line employees, ringing up customers and counting every payment. A precise till is your savior. Miss it too frequently, and you lose your job. So you’re counting money and being mindful of delivering exact change.

Every hour, you herd hundreds of people, establishing eye contact, smiling, and initiating small chats. To help them discover their gluten-free cauliflower crust pizzas, diners on special diets had to search in the cooler, not the freezer.

Nothing new here.

When an item doesn’t scan properly, or a consumer believes the sale price was X instead of Y, you call your supervisor to help resolve the issue.

It’s essential to be diplomatic when the grocery section is out of a customer’s favorite item or when out of stock is over 20% of a customer’s favorite things and to thank them for their patronage. When clients complain about rising pricing, you respond politely and effectively.

Every shift, a bagger packs clients’ things into shopping bags and loads them onto carts. 15, 20 times each hour, you have to move from scanning products and counting change to bagging yourself.

When your business installed automated self-checkout kiosks, they assigned a few staff to monitor their usage. Most clients still preferred cashier checkouts.

Cashiers are essential in retail. So why do stores try so hard to get rid of cashiers?

Cashierless technology is coming to tech-enabled retailers. Big and small. Executives and cheerleaders contend that it reduces wait times, congested kiosks, and possible Covid-19 exposures. Customers may pick up their items and go out without interacting with anybody.

But, like other digital advancements like click and collect, the technology will impact store operations. Cashier-less technology not only eliminates cashiers but also needs rigorous retail discipline, de-skilling, and store supervision.

The planogram from corporate HQ dictates where each product goes. Someone must front products often to ensure proper inventory and scanning. Everything on the shelf and out the door is monitored and quantified in real-time. Changing the merchandising to fit seasons, location, or changing consumer preferences is not an option for a clerk. This new retail ecosystem monitors shops, items, employees, and consumers. Is the merchant a panopticon for convenience?

Cashiers, a service business in itself, are threatened by automation.

Cashiers accounted for 3.3 million jobs in 2018, ranking third among all occupations. Jobs in retail sales or cashier are widespread in 46 states.

The supermarket business employs about 865,000 cashiers or 30% of the total employment. Retail employees are often younger, female, and disproportionately Black, Latino/Hispanic, and immigrant. Most cashiers have no college degrees and are roughly twice as likely to be on Medicaid.

Unlike their European counterparts, who have more vital unions and better working conditions, most American cashiers must stand all day at the register.

In 2019, the mean hourly salary for cashiers was $12.00, while the median annual income for full-time cashiers was $22,100. They are underpaid and underestimated since their job is to gather and account for every retail transaction. They make up for the lack of hourly pay by enormous numbers. A busy business will have 10 to 30 cashiers working at any one time.

Getting rid of cashiers is about streamlining retail labor; businesses won’t relocate those roles.

Reduced costs directly enhance the bottom line. Grocery stores budget 12-15 percent of sales for labor, whereas mass merchants and discounters spend less. Cashier teams account for 20-25 percent of work in certain stores.

This technology’s partial implementation would appeal to retailers hoping to save 2-3% on expenses, even if it changed operations and the customer experience.

Is it possible? Online ordering, delivery, and click and collect were unthinkable only a decade ago.

Females and people of color make up the majority of cashiers.

This technology’s broad adoption would remove hundreds of thousands of jobs.

In non-inflationary periods, stores without cashiers may offer somewhat reduced costs for customers. So business owners may spend earnings in expansion and market share increase. Scale is essential in the retail industry with limited Robinson-Patman Act monitoring.

The difference will presumably return to institutional shareholders and executives as buybacks, dividends, and bonuses. Whether or not holdouts embrace the technology, the sector as a whole will be under pressure to reduce labor costs.

However, working in retail during the epidemic has forced many supermarket employees to rethink their careers.

Hundreds of thousands of people have changed employment or left the supermarket sector in the last year. With low pay, inadequate benefits, and unpredictable schedules, retail employees lead the so-called Great Resignation.”

Many stores have boosted pay and benefits to attract and keep employees. Still, these increases are often significantly below what most large metro regions consider livable.

To put it another way, this is what the minimum wage would be if it had kept up with productivity growth since the 1960s. Retailers have utilized personnel shortages to invest in greater automation. Consequently, de-skilling technology. It may indicate that these jobs are gone for good.

But presuming labor should be replaced by AI in the interest of convenience and narrowly defined consumer sovereignty is a fair dose of misanthropy. Are living pay, good benefits, and safe and pleasant working conditions antiquated and unattainable? The technology historian David F. Noble seems to foresee the authoritarian nature of automation.

Thank your cashier for their hard work next time you shop. Maybe call the store management and thank the cashiers…before they’re gone.

The post Will Grocery Stores Ban Cashiers? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Data is now undeniably a key driver of corporate success. The ability to get insights from the ever-increasing volume and complexity of accessible data increasingly separates market winners from losers.

One of its most effective advantages is its ability to help us better analyze and respond to changing customer behavior.

On a social level, it has helped us comprehend the activities and movements of individuals during the Covid-19 epidemic. In finance, corporations have excelled at recognizing outlier behavior that might indicate something shady is afoot.

A “360-degree consumer view” lets marketers identify people ready to purchase and place items and services directly in front of them.

Data helps address client demands (and catch tuna).

The more you know about your consumers, the better you anticipate their needs. You may also convey it to them in a manner that suits them.

An excellent comparison is tuna fishing. Initially, fleets of boats would set out, with no more information than historical success places.

Our capacity to discover and capture fish increased as technology advanced — first by learning to navigate the stars, then by predicting the weather by meteorology, and finally by GPS and sonar. We can now track fish using satellites and underwater sensors.

Commercial tuna fishers must stay up with the latest technological advances. If they don’t, they’ll be out-fished and go out of business.

Customer fishing follows the same rules. Others will surpass you if you don’t keep improving your capacity to utilize data to locate them and understand their behavior.

What data do you need to know your clients?

Many organizations start with transactional and point-of-sale data. So we can identify broad consumer patterns as well as local preferences.

This helps us build goods and services that consumers will pay for. It also allows us to price our items at levels where we are sure they will sell.

These are also quite precious. We can understand who buys what once we know what individuals purchase.

As usual, combining multiple forms of data is much more beneficial than using them alone. Working with personal data has certain dangers and duties.

Therefore, it’s essential to grasp data governance principles, i.e. how to comply with all legislation and earn your customers’ confidence by protecting their data.

Attitude data is just another basic form of data.

You can obtain this data via simple market research or more sophisticated social media sentiment analysis.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) – mainly machine learning – advanced analytics systems may develop automatic reports showing us who is using our goods and what they say about them.

Customer data collected via schemes like loyalty programs or activity monitoring may also be considered internal data.

You may also purchase consumer data and other external information to get further insights. This may contain economic statistics, GDP growth, climatic data, and local and global events.

One innovative window installer and maker allegedly pioneered a certain practice. He began using publicly accessible data on crimes like vandalism to determine where to best deploy its rapid-response window repair services.

It also combines data from services like Google Trends to identify what people are searching for online. More recent advancements like Facebook’s Custom Audience service utilize people choices. Users may input information about their consumers, and algorithms display their ads to other customers who share their profiles.

Putting all of this information together needs a sophisticated analytics infrastructure.

Target, for example, was able to anticipate when consumers were pregnant before they ever began shopping for baby things. Amazon has lately discussed adopting anticipatory shipping. Currently, this allows it to guarantee things are at the distribution facilities closest to clients, but it aims to ship items to customers before purchasing them.

Observations and micro-moments are the new drivers.

The goal is to capture “micro-moments” — split-second purchase opportunities that exist for just a few seconds but may be tremendously lucrative if spotted and acted on at scale.

Walmart collects petabytes of consumer data, but they consider only the most recent transactions in its prediction engines. Because it recognizes how quickly consumer behavior changes, only current data can tell us what’s occurring now and shortly. Don’t make mistakes. But if you do, learn from them.

A micro-moment is someone getting off an aircraft after a trip. They may need a hotel room, a cab, or simply a meal.

Previously, firms may have anticipated seeing an advertisement in the arrivals lounge. Marketers may now target them with a targeted text message, phone notification, or Facebook pop-up when they check in to let their friends and family know they’ve arrived safely.

Today’s data technology provides firms unparalleled insight into their consumers. We can better forecast client needs by merging transactional, demographic, and behavioral data from internal and external sources.

The post Use Data to Better Understand Customer Needs appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Were you a small business thrown into chaos when the Covid-19 outbreak? If you were hit, you may just now be starting to recover more than a year later. In a post-pandemic environment, small-enterprise owners must be aware of the changes and key trends driving business.

1. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

We cannot overstate the importance of emotional honesty and modeling emotional intelligence.

Empathy is no longer a luxury but rather a valuable tool for coping with life’s and work’s obstacles. You don’t have to know or reveal every detail of an employee’s (or your own) circumstances, but detecting moods or actions and responding with care is appreciated. “If we inquire, ‘How are you doing?’ we genuinely want to know.” Adopt that slogan.

2. Social Media Influencer Marketing

The power of influencer marketing is a key trend that small companies should be aware of if they aren’t already.

Small companies may use online platforms and social media channels such as Instagram and TikTok to communicate their stories and raise awareness and enthusiasm. Influencers of all sizes (even micro-influencers) provide credibility to the article by adding context and endorsements.

3. Large-Scale Business Processes and Systems

Small firms must begin adopting large corporate systems and procedures to succeed in 2022.

What we mean is that small firms should set up toll-free phones, IVR systems, and automation to organize their operations. Act as if they were much more significant than they are. It will be critical to their success if they can do this.

4. Increased Recruitment Efforts

Companies will be able to broaden their recruitment efforts to be more far-reaching than in the past.

As the globe is more linked than ever, more individuals choose remote work locations throughout the world. In a tight labor market, organizations have purposefully established their culture. They are defined purpose, values, and norms will be more effective in recruiting the appropriate personnel.

5. Workplace Values That Put Family First

Over the past year or two, many individuals have reviewed what they value in life, resulting in family-first key trends.

As a result, company owners must establish a workplace that prioritizes people or risk losing their most exemplary employees. Small-business owners must develop a set of workplace principles with their employees and ensure that supervisors, in particular, lead by example.

6. Building Relationships with Business Owners

Don’t miss out on 2022’s hottest key trend: networking!

Small company entrepreneurs may increase their efforts tremendously by networking with other business owners rather than expanding alone. As a result, networking allows you to get business lead referrals and hear new market views. Learn from other people’s experiences, improve your game, and pitch. Team up and establish partnerships that motivate and drive each other’s development.

7. Digital Marketing’s Effectiveness

Digital marketing is here to stay, and small company owners should embrace it.

However, digital marketing may not completely replace in-person profile development. While it did during the epidemic, its cost- and time-saving benefits cannot be overlooked. Consequently, utilize these advantages to reach a large audience constantly.

8. Cloud and Digital Technologies for Business

A robust digital presence is lacking in many small firms.

Your ability to utilize and use today’s digital and cloud technologies will determine much of your success. Similarly, key trends like this bolster your commitment to keeping on top of whatever technology your customers use. That is to say, it will add to your success in the next ten years. It’s Slack, Teams, and Twitter trends these days. Who knows what the situation will be like in three years?

9. Product Development and Agile Service Delivery

The ability to stay flexible in client service delivery and product development will provide you with an edge.

Flexible delivery trends assist in creating a personal brand with a recognized competitive advantage. Likewise, creating a range of solutions and understanding the effect of these solutions on various customers can help your small company stand out. To clarify, your small business can stand out in any market by allowing you to provide variety, creativity, and strategic innovation.

10. Employee Business Coaching and Mentoring

Small firms will need to develop unique, new methods to recruit and retain talent to keep their employees happy and enhance retention.

Trends toward providing coaching or mentoring to workers exist. Consequently, it is considerably more beneficial to a person’s growth than a break room with a ping-pong table!

11. Synchronous and Delayed Video

The use of both synchronous and asynchronous video will be crucial.

The use of video to prospect, sell, service, and meet with people across the world has increased dramatically in the previous 18 months. Everyone has access to a phone, tablet, or laptop, and we are just a click away from engagement. Video is the new “new” thing, and its popularity will only grow. There are several free platforms to choose from. Get started!

12. A Business That Is Both Traditional and Hybrid

As we balance security and insecurity with a healthy home and working environment, we have options for workers.

Having a hybrid workplace where workers may pick their best work schedule will be a key trend for the future. In conclusion, employers must accept multi-generational staff with various value systems and life-learned skill sets.

The post Key Trends: 12 That Will Drive Small Business in 2022 appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

When handled well, customer service can lead to better retention rates, higher levels of loyalty, and superior word-of-mouth marketing. However, achieving quality customer service is becoming more and more challenging.

That’s where customer service coaching can make a difference.

What is Customer Service Coaching?

Customer service is an art as much as anything else. It requires a subtle combination of data, training, experience, confidence, creativity, and many other soft and hard skills.

Data has become an instrumental way to oversee and improve customer service. Analytics are applied using tools such as recordings, live chat, customer feedback, and surveys.

The problem that many companies face is figuring out how to apply the cold, hard facts to the fluid activity of being a customer service rep.

Training can only get you so far. The activity tends to focus on run-of-the-mill responsibilities. Using company software, understanding basic product features, and studying brand guidelines all factor into the mix.

Once trained, though, companies must look to a deeper solution for continual customer service improvement: coaching.

The Impact of Coaching

The QA experts at MaestroQA are quick to point out that live agents handle tougher tickets these days. Basic questions are answered by automated systems. That means, if a customer gets through to a human, they often have a detailed and personalized question in tow.

To understand the impact that this has on customer service, one needs to look no further than the numbers. The QA brand highlights a study by Gartner stating that self-service questions cost an average of $0.10 per contact. In contrast, live service solutions are a sizeable $8.01 per contact.

In other words, you’re paying an average of 80 times more per contact to have individuals talk to your customer service team members. This makes having high-quality support agents a priority. You need individuals who are able to think on their feet, act empowered, be creative, and always be learning

Coaching solves this by working one-on-one with agents in a constructive manner. Rather than micromanaging, it fosters an ongoing process of working with agents to improve their skills and knowledge. This leads to superior customer service that is worth every penny of that $8.01 per interaction.

The case for coaching is easy to make. However, actually implementing an effective, up-to-date, data-driven coaching strategy for your company is more challenging.

How to Be a Data-Driven Coach

Here are some actionable steps that you can use to keep your customer support agent coaching current and data-driven.

Set Clear Expectations

Coaching never works if the coach is the only one with their head in the game. Agents must also be clearly briefed regarding the intentions of a customer service coaching effort.

By setting clear expectations, you can create buy-in from your team. You can help them see the activity as an opportunity for professional development — rather than a responsibility or, even worse, criticism or punishment for past performance.

Make Wise Use of Your Data

It’s difficult to make improvements if you don’t know what areas are struggling. There are many ways to discover this, but in the modern world, nothing is as effective as data.

This isn’t just a case of setting up a third-party analytics tracker and letting it “do its thing.” It requires focused targeted efforts. Audit your customer service interactions through surveys, feedback, recordings, and whatever other tools you see fit.

Make sure to be purposeful throughout the process. Don’t just collect any and all data. Ask meaningful questions, and ensure that you’re working toward clearly defined OKRs (objectives and key results) that help you associate data with end goals.

Use Accountability

Accountability is a critical piece of sustainable improvement. The good news is, it doesn’t just consist of checking in on your support agents ad nauseam.

On the contrary, accountability is simply setting benchmarks and goals and then checking in on progress toward those objectives at select times. This gives you the chance to reevaluate unrealistic goals. It also helps you realign a support agent’s efforts if they aren’t producing the desired results.

Accountability also lets you celebrate when your coaching efforts reach recognizable milestones. This can go a long way in maintaining momentum and engagement for coaches and agents alike.

Cultivate Two-Way Feedback

As a final measure, don’t underestimate the value of two-way communication. Feedback from your agents is one of the most valuable pieces of data that a coach can receive.

This provides the opportunity to go beyond formulaic training. By communicating, a coach is able to learn about the specific needs and challenges that each agent is dealing with. This can lead to tailored solutions and superior results.

Coaching your customer support agents is a constructive and positive way to maintain a customer service edge over your competitors. It gives your workforce the tools and resources that they need. It also ensures that they are both inspired and empowered to do their jobs with excellence.

This leads to happier agents as well as satisfied and loyal clients.

So, in the future, approach coaching your customer support staff as an investment. Rather than a bother and an expense, you’re taking the time in the present to proactively pour into your team, your future, and eventually your bottom line.

The post Why Customer Service Requires Coaching — Not Just Training appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

It’s safe for us to say that the year 2020 was like none other, and 2021 is also proving special and challenging. As marketers look to build brands, next year may be challenging as well. What’s the way that marketing is being reinvented after Covid-19?

The ability to ask and answer these questions is crucial for marketing success throughout the coming months and years. In the past several months, there have been many comparisons. We’ve learned a lot in this one year of massive transformation.

Here are some truths from the past, as well as newer truths that have replaced them.

1. The old saying still goes: Marketing starts by knowing your client. Add in a new reality: Marketing starts with understanding your customer segment.

The Covid-19 pandemic confirmed that marketing must be more customer-specific. It requires a thorough understanding of the reality of the market country by country, state by state, zip code by zip code. For restaurants, banks, or retailers, it could be a matter of tailoring the communications store for each store.

We’ve realized that marketing messages must be personal and relevant, corresponding to the individual’s needs and beliefs. And not the influence of demographics such as gender and age. Making a human, personal connection with any commercial communication requires the definition of consumers as segments.

The EY Future Consumer Index, which has conducted five rounds of research with 14,500 participants across 20 countries since the outbreak of the pandemic, has identified five distinct cohorts of consumers:

1. First, affordability (32 percent of customers): Living within their budget and means, not focusing on brand names and more on the functionality of their products.
2. The health first (25 25 %): Protecting their health (especially from the pandemic) as well as that of their families, by choosing items they believe to be secure and minimizing the risk in the way they shop.
   
3. Planet First (16 percent): Trying to minimize their impact on the environment, and purchasing brands to reflect their values.
4. Social first (15 15 percent): Working together to benefit the community purchasing from companies that they consider to be transparent and honest.
5. The first experience (12 percent): Living in the moment and making the most of every moment and often making them more open to new brands, products, and experiences.

Utilizing personas and segmentation of customers can provide more insight into marketing strategies for media and innovative methods. And even better is that these insights are able to provide the complete customer journey.

2. Older truth: You have to compete with your marketing rivals. The new truth is that you compete with the most positive experience your client ever had.

Consumer expectations were already rising prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Gen Z was raised with technology that was seamlessly woven into their daily lives. Direct-to-consumer companies (such as Glossier or Parachute) were already conditioning us to expect a level of hyper-personalization as they were particularly adept with our personal data.

However, when the pandemic struck the technological transformation increased exponentially.

This resulted in rising consumer expectations of what businesses could provide them with. The consumer expects more than a simple digital transaction, say marketing experts. With the advent of companies having their customers’ personal information, they are looking for personalized, anticipatory experiences throughout the customer journey.

Companies should implement three steps to ensure their services meet their customers’ ever-growing expectations:

1. Create brand scores as a crucial KPI for all customers in the company, and ideally use real-time analytics instead of an image looking backward from an earlier date.
2. Develop the proper information and technology marketing foundation to help support the most critical use cases across your customer’s journey.
3. Affiliate goals of both individuals and collectives across the entire customer journey. Any gaps in functional silos such as sales, marketing, or customer service are not visible to the end-user.

3. An old truth that is still true: Your customers want to know you’ve got what they want. The new truth for marketing is that customers are expecting you to provide exactly what they need.

If the bar continues climbing, we should strive toward a new customer experience — from both a B2C as well as a B2B context. Today, consumers expect that any experience they have will be seamless, timely, informative, and asynchronous. That is, they’re focused on receiving what they want whenever they want it. They will not let anything distract them.

Companies need to put marketing data and technology at the center of their business.

This could mean incorporating some level of machine learning or artificial intelligence in the mix. Why is that? Because data allows us to provide more relevant experiences that span one or more that comprise the four Cs:

• Content (that could be delivered via mobile apps or emails);
• Commerce (such as physical retail, e-commerce, or the hybrid experience);
• Community (such as gathering B2B buyers in a virtual trade fair or hosting an online webinar on home repair for consumers) as well as
• Convenience (like giving consumers coupons or other benefits of the loyalty program).

Nowadays, the majority of 4Cs are offered in “one-size-fits-all” strategies. However, consumers demand more personalization. Businesses are required to utilize more data and information to improve their decision-making.

Increase the relevance of your interactions with customers. Build more human connections with their brands.

4. The old adage: Courting customers is similar to dating. The new fact: Customer service is the online world of dating.

For many years, marketing was mostly focused on buying massive coverage or targeted for the highest rates for media and hoping to make money from it. In essence, it was similar to going to every bar or party you could, hoping you’d meet that perfect person. It was a place of serendipity, spontaneity, and, frankly, many meetings with friends.

Start online dating and swiping through apps. Today, finding your ideal person could be less than luck, and more about algorithms and data.

In terms of marketing, we’ve witnessed the shift from branding marketing to expand reach and performance marketing to create leads. The rapid growth of digital channels only amplified the trend. Get ready for this trend to continue and sharpen.

The post Truths About Marketing After the Pandemic appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

True, the very word “process” can sound very tedious. “I’ve been here for so many years. I know how things are done. Why do I need to follow a lengthy process?” Of course, the simplest reason is that not everyone has the knowledge and expertise you have.

If you are somewhat “allergic” to processes, here are a few things to keep in mind. These scenarios can help you appreciate the importance of tweaking processes.

• Everyone is different, with different sets of knowledge and experience.
  • What you can do flawlessly may not be easy for your colleague to complete with just as much ease.
• It took you time to understand the system…new employees don’t share that advantage.
• Some people work well under pressure, others don’t. Some follow a systematic, step-by-step approach, others may take on the problem all at once.
  • Not having a process to standardize workflows can be chaotic, especially when two individuals who have different styles of working have to work together.

Now apply these scenarios to customer service. Hopefully, it becomes obvious how having a good process in place is very important to improve customer service. The mess that can occur in the scenarios mentioned above can be managed internally. However, they spell disaster if they prop up while handling customer queries.

Remember, great customer support is a big factor that will decide your company’s future. Microsoft found that 95% of consumers felt customer support can influence their loyalty to a brand. There are many ideas for improving the customer service process. Listed below are five steps to consider as you seek to improve your business.

Improve Customer Service Through Time-Tested Process Improvements

While the ideas presented below are all tried and true, not all of them may be applicable in your context. Feel free to adapt and tweak these to suit your specific requirements.

1) Bring together your most experienced employees.

So many times we look outward to external agencies to help us with solutions for internal issues. However, we forget that some of the best ideas can come from experienced minds within. If you have made the decision to improve customer service, Start by consulting your experienced employees for ideas.

You might be surprised to see the great ideas that come from your own employees. After all, they’ve been in your system for a long time and have seen the company through many of its phases. Who better to help you with great ideas to improve customer service? Create a task force with your experienced teammates, hold regular discussions with them, and collate the information and ideas that come from these meetings. Let this serve as your basic body of ideas.

2) Conduct research.

This one’s a no-brainer. How can you improve customer service if you don’t know about it in any depth? True, it can be confusing to know where to begin. Here are two things you can try to get started on your research:

• Find out what others are doing. Start with your competitors. There’s so much information to gain from studying the other players in your industry. You need to find out what they are doing right and where they are lacking.
  • This is not to say that you should copy their practices, but you are likely to understand the mechanisms of customer service better.
• Study the big names. Seek to understand what some of the most popular brands are doing right. They may not be relevant to your industry but, hey, they are at that position for a reason and great customer service is almost certainly a significant contributing factor. Understanding the customer service processes they employ can be of great value to your research.

3) Define your objectives and measures.

Research can only tell you what someone else is doing. The needs of your business are unique to you. Take the time to define the objectives and goals for which you are trying to improve customer service. To support these objectives, you will need to spell out a couple of KPIs that your customer support team will have to work toward. Some essential KPIs you can start off with might include:

• turnaround time for problem-solving;
• customer feedback;
• common areas of complaint;
• frequency of complaints; and
• the number of escalations.

These are just a few measures that are used by many companies. Your company may have a unique set of KPIs relevant to you. Sit with your experienced employees and brainstorm the right KPI set for you.

4) Make effective use of technology.

Customer queries can be of two types. The first one requires the attention of a live customer support representative. The second kind is those that can be solved without the involvement of a customer support representative. Which do you think is the most common type of complaint?

That’s right, the most common complaint mechanism are those that don’t need the involvement of a customer support rep.  In fact, a study by Accenture showed that about 80% of customer engagements can be dealt with by artificial intelligence (AI) bots.

Which of the two mechanisms do you think customer support staff spends the most time on? Again, the second type. Wouldn’t it be amazing if customer support involvement could be redirected completely towards solving the first kind of customer queries?

Nowadays, that possibility is within reach. You might already have come across customer support services where you are in fact chatting with a bot and your entire query was resolved without an actual person on the other side. This is now possible through the use of AI. AI can reduce your customer service costs by approximately 30%. Customer support software such as Acquire is powerfully driven by AI and can take customer service to a whole new level. Additionally, many CRM packages feature video chat, live co-browsing, and more. All of these have significantly improved the customer experience of their clients.

Another example would be Paykickstart’s Knowledge Base. This product lets client companies create exhaustive resources that customers can access for solving their problems without even needing to contact customer support. If you aren’t leveraging technology to improve customer service, you really are positioning yourself to lose the race.

5) Implement, measure, repeat.

Let’s say you don’t have the time or ability to follow any of the above options. Your last resort is to go ahead with ideas that you think are suitable.

Of course, you should at least discuss these ideas with a couple of other experts even if you can’t launch full-blown research before you implement them. But here’s the important part: measure your outcomes. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking your ideas are fail-proof and leave outcomes unmeasured. You need to be certain that your ideas are actually helping you improve customer service. If they aren’t, you’ll have to rethink your strategies. If they are, tweak them to find the optimal way to implement them.

For example, if you notice that being informal with your customers is working great for you, don’t just stop at that. Try a little more. Maybe you could address your customers by their first names, wish them a great weekend, or maybe even add an emoji or two to email correspondence. Even the best methods can be improved upon.

Final Thoughts to Improve Customer Service

There is no one, never-fails roadmap to improve customer service. It’s all about giving it your best and trying again and again until you reach a great outcome.

Hopefully, the five processes listed above will help you on that journey.

The post 5 Steps to Improve Customer Service By Tweaking Processes appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

How to build a better customer service strategy 

Presently, ninety percent of Americans say customer service factors into whether or not they choose to do business with a company. 

Knowing this information presents you with an opportunity to win new customers. Therefore, if the customer’s experience with your company outshines your competitor, you will gain a new customer.

Take your customer service from mediocre to crowd-pleasing with these seven steps.

1. Evaluate your current customer support process

For starters, you can’t improve something without first identifying shortcomings. Take the time to evaluate your current customer service strategy and identify weaknesses. 

• Are calls and support tickets often bottlenecked? 
• Is your help desk disjointed? 
• Are agents flailing about to find answers to customer’s queries? 
• How many new customers return? If the number is low, could it be that you are losing them because of poor customer service? 

2. Set goals

Now that you know where the problems lie, you can set goals to overcome them and improve your service. Be specific. Do you want:

• Increase response and query resolution times?
• To add new channels for customers to contact you?
• To employ more help desk agents to alleviate long wait times? Thirty-three percent of customers are frustrated by long hold times and having to repeat themselves to multiple support agents.

 Don’t try to revamp everything all at once. Focus on a few priority goals that you can realistically accomplish within 12 months. You can roll out other upgrades at a later stage. 

3. Implement the right customer service software 

One of your priority goals should be to replace your old clunky customer service system with well-rounded CRM software. This single change will immediately up your game.

What to look for in customer relationship software:

• Integration with your other business applications and ecommerce systems. 
• User-friendly with a 360-degree view of the customer’s profile. All customer information, product purchases, and interactions should be in one easy-to-view place. 
• A multi-channel system that is capable of centralizing communication from different platforms like email, calls, social media, text messaging and live chat. 
• An efficient ticketing system for fast query resolution.

To help you find the right CRM system for your businesses, here’s a list of  the 13 best customer service software solutions of 2020.

4. Train help desk agents

All the best systems in the world won’t mean much if your agents are not properly trained. Just how much of an impact do customer service agents have on your business? Here’s what customers say: 

• 68% of customers said the customer service representative was crucial to a positive service experience with a company.
• 73% of customers say they fall in love with a brand and tend to remain loyal because of friendly customer service reps.

That’s how important your customer service team is to your business. So, invest in selecting the right staff and train help desk agents in company knowledge, product knowledge, communication skills, conflict resolution, and friendliness. They are on the frontline of your business and often the first point of contact for customers. 

5. Provide more digital channels 

Online shopping fared well in 2020. COVID quarantines pushed businesses to provide more digital contact options as customers struggled to access traditional channels like in-person assistance and overloaded call centers.

If you don’t already offer customer support via social media, live chats, and self-serve knowledge bases, it’s time to expand to more digital channels. Customers want the convenience of being able to contact a company through multiple channels, and most choose to do so online.

6. Continually analyze data 

When your customer service upgrade is complete and the results are delighted customers, take a moment to feel proud. However, that’s not where your job ends. Every good marketer will tell you that measuring and analyzing data is an important pillar of marketing. 

Continually analyzing data reveals a lot about where you’re succeeding and failing at customer processes. It also reveals insights into customer sentiment and preferences. 

You’ll be able to track customer retention rates. You’ll see patterns emerging from compliments, criticism or complaints. There’s a wealth of information you can glean from analytics to further enhance your customer service.

7. Reward high-value customers

Did you know that the number one reason customers stop using a company’s product or service is because they feel unappreciated? How can you turn that around? Offer your high-value customers rewards like an exclusive offer, a gift voucher for the birthday or other milestones, or discounted membership. Make them special and they’re likely to remain loyal to your brand. 

As the statistics show, customer service is often the differentiating factor between competing businesses. You can’t afford to let this area of your business just coast along. It’s time to make 2021 the year you level up your customer service. 

The post 7 Steps to Building a Better Customer Service Strategy in 2021 appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Thanks to the pandemic, 60% of shuttered small businesses may be gone for good. Tens of thousands more are holding on by a thread. Every small business saved is a bright spot not just for the entrepreneur, but for their employees and the local economy. 

Many struggling small business leaders have reacted by cutting hours or staff. But only with the right tools can a small crew keep the ship sailing. While every small business is different, these five software tools are worth scraping the bottom of the bank account for:

1. Contact Center Software

First things first: How are you going to reach customers when they can’t physically visit your store? 

Phone calls and online outreach are safer options for everyone. Contact center as a service software makes omnichannel communication possible on any budget. Tools that track prior interactions with customers let any rep who answers the phone pick up the baton. 

Other features to keep an eye out for include analytics and customer profiling. Reports can provide an overview of how your employees are interacting with customers and where opportunities lie to build stronger customer relationships. Profiles can also give you insight into who your typical customers are, making it easier to attract more people like them. You can have a guide from fundingwaschools for more info.

2. Social Media Marketing Software

When you know who your customer is, marketing becomes that much easier. The next step is to choose channels and tools that are cost-effective. For small businesses, social media marketing makes getting the word out as easy as clicking “post.”

Before deciding on one, learn which platforms your customers like to use. There’s no point in investing in a Snapchat-specific tool if your users are only on Twitter and Facebook. Try to cover as many relevant platforms as you can in a single tool, which will make your team more efficient. 

3. Project Management Software

You know what’s a waste of money? Trying to track every project your team takes on through clipboards and emails. Letting a single job slip through the cracks can mean future business will be lost.  

If you are still leaving project management up to each employee, it’s time to invest in project management software. Keeping your team’s projects housed in one central location will save everyone time and stress. 

There are dozens of project management software options out there. Figure out which parts of projects are the most difficult for your team: If collaborating remotely is a chore, for example, you might look for a tool with native video conferencing capabilities or Slack integration. No matter your needs, look for a project management program that lists tasks, who is assigned to what, and deadlines. 

4. Accounting and Payroll Software

Especially when money is tight, you need to manage every penny like it’s your last. Investing in payroll services and accounting tools can simplify the financial side of small business ownership. What’s more, smart accounting software can help you take advantage of tax incentives and deductions you might not have known about. 

The good news is, many tools in this space cover multiple bases. Opt for a do-it-all financial hub that covers payroll, invoicing, bookkeeping, and filing taxes. Some of these tools also span HR tasks, such as benefits administration. If you’re ever audited, you’ll be glad you’ve got it all in one place. 

Ask your accountant which tool he or she prefers. Some accounting firms have partnerships with popular providers, which can help you save even more money. 

5. Supply and Inventory Management

These days, not all small businesses sell physical products. Even those that don’t, however, need to stock supplies like paper, ink, and company computers.

No matter what your company does, it has valuable property to keep tabs on. Product SKUs and “property of” labels are only half the picture. Once you’ve tagged everything, you need a tool to ensure nothing is lost or stolen. This software can also help you prioritize damaged or old items in need of replacement. 

When purchasing this tool, think about access permissions and user profiling features. You don’t want to be the only person who can update the system when something is broken. On the other hand, security and theft concerns mean you also want to limit who can delete items from the database. 

As a small business owner, you can’t do it alone. But when money gets tight, you also can’t afford to hire a big business-sized staff to help you out. 

What you can afford are software tools that make everyone more efficient. Choose wisely, and you’ll keep your staff lean without compromising your commitment to your customers. Do that, and you’ll keep your business in the black no matter what happens to the economy. 

The post Struggling? These 5 Tools Can Keep Your Small Business Afloat appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Think about that: Even if everything else goes right with their experience, a misfire on the service side will drive off three-quarters of your customers. In that light, customer service agent training might be the single most important CX investment your company makes. If you want your customers to have a great experience then consider using this voice of customer sentiment analysis. 

Top-Notch Agent Training

To help your agents deliver a high-level customer experience:

1. Set up a surprise product demo.

Whatever product or service you provide, make sure your agents know it like the back of their hand. An American Express study revealed that 62% of customers see the agent’s knowledge as key to positive service experiences.

Even if your agents are all former product engineers, put on a product demonstration for them. A few days later, without warning, ask each of them to give you a demo. Your goal isn’t to put them on the spot; it’s to identify where their understanding of the product differs from the company’s intent. Create a reference sheet that agents can keep beside their desks for common issues.

2. Get agents more team exposure. 

Too many businesses operate contact centers that are cut off from the rest of the company. Although outsourcing the function can save companies about 50% on their customer service expenses, it has a hidden cost: putting distance between agents and the company’s mission. 

Don’t trade short-term savings for a long-term hit to your customer experience. If possible, keep everyone in the same building. If your agents work remotely, implement processes that require regular contact. Set up once-a-week video lunches. Fly everyone out for quarterly retreats. Encourage banter with tools like Slack. 

3. Take turns playing the customer’s role.

When customer service people spend all day talking to users, they tend to think they’re good at seeing the customer’s side. Put that to the test: Pair agents up, with one playing the rep and the other acting as the customer.

When agents sit on the side of a call they’re not used to, it changes the way they see their role. Take discounts: Reps often receive pressure from above to limit the number of freebies they hand out. But forcing a customer to eat the cost of a defective product is a sure way to destroy his experience. Help agents approach their role with empathy, even if it costs extra.

4. Emphasize relationship-building.

Everyone wants her concerns to be heard by human beings. According to a study done by McKinsey, 70% of the customer experience comes down to how the customer feels she’s treated. Real, human connections make even the most difficult interactions go more smoothly.

Encourage agents to engage with customers on a personal level. Really listen to what they have to say, be sensitive to their emotions, and don’t be afraid to talk briefly about things other than business. Customer service agents are the face of your company, so it’s important that the impression they give off is a human one. 

Customers choose companies not for their products, but for how those companies make them feel. Regardless of why they contacted customer service in the first place, you have a chance to keep — or even upsell — them if you handle it well. Give agents the tools they need to deliver better experiences, and watch your customer experience create lasting relationships.

The post Want to Improve Your Customer Experience? Start With Your Agent Training appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Improve the customer experience

Many small businesses use data capture tools to better understand and subsequently meet the demands of their customers. Analyzing customer behavior and paying attention to reviews and feedback allows businesses to modify their presence online and alter products and services to best suit the marketplace. There are many secrets to good customer service, and one of those is using what you learn about customers to cater to their wants and needs and improve the shoppers experience.

Refine the marketing strategy

Contextualized data allows businesses to grasp how consumers engage with and respond to marketing campaigns, then make adjustments accordingly. This will give you what you need to know to ensure you offer consumers what they want. Marketing is evolving and now focuses on personalization. Businesses today need to personalize the customer journey on websites and social platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Segmenting data effectively will allow you to market to the people who are more likely to engage with your content. Keep in mind that fewer more profitable customers is the key to growth.

Make smarter business decisions

Businesses that utilize data gathering also profit from it. A survey by Helical IT found that relying on data to make a decision instead of intuition boosts the chances of success by 79 percent. This means that the implementation of a data collection process allows a business to make decisions based on data. Once you have a system up and running, the quantity and quality of data the business will collect over the years will influence its sustainability and competitive advantage.

Boost sales

Customer behavior data is so important today. This is why your business needs to glean valuable data to better understand your customer. When you can identify your customer’s buying preferences, you will increase conversions and drive revenue.

Optimize pricing

Pricing is often a challenge when introducing products. When you price items too high, you can drive customers away. Pricing them too low can negatively impact your profit margins and even skew the customer perception.

This is why you should use data from your CRP to segment your customers by different price points. It allows you to narrow down the ideal price range based on the group’s behavior, demand and price tolerance. When you combine internal and external data points, you’ll be armed with the insights you need to determine the optimal pricing structure to maximize your sales potential.

Before the digital age, traditional one-way mass marketing communication was a thing. The customer experience and personalization didn’t really matter. However, in today’s customer-centric world, our customers expect more. By using customer data, you can learn more about the customer and use the information to better your marketing strategy and increase sales.

The post 5 Ways Businesses Can Use Customer Data appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Hopefully, not.

We all have a love-hate relationship with our phones. They do bring us closer together which is why we love them. While robocalls and automated answering services create problems for us. Fortunately for busy small business owners, there are answers that end the problems with automated answering services, if you want to avoid this, then consider contacting a managed service provider.

Why real people should answer phones

Ruby Receptionists is an answering service, but real people man the phones. This service can be managed from a mobile phone app and can be fully customized for any business. Over 8000 businesses rely on Ruby Receptionist because they value the power of a real person answering a phone, so if your business ever starts to get too busy to answer phones, then consider contacting these answering services for professional assistance. 

According to Nelson, having a real person answer business phone calls is a sure-fire way to grow your business. She has the stats to prove it:

• 40% of phone calls are buyers ready to buy
• 30% of all business phone calls lead to sales

Treating the customer with kindness

She also understands the value of customer service, beyond the phone call.

Nelson believes that kindness toward the customer is real customer service. Since businesses generally all offer speed and quality, the way that employees treat customers is the difference-maker today.

In her 15 years of running Ruby Receptionists, Nelson learned that people do business with companies that answer the phone and are pleasant and kind. Even over the phone, customers can tell if they are talking to someone who is smiling. The idea is to wear your voice on the phone – if you are smiling, the sound of your voice is different than if you are wearing a neutral face. Customers appreciate working with a happy employee.

Training for employees

To ensure that your employees sound happy on the phone, it is important to have happy employees. If your employees are tasked with phone duties, they should be people who enjoy talking on the phone. And, their employers should provide them with training so they can:

• Listen to customers
• Understand customers’ needs
• Feel empowered to answer questions
• Solve problems
• Make customers

Making meaningful connections works

People who listen and understand do exist. It’s a noble mission, according to Nelson, to be a caring person. To keep those noble employees, it is important for employers to inspire and empower them. When you make their day, they will do the same for your customers. When you make meaningful connections with your employees, they will do the same for your customers. It’s all about caring about people.

The post The Secret to Good Customer Service? Real People. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Use Social Media to Connect with Customers and Their Values

64 percent of customers say having shared values with a company is the number one factor in winning their loyalty. Combine that with the fact that consumers spend more time than ever on mobile devices and social media, and you have a simple recipe for connecting with them.

First, identify what values go into the products or services you offer, things like quality, ease-of-use, individuality, sustainability, and enjoyability. Next, come up with creative, engaging campaigns to showcase those values on social media.

• Create short Behind-the-Scenes videos showcasing the passion you put into your business.
• Do a Fact-of-the-Day highlighting a fun detail about a product or service.
• Write a social media post about industry-trending topics and seasonal content, or simply wish everyone a good weekend.

2. Provide Top-Notch Customer Support In-Person and Online

Customers want to know that you care about their experience, no matter where they interact with you. Many small businesses get this right when it comes to face-to-face interactions, but neglect to consider online environments, such as review sites and social media. With so many consumers online now, this is a sure way not only to lose a disgruntled customer but also any potential customers who see a damaging review.

• Train employees who interact with customers in-person or over the phone on proper customer service practices.
• Assign someone you trust to be in charge of responding to negative reviews and complaints online, and follow the best practices for responding to negative reviews.

3. Engage Your Customers to Encourage Loyalty

Customer engagement takes customer service one step further. Rather than reacting to issues and problems that arise with the customer experience, you’re proactively reaching out to customers to see what they want and what you can do better. Once again, the prominence of social media gives you an easy way to do this.

• Do a poll on your business’ social media pages to see what new products or services customers would like you to add
• Ask customers to post their favorite photos of your business online and tag you—incentivize the campaign by offering up a free deal or award to a random participant

4. Implement a Loyalty Program

For many business types, a loyalty program is a perfect way to keep your customers coming back frequently, and spending more when they do. With modern digital customer engagement platforms like what SpotOn offers, it is quick and easy to set up your loyalty program that utilized mobile technology rather than old-school loyalty punch cards.

• Create different tiers of rewards, including an easy-to-achieve reward to turn first-time customers into regulars, and then more lucrative rewards for your VIP customers.
• Get creative with your rewards—in addition to offering freebies and discounts, you can devise personalized rewards, like letting a loyal customer pick a menu item or get exclusive VIP access to special events.

5. Use an Automated Platform to Do it All

As a small business entrepreneur, you probably don’t have the luxury of hiring a dedicated marketing and social media team to accomplish all the tasks above. That’s why it’s essential to take advantage of the technology available to you, such as marketing email services and social media management software.

As a company founded by small business entrepreneurs, SpotOn has done one better and created an integrated customer engagement platform that streamlines everything: social media campaigns, marketing emails, review management, and loyalty. By putting it all in one intuitive dashboard and utilizing time-saving automation tools, it allows you to effectively do the job of an entire marketing team in minutes and for a fraction of the cost.

In the end, it’s about doing whatever it takes to keep your customers happy and coming back as lifelong, loyal regulars.

Authored By:

RJ Horsley is the President of SpotOn Transact, LLC, a cutting-edge payments and software company redefining the merchant services industry. SpotOn brings together payment processing and customer engagement software along with industry-vertical software, including best-in-class POS software for restaurants. 

The post 5 Ways to Boost Customer Retention appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Not Just a Chatbot

According to founder and CEO, Mathrubootham,  Freddy significantly expands on the capabilities of chatbots. Afterall, modern-day customers are demanding better service.

“Consumers demand better service in the communication channels they prefer, whether it’s modern messaging platforms, social media or even automated IoT applications. With Freddy the AI engine, possibilities become limitless and customer experience can be enriched at every touchpoint and across multiple channels.”

How Freddy Seeks to Help Businesses

Sales

Salespeople who are currently taking advantage of Freshworks’ CRM will be able to will be able to auto-calibrate their available leads, making sales easier to conduct.

Customer Service

Freddie creates automatic replies to common queries in email, chat, voice-calls and even social media with context from the customer’s knowledge base. This way, easy questions can now be put on Freddy’s plate rather than on your support team.

Customer Engagement

If you’re a savvy customer, you’re usually pretty aware of when you’re chatting with a robot. But, with Freddy’s capabilities, the goal is for him to appear like he’s an actual support person. Customers want to feel heard and they want their concerns heard, Freddy is there to listen.

With Easy Implementation

Unlike traditional enterprise AI platforms, Freddy seeks to be less intimidating to implement.
“Freddy removes that complexity and frustration by delivering timely customer information for representatives and instantly answering questions anytime or anywhere customers need support.”

The post Have You Met Freddy? Say Hello to a New AI Engine Set to Enrich Customer Service appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Apple’s brand is synonymous with innovation, uniqueness, and quality. This is important because Apple products are never the cheapest, yet the customer is still willing to pay extra for the Apple experience. Small businesses, in general, cannot compete on price. The customer experience matters!

Apple has created a loyal community of advocate and influencers that get access to pre-release products to evaluate and to provide candid critique. Small businesses, whether you are a restaurant or a service business should consider fostering such a community of customers and influencers to share their story with others.  The advent of social media and blogs provide an inexpensive way to advertise a small business brand.

Small businesses are known for their unique products and personalized service.  The niche that is served is desirable for the “creative class” among us.  The fine line, however, between Bold vs. Overdone is extremely difficult to know.   This is very important because small business sustainable revenues are tied by choosing the right product that brings satisfaction to a good segment of its customer community.  Apple understands their customer segment very well and has built their products to serve the needs of teens and young adults.

The loyalty to a brand is key for repeat customers.  Apple has built an ecosystem that allows for seamless integration of their products and services. The “switching cost” in time and complexity, for many, can be high.   Small businesses are able to use relatively low-cost and available technologies to give each customer their own individual account.  By learning more about the wants and needs of their customer base, a profile can be developed.  Each time the client interacts with the small business, they should be treated with VIP-like status.   This creates a “switching cost” that is easily portable to another business.

For scale-up of any business, large or small, there is a need for a sustainable growth in customers.  Technology and the internet allow each small business to become an international company if they have a functioning web-page.  The traditional barriers that restrict small businesses to only providing their services to a particular community are no longer in place.

Apple has surpassed the 1 trillion dollar market cap.   On its heels are Amazon, Google, and Facebook.   The latter three, not long ago (less than 20 years ago) were in the category of startups or small businesses.   Now they have taken their place on the list of the world’s top 10 companies.   The model for growth has been validated.   From small to large, the keys are building a best-in-class product to an influential market segment (teens and young adults), embracing influencers who serve important roles in marketing.

Authored by: Ayman El Tarabishy, Executive Director of the International Council of Small Business and Professor at The George Washington University and co-author of Information Technology for Small Businesses: Managing the Digital Enterprise.

The post Apple Is a Success Here’s What You Can Learn from It appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The number one thing smaller business (and all brands) can do is to treat customers like humans instead of transactions on a spread sheet. There are challenges in gluten free living. The biggest challenge is being social! I find there is a great deal of stress to dinner especially when we are invited into a friend’s home. So much of what is prepared, simply cannot be eaten and the host seems to get insulted! Doing your best to explain to them about gluten sensitivity, yet for many they just do not understand. It is not a fad thing, it is not a weight loss thing, and it is a health thing. Phentermine can be addictive and should only be used for its intended purpose. Strictly follow the dosage of the drug. Do not abuse Phentermine – it can be dangerous for your health. Being called radical, and even called a health nut! Many people judge for the health choices that a person living with gluten sensitivity makes and not in a good way. Yet these same people that judge seem to have all kinds of health problems! It simply does not make any sense! Social frameworks, including friendships and relationships, are an important part of the detox and rehab processes. Significant challenges can occur in the social sphere immediately following detox, but they can be overcome. Drug detox, in the strictest sense, consists only of the procedure of eliminating the drug from the body, it is often confused with rehabilitation, the larger process of which it is a part. But it is only a first step, and long term success depends on many factors. Thus, one must consider larger issues which are not part of the actual procedure. Major difficulties can be in the patient’s friendships. It is well known that, even after a successful detox, if the patient is again friends with other drug users, relapse is greatly increased. Ending such friendships is difficult, but often it must be done. Likewise, the recovering addict must assess his or her romantic relationships. Here is the best example of what we do, visit once. Is a significant other supportive of the recovery effort? Is he or she a user, or friends with others? A supportive home life or romantic partnership can be a positive factor in successful recoveries. The lack of such support makes recovery difficult at best. Another difficulty lies in establishing new social connections. The patient may feel misunderstood or isolated, and if it is known in the community, the former drug use may cause some may shun to the friendship or romantic advances of the recovering addict. Other social groups can act as positive support for the recovering addict, treat depressed with the tianeptine capsules. Family members, churches, activity and volunteer groups or clubs, and classes can be great sources of positive connections, and working out at a gym can be a big part of the social recovery, providing the benefits of better physical condition and stress alleviation.

He explained that small businesses value relationships with customers, long term relationships.

If we remember that your CUSTOMER being a FAN should be your ultimate goal. The more you celebrate your relationship with them, the more you’ll be successful.

Nicolas said that instead of being so focused on selling a service to your customer, think how you can add value to their experience. This value leads to further awareness and more organic growth for your company.

The post Treat Your Customers Like Humans, Not Transactions – Sid Lee Exec appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

In this article, we’ll go over the 5 ways you can improve your business’ reputation online.

1. Create a website with a customseo domain so people can find your business online.

Every business should have their own website. It’s your online calling card and should be the first thing people see when they look you up online. This is especially true for consumer electronics companies, where businesses are competing for a limited number of product categories. You can do so much in one place such as list your products, market them using blogs, and sell them by using a payment gateway.

2. Set up your social media channels.

After setting up your website, the next step should be to create a profile on the appropriate social media channels. You can post photos, announcements, discounts, and sell your products on these channels. Most businesses start with Facebook, but there are other social media platforms that are niche-specific, such as LinkedIn, Angie’s List, Pinterest, etc.

It is important to have a social presence because a huge number of social media users make their purchasing decisions based on what they see on social media. By putting your products and your company where potential customers are searching, you are able to reach a larger audience.

3. Register your website on online business listings

If people want to find a business like yours, they will often go to authority business listing sites like Yelp for Business, Google My Business, Better Business Bureau, etc. Once your business is listed, clients can easily find you and see how you compare to other businesses in the same niche or industry. Users can leave reviews for others to see and rate your company based on their experience. And don’t stop at just one listing. Get multiple listings (also called citations) so that your business exudes more credibility, since they verify businesses before they allow them on their site.

4. Optimize your website for SEO purposes.

Now that you are have your own site and are listed on all relevant third party sites, Auckland SEO agency helps you to optimize your presence online – starting with your website. Conduct basic keyword research to discover what terms people are searching for when looking for your type of product. Then, make sure that your website contains these keywords on the appropriate pages for which SEO agency can help you in a better way.

5. Improve customer service and engagement

The most organic and genuine way to improve your online reputation is to talk to your target audience online, just Achieve your desire ranking results. Try affordable seo services. Don’t spam them with sales emails – learn what their problems are, provide the solution, and continue to build your relationship. Find the ones that have had a positive experience and ask them to review your website on social media, business listings, and other review sites. After that, make sure that they continue to have a positive experience with your business. Your overall reputation is something that your customers will always remember whether they are online or offline.

The post How To Improve Your Business’ Online Reputation appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Keep the Customer Front and Center

AI and chatbots can be used to improve service levels … or destroy them. So make sure you keep the customer front and center. Will your customer be delighted by this solution or enraged? Remember that if you give a customer a bad answer, you risk losing them forever. We recommend taking it slowly. If you deploy a chatbot, make sure it has the option to transfer the customer to a human agent. – Jonathan Steiman, Peak Support

2. Test Them Out Internally

Before making them available to the public, try using them on an internal basis to test how they work and better understand where they could provide a benefit to your operations. It’s important everyone get to use them first, so they feel comfortable with the idea. – Serenity Gibbons, Calendar.com

3. Have a Clear Objective

Make sure you have a clear objective in mind. AI and chatbots can be utilized in several ways, so understanding what you wish to get out of them plays a crucial role in their development. If you are using chatbots for lead generation, make sure it does just that. Your chatbot should engage users and ask the right questions to receive the crucial information you need to complete your objective. – Duran Inci, Optimum7

4. Be Conversational

Chatbots are the best of texting and email combined. If you want people to interact with your bot you need to be conversational, which means asking lots of questions, providing short answers that give value and most importantly, not spamming them. When planning out your chatbot experience, you want your bot to act more like a friend or family member, and not like a car salesman. – Bryan Kesler, CPA Exam Guide

5. Have Chatbots Take the Lead

Instead of hiding your chatbot icon in the bottom right of your site, let visitors know it’s ready to help with a welcome message. Ask questions to your customers directly related to their visit. Design questions that offer support and lead customers to actions such as, “have you ever worked with an SEO company in the past?” or “what are you looking to improve on your website?” for an SEO site. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

6. Account for AI Learning Time

A major point to keep in mind when implementing AI or chatbots into your company is that AI takes time to learn speech patterns in order to respond accordingly. With so much AI tech now available, it seems building your own software may save money, but using an existing platform will save you the time it takes to get through the inevitable learning curve the software needs to work correctly. – Jason Criddle, Jason Criddle and Associates

7. Have a Good Script

You need to have a good script. Think of all possible questions and answers, and then flow chart the entire experience. There is no harm in trying this out, but you need to dedicate the time in setting up a good chat system with a lot of possible questions and answers. Then you need time to keep adding information. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

8. Anticipate the Unanticipated

You are going to provide a lot of value for your customers, but it isn’t without additional employee cost. Ask yourself if you’re ready to handle the increased workload that will be generated by creating a new channel for customers to seek help and suggest feedback. Consider potential unintended consequences of any changes in how your app seeks to help its users. – Tim Chaves, ZipBooks Accounting Software

9. Link Them to Your Apps for Fast Assistance

I recently instituted chatbots, and I was able to link it to my company’s Slack so that messages to the bot show up where I’m reviewing all other notifications. Doing this for yourself can give you the freedom to see when customers are contacting you, and give you the freedom to hop in and replace the bot without a delay or confusing transition. – Adam Steele, Loganix

10. Understand Their Limitations

Even though AI is advancing quickly, it still doesn’t take the place of personalized customer service. Chatbots are good for certain tasks, such as helping website visitors find what they’re looking for. But don’t expect too much from them, and make sure you also give people an easy way to get more detailed help if they need it. – Shawn Porat, Scorely

The post 10 Things to Consider When Automating Your Customer Support Services appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Salesforce recently announced an upgrade to its Service Cloud platform.

One of the enhancements to Service Cloud is speed to get up and running. With just a few clicks you can ensure your customer service team can connect to Twitter, Facebook and other channels to offer support wherever your customer wants.

By simply dragging and dropping, with the Lightning App Builder, companies can extend functionality by simply dragging-and-dropping one of the new service Lightning Components into Service Cloud.

Of course being able to respond to customer needs outside the office is essential as well. According to the press release, Service Cloud Mobile app for iOS and Android empowers agents to provide personalized customer service from anywhere. With the new native mobile app,  employees can triage, manage and resolve cases while in meetings or on-the-go. Push notifications help keep agents up to date on the status of their cases, making it easier for them to provide customers with fast, responsive service.

Salesforce is enabling business owners to better serve their customers across all channels and enabling customers to have a better experience with the business.

The post Salesforce Upgrade Its Customer Service Platform. Faster Setup Time. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

But we live in modern times now, and the spreadsheet, while it still has its place, is slowly becoming passé for many functions.

If you’re still relying on spreadsheets to organize data, manage finances, and keep on top of customer contacts, try these better solutions instead.

1. Invest in Accounting Software

Business schools still teach accounting using spreadsheets, and while understanding formulas may be necessary for MBA students, it’s not required for you as a busy entrepreneur. Spreadsheets become unwieldy after a certain point, and they can’t do even half of what good accounting software can.

For example, platforms like QuickBooks let you invoice clients and receive payments, sync your bank account info with your accounting system, and generate reports without spending hours in a spreadsheet.

2. Manage Customer Data

Staying on top of who your customers are, what they’re buying, and your communications with them requires more than a spreadsheet. In days gone by, you’d simply have contact details in a spreadsheet, but today, customer relationship management platforms like Insightly let you do so much more than that.

Need to find an email to a client? It’s right there in your contact file. Want to assign a follow-up call to your sales rep? Some CRM platforms have project management features baked in. Thanks to today’s CRM technology, we’ve moved away from passive customer contact to more active and integrative software, and that’s good news for all.

3. Create a Better Content Calendar

As blogging and social media have taken a more important role in marketing campaigns, we’ve seen a move toward using content calendars to organize efforts across different media. Spreadsheets have come in handy, though they require a lot of legwork to set up and manage.

A better way to get visibility into the calendar view of your content and social media is content calendar software. Brands like CoSchedule have developed sophisticated platforms that integrate with tools like WordPress and social media, and that give you the big picture view of the types of content you have scheduled.

4. Manage Projects Smarter

If you work with a team and use a spreadsheet to stay on top of assignments, you know that doing so usually requires more energy than it’s worth. You’ve got multiple people accessing the spreadsheet, and sometimes people can delete the wrong entries or not see notes they need to complete a project.

Project management platforms like Asana let you assign tasks to team member, communicate on projects, share files, and set deadlines. Nothing slips through the cracks!

We must give props to spreadsheets. After all, they lay the foundation for the technology that followed. But when there is a better solution, why not use it? Today’s software industry is chock full of innovative solutions that can make your life and your work much, much easier.

The post 4 Innovative Ways to Organize Data (NOT Using Spreadsheets!) appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Many people believe that excess inventory is less costly than running out of a product. However, keeping too much of a slow-moving item can increase your company’s overhead costs and erode your profitability.

On the other hand, too little inventory means failing to meet and maximize the demand for your products. This will impact your top-line negatively. You also risk customer wrath, or even worse — the loss of your customer’s lifetime business with your company. This eats up your salespeople’s time, energy, and morale. Now they must deal with agitated clients and unmet sales targets.

Remember that your customer service is closely tied to your organization’s capability of fulfilling your customer’s requirements efficiently and correctly.

How do you create an inventory system that can result in a win-win-win situation for your customers, your warehousing department, and your salespeople? One of the most important keys to good inventory management is data.

In this article, we’ll go through the six ways you can use data to always have the optimal level of inventory.

6 Ways to Prevent Running Out of Inventory

1. Use historical sales data to predict purchasing trends.

Sales reports can summarize each SKU’s offtake on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You can then use this information to make decent projections of the quantity you need. Employees also know when you need certain items.

Take note of seasonality, as well as expected highs and lows. Do you experience spikes during month-end? Is there a certain day of the week when your customers usually replenish their stocks? How much additional sales does the holiday rush contribute to your product line? After the season, when should you start trimming down your order quantities?

Historical sales data will also reveal which items are your bestsellers. These are the items that make the bulk of your sales. Make sure you keep a close eye on these items. Review and order them more frequently, if needed.

2. Use software to keep track of real-time inventory levels.

Keeping track of the current inventory that you have on hand will help you decide whether or not it is time to place a new order. It’s important to have a point person to review your inventory levels for each item regularly. That way, you can take prompt action especially during unexpected surges in demand.

If you have a big portfolio of items, manually counting each item every day would be an incredibly time-consuming task. Likewise, it’s prone to human error.

To minimize these potential problems, it’s a good idea to have inventory management software to help you keep track. All-in-one POS software systems have a range of features that can make the process easier for small business owners.

Of course, you still need to check your inventory record versus your actual quantities. Do this periodically to avoid and address discrepancies between the two.

3. Keep lead time in mind when calculating when and how much to reorder.

Different suppliers have varying order-to-delivery lead times. Lead time is the number of days/weeks/months from when an order is placed to when the item reaches your warehouse.

If a particular vendor has a long lead time, make sure that you take this into consideration when replenishing your inventory. Keep in mind that it’s important to negotiate for a shorter lead time. Do this in order to minimize the amount of inventory you need to keep in your warehouse.

If you are a manufacturer, there is also the production lead time to add to the equation. This is simply the number of days it takes to produce your item in your factory (or third-party manufacturer).

4. Set a minimum inventory level to know when it’s time to reorder.

You need to reorder your items when they reach the minimum inventory level so that you do not run out of inventory.

When determining your minimum inventory level, it should not be some magic number that you just pulled out of a hat. Rather, it should be based on your projected sales quantity for a certain number of days. It definitely should not be less than your supplier and production lead time combined.

An illustration might help. If you sell 300 pieces of your product every 30 days, that means your average daily sales is 10 pieces per day. Assuming your supplier lead time is 15 days, then your minimum stock level should be at least 150 pieces (10 pieces x 15 days).

If you are a manufacturer and it takes 5 days to produce your finished product, then you have to add 50 pieces (10 pieces x 5 days), for a total of 200 pieces minimum stock level.

5. Include market trends and projected brand performance into your equation.

Take note of your industry’s outlook and factor in expected growth and decline in your ordering and inventory management.

Are you going to launch a marketing campaign and you’re bullish about your brand’s increased sales? Make sure that your inventory level is enough to meet the spike in demand.

6. Know your warehouse’s capacity and partner with a third-party logistics (3PL) company, if needed.

As your business grows, you will need to order more stocks of your products or raw materials. However if your warehouse capacity is limited, the lack of space might be a challenge for you.

If investing in additional warehouse or personnel is not yet feasible for your company, a fantastic practical option is working with a third party logistics (3PL) company. These companies offer order fulfillment services that can help you save time, energy, and money.

Inventory Management Formula

This is a proven ordering formula. It can work for any kind of business, with some minor tweaks based on your SKU types and industry.

• Total Days = The number of days you want to keep in inventory + supplier and production lead time + buffer days for a possible increase in offtake or unexpected delays.
• Order Quantity = (Average sales per day x total days) – inventory on hand.

Keep in mind that the above formula does not take into account the following:

• Customer order to delivery lead time.
• Shelf life of SKU’s or raw materials.
• Minimum order quantity (MOQ).
• Bulk discounts from suppliers.
• Box, pallet, and finished products sizes and weight.

Bottom Line

When you run out of inventory, you disappoint your customers and give your competitors the chance to snatch them from you.

Keep in mind that some upset clients will never come back to do business with your company ever again. As a result, make it your goal to have a healthy inventory level at all times.

The post How to Make Sure You Never Run Out of Inventory appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Are you setting them up for success? With these four tips and tools, you can improve workflows and make your team more productive.

1. Take the Project Management Out of Email

Project management is a huge time suck. You have to break down large jobs into small tasks and then dole them out to the respective team members. That’s not the hard part. What’s more difficult is tracking deadlines, who’s finished what, and the progress completed.

There are several free tools to manage projects for IT teams in small businesses.

One great platform is Trello. Trello is a project management app accessible on both the computer and on mobile devices. No matter where your team members are, they can access updates about specific projects, see deadlines, find the tasks assigned specifically to them, and get moving. Under each project you can use lists to track each team member’s progression, and assign individual tasks to the person responsible.

Asana is another project management tool ideal for team members. This tool has its own mobile app so team members can log in anywhere, anytime. There is a small learning curve, which shouldn’t be a hindrance for your IT team. Once you get your projects up and running, it’s easy to use.

2. Collaborate Virtually

These days, there’s no reason IT teams need to come together in a conference room to hash out projects that need completing. Save your team hours on drive times by collaborating virtually.

GoToMeeting is a great collaboration tool for bringing geographically diverse teams together online. Send each team member the login link and when you expect them to be on screen, and away you go. You can share your screen, connect on video for a face-to-face feel, or even mute teams if they need to keep working while listening to your message.

Skype is another great tool for connecting virtually. This offers the same features (albeit a little less robust) as GoToMeeting, without the price tag.

3. Share the Big Picture

IT teams tend to focus on problem solving. It’s rare they’re in the trenches with the overall strategy of the business, and that could be a lost opportunity. By looping them in via your customer relationship management (CRM) tool, you can show the importance of their work in keeping the customers happy and dollars flowing into the business.

Insightly is commonly used by small businesses to manage customer concerns with IT departments. Customer relationships teams connect directly with the people in the IT department who can resolve issues with checking out online, problems with the website, or other IT related difficulties. The IT department can see the conversation and have full insight into what the customer needs fixed. This saves hours eliminating the middleman and getting customers’ needs resolved quickly.

4. Allow Virtual Work

Today’s workforce should be less centered on when and where the person is working but whether the employee is getting the job done. This is especially true in the world of IT.

Most IT jobs can be done virtually, which means you can offer your team a tremendous perk by allowing them to work anywhere. Still, as a business, you want to track what’s happening and how many hours your team is spending on IT tasks.

Toggl is a free tool that can help you see the breakdown in hours for your IT team. Using this tool can help you get deeper insight into your IT member’s day than if he was in your office working. It tracks time spent on specific tasks so you can see exactly what’s draining his hours and assess where he could be better utilized in the company.

Time Savings Starts With Tools

Technology today continues to advance in a way that allows you to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time getting work done. By using these tools in your business, you set your team up to be more productive and more effective without working overtime.

The post 4 Time-Saving Tricks to Manage IT Teams appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Be Part of a Small Business Revolution!

Small Business Revolution was a project started by Deluxe in 2015, aimed at showcasing the stories of 100 exceptional small businesses. The event was held again in 2016 and became even bigger, with a competition where one town would win a $500,000 main street makeover. Wabash, Indiana was crowned the winner, and now Deluxe is sharing a special eight-episode series about the town’s revival! This is certainly an inspirational story, but you will also be happy to know that nominations are now open for the NEXT $500,000 small town, small business boost! Find out more by checking out this article.

Click to read $500,000, 100 Stories, and a Small Business Revolution in Small Town America

It’s Time to Reach More Customers

“The companies that are winning are the companies that know their customers.” That’s a quote from Jamie Domenici, the VP of Product and SMB Marketing at Salesforce. Recently, Ramon Ray interviewed Jamie, who had great advice for small businesses that want to reach more customers. According to Jamie, the three pillars of sales and marketing are Find, Win, and Keep, and you can learn more about that by checking out this article.

Click to read Find, Win, and Keep Customers: 3 Pillars of Sales and Marketing Success

Advice for Startup Software Developers

With apps escalating in popularity, software startups seem to be popping up all over the place. There is fierce competition and only the strongest will survive. Want to make sure your small business is one of them? In this article, Ramon Ray interviews Vinay Pai, the VP of Intuit Developer Relations who shares tips for how to build an ecosystem.

Click to read How to Build a Community of Software Developers: Intuit Exec Shares Success Tips

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Join the Small Business Revolution, Reach Your Customers & More appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Small Business Owners Can Capitalize on Freelance Workers

Freelance workers currently make up 34 percent of the United States workforce. Is your small business capitalizing on this group of skilled workers yet? If you said no, you probably aren’t sure what freelance workers offer your company and how to find them. This article will clear up all of your questions.

The article includes an interview with Constantine Anastasakis, the Senior Director of Business Development at Fiverr. Constantine is sharing more about how Fiverr works and how you can use freelance workers to push your own small business ahead. This is a trend every small business owner should be embracing! Learn how to do so by reading this helpful article.

Click to read Fiverr Interview: How to Use Freelancers as Your Competitive Advantage.

Boosting Your Small Biz Security

Hackers do not discriminate – your small business is just as vulnerable as your larger competitors (and perhaps even more so). Security breaches cost money ($3.79 million total in 2015) and they can also cost your customers’ trust. Fortunately, boosting your small business security does not have to be costly or complex. This article covers 6 of the best ways that you can secure and protect your small business.

Click to read 6 Easy Ways to Secure Your Business and Find Peace of Mind.

Calming Down Angry Customers

No matter how focused on customer service your business is, an angry customer will eventually fall through the cracks and you have to know how to successfully deal with them. When someone is yelling at you, it is easy to become frustrated and yell back, but this only makes the matter worse. So how should you deal with angry customers? This article is full of tips on what you can do when things heat up to turn the negative experience around and turn that angry customer into a loyal supporter of your business.

Click to read How to Calm Down Infuriated Customers to Your Advantage.

So what’s on your mind this week – building a remote team of workers, boosting your business security, or dealing with angry customers? Get help with the articles above, and check out the Smart Hustle homepage to read the latest stories.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Capitalizing on Freelance Workers, Boosting Biz Security & Calming Angry Customers appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Your customers are already pinging you through social networks to get your attention. They do this because your inboxes are full (and taking too long to respond) , snail mail is not practical and your telephone lines take too long to be answered.

Customers know that when they send you a message on Twiter, you’re gonna reply because you don’t want to be publicly shamed.

Facebook has done a nice job evolving how companies can use FB Messenger as a customer service tool, as reported by Techchruch. What’s not so great, but expected, is that those companies will now start to flood your messenger inbox with advertising – sigh.

If your customer service is just via a telephone bank or email, you must consider new ways to better serve your customers. Social customer service is one way and don’t forget about live chat as well.

The post Are You Ready To Use Facebook Messenger for Customer Service? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of theoretical marketing and sales advice. Give me some clear, actionable tasks I can implement today. In the past few months I’ve read what seems like every “growth hacking” article on web. I’ve tried some of the ideas from these articles. And you know what? There’s no silver bullet. You just have to do the work. In this post we’ll cover five “hacks” to help you generate more leads and sales from your small business website. These aren’t silver bullets, but they are practical tips you can implement today.

Submit your content to community sites

Share your expertise on Linkedin or Reddit (relevant subreddit’s only), Inbound.org and BizSugar. StartupNation is completely free and started by entrepreneurs. Small Business Bonfire also includes a community full of news and resources. Take 10 minutes to identify the best communities for you and your business. You can go to resources such as Feedly or Alltop to find the best communities for you. Respond to a couple existing questions and share one of your blog posts. It should go without saying that you should give more than you take when joining a community.

Review products you use and love

Crazy about your accounting software? Or your project management tool? Write up a glowing recommendation and send it to their marketing team. Make sure to ask for a link back to your website. Most marketing teams will be grateful for your proactive advocacy and you’ll benefit as well. For one, you and your company will be listed on a prominent website for free. I’m all about win/win marketing! And two, the URL on their site will send “SEO juice” back to your website. Last I checked, everyone can use more backlinks.

Add live chat to your website

Phone and email are old and slow. When visitors on your website want to make a purchase, they are ready to buy now. When they have a question, they want an answer now. Live chat is fast, easy and more comfortable. You can easily add live chat to your website in less than five minutes. Even when you’re not available to instantly message website visitors, live chat software works to collect leads for you. With products like Pure Chat, the chat box converts into an email capture form when you’re offline. Or, you can use mobile apps to chat with website visitors from anywhere.

Live chat also creates better customers. An eMarketer report found that “63% of respondents who chatted said they were more likely to return to the site, and 62% reported being more likely to purchase from the site again.”

Improve your user experience without a designer

Even if your website doesn’t look like it’s from the 90’s, it still may be out of date in today’s world of mobile searching and browsing. When was the last time you checked your own website on your mobile phone? As a small business owner you need to optimize for mobile. In fact, Google announced that mobile traffic exceeded desktop traffic in ten countries in 2015. First impressions matter for new website visitors browsing on web or mobile devices.

It doesn’t have to cost and arm and a leg to have a beautiful web presence. The fastest way to improve your web presence is migrate to a website platform like Weebly, Shopify or Squarespace. Only sell 1-15 products? Consider using Gumroad. Each product offers beautiful templates that are easy to customize and continually update. Use ColorHunt to pick your own set of modern colors. A fresh website will make you and your company look more trustworthy and professional. All of these platforms are already well-designed so you’ll benefit from the improved user experience.

Optimize your site for local search

Build a base of loyal, vocal fans locally. If you haven’t set up a Google My Business account yet, do it today. Creating local community is so important for small business. Even if you have customers nationally or internationally you still likely have local prospects and customers. Setting up your Google profile will get you exposure on Google Maps, Google Search and G+. There’s really no excuse not to list your business. It will help you simultaneously drive web and foot traffic. It won’t take much time if you follow these steps.

The post Is Your Web Site A Sales Lead Machine? Here Are 5 Ways To Turn It Into One. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Make sales and marketing a priority.

Clearly, sales and marketing are key to success, but many small business owners don’t have expertise in these areas. Evaluate a few of the free or inexpensive cloud-based applications that can help you optimize for search engines and improve PPC campaign results, increase lead generation or make it easy to launch and maintain marketing campaigns. If you’re looking for a company that has a wide range of technology services like DevOps & Cloud infrastructure, check out devsdata.com for premium software development services. By getting a help of job insights in sales and marketing activities, you can increase market awareness about your product and allow your team to dedicate more time to improving it.

2. Listen to your customers.

Small businesses need to keep up their needs, with the changing needs of their customers in order to keep an edge on the competition. Ensure that there is a way for customers to voice their feedback and for you to show that you’re listening. Create a forum that allows the people actually using your product to share their experiences. This way, you can monitor customers’ satisfaction, provide great customer service and make adjustments and improvements as necessary. Doing so will build your brand and reputation as a customer-centric company.

3. Simplify day-to-day activities and automate workflows to improve productivity.

Try out a customer relationship management (CRM) or project management solution to help you spend less time on administrative tasks, like inputting customer details and organizing call notes, and more time ensuring that each customer has a positive experience while interacting with your product. For example, Yep Roc, a North Carolina-based music label, prepares for the annual SXSW music festival with the help of its project management tool. Organizers can manage performer contracts, vendors and catering contacts, ensuring that all tasks are completed in time for the show and the audience has the best experience possible.

4. Build and nurture customer relationships.

It’s not impossible to create a personalized experience for each customer. There are simple ways your team can build meaningful customer relationships. Employees who can recall customer details, such as recent purchases, can create conversations around your product. Ensure that your team has access to all necessary customer information so they can easily build high-quality relationships and grow a loyal customer base.

5. Collaborate with your team to brainstorm new ideas.

Whether your team members are in the same office or scattered across the globe, consistent collaboration will increase efficiency and productivity and strengthen the team’s bond. Set time aside each week or month to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of by giving different training or special session arranged for them with the help of job insights, improve your product and create new opportunities.

6. Attract and retain talented employees.

In order to attract and retain high-caliber employees, offer flexible work arrangements. Instead of driving your staff to work an 80-or 90-hour week, respect employees and look after their well-being with balanced work-life schedules. Working hard is important, but taking time to relax and recharge batteries is just as important. Allow yourself and your team to take breaks and de-stress. You’d be surprised what a time-out can do for your mental sharpness and creativity. Also, celebrating the team’s success is key to keeping employees motivated. Bring the team together for a total-office cheers to acknowledge the contribution of the entire team. Or, take a break from the day and go out to lunch together to celebrate wins.

Building a successful business takes time, and it shouldn’t be a sprint. Conquering each of these tasks will allow business owners to reach short-term goals while working toward their long-term objectives. Start today, be consistent and, ultimately, you’ll get where you want to go.

The post 6 Short-Term Goals for Long-Term Success appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.