Hey small business owner, if you don't mind, I'd like to have a word with you.
Is your small business enterprise adopting any form of technology yet? By technology, I don't mean traditional techs like mobile phones and desktop computers, but modern techs like AI chatbots, Business VoIP, and cloud computing features.
If your answer is YES, then you already know how invaluable these technologies are to a business. But if your answer, however, is a "NO," I'm afraid you seriously have no idea what you've been missing out on.
Modern techs are the new normal in the business world, and countless numbers of small businesses have started embracing their applications.
But for the benefits of those who still aren't applying these innovations in their business environments, we've decided to bring to their knowledge the areas in which businesses like theirs have been adopting them.
Read through our guide to see how you can also incorporate any of these tech ideas into your small business.
Small businesses are now using technology to improve customer relation
One of the biggest forms of modern tech used by most small businesses today is AI chatbots. Everybody knows that customers are the heartbeats of any business. And for a business to thrive, its customer relations service has to be great.
This is why the use of AI chatbots and other virtual customer relations techniques is now becoming more and more prevalent in the business world. Small businesses use this tech to give speedy replies to customers' queries, send personal messages to customers, collect valuable customer data, and improve the overall experience customers have with their brands.
Small businesses are now using technology to communicate
Small businesses also use simple communication tools like Slack to keep conversations flowing within the organization. In the event that there is an information to pass or an event that demands urgent attention, the channel admin will simply drop the gist on the company's Slack channel.
Not only does this help save everyone's time, but it also puts an end to unnecessary meeting calls, as well as delays in information dissemination.
Outside the walls of the organization, small businesses use tools like Zoom to hold virtual meetings with the representatives of any brand/partner they need to transact with.
In addition to this, small businesses now adopt Business VoIP for having near-facetime conversations with people outside the organization (customers and partners). Business VoIP and is the modern form of business phone service for voicemail, virtual receptionists, call forwarding, call recording, voicemail-to-email, conference calling, video conferring, instant messaging, call screening, missed alerts and call logs.
Small businesses are now using technology to improve marketing tactics
Instead of moving from street to street in search of business prospects and new customers, small businesses are now using digital technology to improve their marketing efforts. In what is known as digital marketing, small businesses get the word out about their business to a wide audience using simple techniques like email marketing, content marketing, website SEO, social media marketing, paid targeted ads, etc.
The best part is that many of these digital marketing strategies are known to give better ROI and results than traditional business marketing strategies.
Small businesses are now using technology to cut costs
Some of the major traditional culprits of business costs include staffing, office workspaces, supply chains, and advertisement. Thanks to the advent of modern technologies, small business owners are now hacking down on all these expenses comfortably.
How? You may wonder!
Well, instead of hiring staff permanently, many small business owners contract tasks to freelancers online. Instead of creating workspaces for every employee, small businesses make-do with employees working from home, using tools like Trello, Zoom, and Google Calendar to monitor and guide them.
As far as supply chains go, small business owners now use the internet to investigate alternate and cheaper supply chains, instead of just sticking with the guy in their immediate neighborhood.
Advert costs are much more reduced now, thanks in large parts to the introduction of several advert tools such as online referral programs, cold calling, website ads, social media ads, emailing, and paid ads.
Small businesses are now using technology to improve productivity at work
One of the biggest challenges that have plagued business environments is the issue of efficiency and productivity. More often than not, we hear instances of employees getting tired, people missing deadlines, workers forgetting the details of their tasks, and people intentionally dodging tasks.
However, with the countless numbers of productivity and project management tools that are now out there, small businesses have not only been able to keep their employees working at full speed, but they've also ensured that their business productivity doesn't ever wane again.
Some of the most common tech tools small business owners use to improve the productivity in their organization include Evernote, Google Calendar, Harvest, LastPass, Roboform, Trello, and so much more.
Small businesses are now using technology to ensure security
Apart from the many benefits of using technology for small business owners, the best one is how it impacts the security of the business. Technology can be used to prevent any hacking done by hackers over the original work of authorship.
In this way, issues like copyright infringement and other copyright laws get easily bypassed. Usage of the right amount of technology or rather information technology can prevent any breach of security. With active firewalls and encrypted passwords, avoidance of this particular problem, in the long run, is possible.
Small businesses are now using technology to preserve essential information
A very impactful tool in terms of technology and beneficial for small businesses is the availability of cloud features. The use of clouds and the features can help an individual to reduce the number of computer and software applications in the long run.
They are essential for backups of different documents and other kinds of files, data storage, collection of PDFs and images, for both individual needs and team collaborations.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of sciencetimes.com
