A strong and growing business needs to rely on tools more and more in 2021. Luckily there has never been a better time to be on the market for things to help your business grow and be more productive. Here is a list of some of the must-have tools that any small business needs.
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A great website
While a website isn’t necessarily a tool per se, using it to get your business in front of customers online could be considered using a tool. A great website is vitally important to any business nowadays. When designing a quality website, it needs to have the following features in order to maximize your customers retention and purchase rate:
- It needs to be professionally done
- It needs social links
- It needs an easy way to buy if you provide e-commerce
- It needs to be mobile friendly
- It needs to be responsive
A great website can increase sales by a significant margin for any company and by having a user-friendly site you can help you achieve a higher retention rate.
Efficient onboarding process
One great way that a company can boost productivity is by establishing an efficient hiring and onboarding process. This allows you to hire better employees and have them go through training more quickly. This becomes more and more important as your company grows. To make a hiring system sustainable requires a filtering system on resumes, a well thought out and consistent interview process, and an employment history check to fully vet your new hire. After that, you want to make sure that your training and onboarding system is as streamlined as possible. This will give you great employees ready to meaningfully contribute to your company sooner rather than later than later.
Video conferencing system
This has become especially important nowadays with the amount of employees that work remotely. Every business needs to find their favorite video conferencing system that works best for their company. Some conveniences to look for include:
- Multiple webcam views – The software needs to be able to accommodate multiple people at once.
- A chat function – It should allow teammates to converse without interruption the speaker.
- Ability to record – This feature is great for company records/training purposes or to keep your employees on the same page when problems or questions arise.
- Screenshare capability – This is a very convenient feature that makes dealing with technical problems much easier.
Customer relationship management software
CRM software allows you to become familiar with your customers by collecting and compiling data from the various ways you interact with them, which include web page interactions, phone, email, chat, surveys, and social media. This information can then be used to better communicate with and sell to your customers.
Marketing automation software
Marketing automation software will automate marketing tasks for your business such as your email, social media, text, and digital ads. It can also compile and track data through various marketing campaigns and offer reports on how effective they were based on your return on investment.
Reputation management software
Your reputation is the lifeblood of your small business, which is why it’s essential that you are aware of and responsive to any and all reviews your business may get on the many platforms out there. A good reputation management software will aggregate reviews from all of your social media platforms and collect them in one convenient place so you can make sure that you have a consistent voice in all of your responses.
Social media management software
A good social media presence is one of the easiest and cheapest ways in which a business can market nowadays. Social media management software must allow for you to not only post on your social media platforms, but it should allow you to keep track of your postings, help you schedule new ones, manage multiple accounts, and automate responses to customers.
As your company grows, you and your team might find it more and more difficult to keep up with the many tasks it takes to run a business in 2021. The technology listed above will streamline your processes, help you overcome common business challenges, and put you in the best possible position to help you grow this year.
