Small businesses all around the world are becoming more dependent on technological advancements to strengthen and improve their product development, customer relations, and marketing efforts. Utilizing new technologies are a great way to one-up competitors, especially with computer and internet advancements, in fact, these technologies have the potential to make or break a business.
There’s No Denying the Fact That…
When it comes to businesses, regardless of the type of business you have or how big your company is, your customers are essential to the success of your business, right? Yes. The quality of your product or service is essentially what will keep customers loyal.
Great customer service is very important being that we are living in a day and age where customers have several opportunities to go with a competitor if your company isn’t giving them what they want or need. That reason alone is why it’s detrimental to your business to get acquainted with the new technologies that help better meet the needs of your customers.
Strategy 1: Embracing Social Media
An effective social media strategy can be very beneficial to the success of your business. It can greatly enhance your company’s branding as well as its overall visibility, it can be an added line of communication to interact with potential clients and customers, and it can be that vehicle to drive traffic to your website, so long as your website has good content and design that’s worth the traffic. You can look at social media as another avenue of digital marketing, and according to Forbes.com, small businesses can grow immensely through digital marketing.
You’ll first want to identify the social media platforms that people frequent on a daily basis (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). Next is when you’ll need to create that strategy to get people interested with good content and helpful information that will make you stand out from your competitors.
Social media is also a great way to get feedback on your product or services. Some business owners shy away from taking feedback about their business and that’s one of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make. Your business will not be perfect but in order to get it on the right pathway to perfection, you need to take the good with the bad and your customers are your lifeline to that.
Strategy 2: Take Advantage of Outsourced Services
The word “outsourced” makes business owners cringe sometimes, but it’s really not as bad as they think it is. If you’re a business owner, your main goal is to increase sales, which will increase your revenue, right? Yes. So with that being said, your main focus needs to be on the business.
Sometimes in order to fully focus on your business, you need help with some of the smaller, yet still important, aspects that are required to successfully run a business. These outsourced services are especially important if your business is all web-based, and no physical business office. Take a look at these services that can great;y improve your business:
Virtual Receptionist
A virtual receptionist is a phone answering service that will allow you to not answer the phone all day and give you more time to focus on business development… all without having to hire a full-time receptionist.
This type of service can do call-backs for you, take messages, and schedule appointments. The word “virtual” is really what makes business owners skeptical about the service, thinking that it’s going to be some type of robot answering their customer inquiries, but the reality of these virtual receptionists is that customers will speak with a live person. Once business owners find that out, they’re way more open to the service and benefit tremendously from the service.
IT Consulting Services
As a small business owner, it can be very expensive to have a full-time IT department and unnecessary if you work remotely. Hiring an IT service to take care of your technical issues as needed, will be your better option. If your business is ready to go to the next level, then consider all the benefits associated with IT consulting services.
- Support for onsite and remote businesses
- Managing firewalls
- Backing up servers
- Updating software
- Repairing and replacing computers
Strategy 3: Utilize Web-Based Payment Systems
Regardless of the product or services you’re offering to customers, web-based payment systems make it easier to send and receive payments. There are several payment options available for you to choose from, and some of them are easily integrated into business accounting programs.
With this particular technological advancement, it allows your business access to more potential clients simply because being able to accept other methods of payment
Take-Away
I hope you found this article beneficial and helpful to you. Being a small business owner, especially starting out, you may not have too much to work with and funds are probably limited. The theme of this article had that aspect in mind of doing more with less. Hopefully one of these technology applications can benefit your business on its way to success.
