Small businesses notoriously run a tight ship, but pushing the hustle to its limit can stifle growth and effectiveness. Avoid burnout and reduce potential errors by leveraging tools and technology in your operations.
Enhance your employee and client experience through technology, allowing your people to focus on value-added work and client service. You’ll save time, maximize profitability, and potentially retain top-tier employees and high-value clients with these enhancements.
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1. Accounting And Invoicing Software
No matter what business you’re in, you need to facilitate invoicing. Generally, there are patterns and similarities between your invoice expectations and payment terms. Utilize accounting software to automate bookkeeping, invoicing, and even payroll.
Use your software to generate quotes, submit for client approval, and follow the invoice lifecycle.
Automate invoice distribution upon job completion and schedule reminders if and when invoices approach or pass their due dates. Review your client agreements to ensure your processes match across the board.
Sometimes, organizations whose invoicing practices have been less consistent will find opportunities to tighten payment terms and improve cash flow. Additionally, your teams can spend less time drafting invoices, manually, and following up on delinquent payments.
By removing the guesswork, you regain time and put positive pressure on clients to pay on time and in full. If your payment terms include the addition of penalties on late payments, and that rule into your software to consistently recoup additional fees.
2. Scheduling Tools
Today, people are less inclined to make a call for any reason, let alone to make an appointment. While theoretically painless, finding the time to make a call during normal business hours can pose a challenge.
Organizations offering self-scheduling tap into a large market of individuals whose preferences and schedules require self-service.
Use scheduling software that simplifies scheduling meetings with business clients, reducing needless email chains. This can help you connect quickly, discuss your would-be clients’ needs, and close the deal. Your team can be more nimble, responsive, and more prepared thanks to information gathered through your self-scheduling intake form.
Online appointment scheduling for customer work can include automations for appointment reminders that help clients and companies. For example, a self-scheduling an appointment for a haircut can easily be forgotten. Self-scheduling tools offer instant additions to your personal calendar and embed text and email reminders as your appointment approaches.
These reminders are common today, even viewed as an expected service, and can reduce no-shows and client experience.
3. Email Marketing Platforms
Direct communication with your clients and leads is one of the most effective ways to engage their attention. No matter your business, you need to be embedded in their thoughts to have a chance at making a sale.
Use email marketing software to manage customer contacts and establish a communication schedule with your clients. Prioritize creating a robust client profile, where you define the client type as a lead or an existing client.
This can help you ensure they receive on-target communication and offers relative to their client type.
Email marketing software also allows you to draft emails that look professional, on brand, and reach a large audience. These platforms also provide delivery statistics to determine which message types are most effective and can help inform future campaigns.
You’ll determine what information within the email is most interesting to clients and create rules for future communication based on an individual’s engagement.
Include a coupon in a re-engagement campaign and, when the system sees they’ve opened the email, automate follow-up messages. By automating follow-up messages, the system drives nurturing efforts based on client actions and interests instead of mass campaigns.
This strategy can help improve your close rate and inform your team of the most effective marketing messages.
4. Social Media Management And Automation
Many people turn to social media to understand the culture and reputation of a business. However, many small businesses fail to invest time and effort into their social media presence. This mess is understandable, considering the extensive effort running a small business requires.
However, leveraging social media management tools, both native to platforms and external, can help effectively share your story and establish your brand.
Native tools offered through social media platforms often yield the best results. This is because social media sites want organic engagement over pre-scheduled posts through a provider. Assess both options from a management perspective to determine what makes the most sense for you.
Native tools on Facebook and Instagram allow pre-scheduling posts and offer suggestions for the best times to publish. Devise a content strategy that effectively tells your story, provides value, and engages potential clients.
A residential landscape artist can post before and after photos of every job to showcase their portfolio and problem-solving abilities. A client wanting to install a patio may have existing drainage issues for their desired site.
Share the story of how you identified the source of the problem and delivered a beautiful patio for your clients. The job may be straightforward, but the story conveys the additional value of clients working with you versus another contractor.
Employ Smart Tech To Amplify Your Teams
In an effective organization, technology serves the needs of employees and clients. By reducing non-essential touch points, technology allows your folks to focus on unique and novel experiences centered around service. Your clients can receive answers, book appointments, and have a seamless experience when technology and teams collaborate.
Evaluate potential software and tool additions with your power users, testing them and trialing their effectiveness in realistic scenarios. Allow time for teams to train and transition methodically, utilizing project management best practices to ensure a successful transition.
When you do, your team can begin to reap the benefits of technology while providing consistent experiences for your clients.
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If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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