When you run a business from home, it can often be easy to get distracted. However, in a tough and competitive business environment, long-term success often can come down to how productive an organization is, as well as how on top of cashflow the owners stay.
Happily, the many advances in technology that have shaped the world over recent years make it easier than ever for home-based businesses of all sizes to really compete with the biggest companies around the world.
Many technologies are either free or low cost in this day and age, and can help self-employed workers to save a significant amount of time and money, in areas as diverse as administration, marketing, sales, product development, delivery, and customer service. If you’re keen to find ways to utilize technology more in your organization, read on for some ways you can implement it today.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Technology
If a lot of your time is spent dealing with simple customer service questions or tasks, you should think about utilizing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, which these days is affordable for even small businesses.
IVR is involved any time that a person talks to a computer system (or it communicates back), via a phone or other communication device. The tech lets customers interact with computers directly, rather than having to get their questions answered, or tasks completed, by way of a company representative.
IVR systems greet and direct calls based on the responses given by a caller, and can be used to cover a number of information-collecting and disseminating jobs. The tech helps both customers and businesses. For companies, IVR frees up workers’ time substantially, which increases productivity; while for clients is makes it quicker and easier to get things done.
In particular, the technology is often used to streamline payment transactions. If you’re wondering, “What is IVR payment processing?” think about a time when you have called a company and followed prompts to pay your account over the phone using your credit card, without having to ever speak directly a customer service agent. IVR systems can also help callers to find out account balances or other types of information.
Mobile Payment Processing
While mobile payment processing is appreciated by many customers, the technology is also very beneficial for businesses. When teams can take payments on mobile devices they can be more productive in a couple of different ways.
For starters, many companies send out an invoice to their customers after work has been completed at a client’s site. This involves workers generally having to go back to the office to create and email or post out the relevant invoices for that day, week or month. At a later date, these invoices then often have to be chased up if they’re not paid within a timely manner. With mobile payments though, it’s quick and easy to just type up an invoice on the spot, and then to also accept payment straight away. This saves time in invoicing and follow ups.
In addition, the depth of data that can be collected via mobile payments also help businesses to save time. With this type of payment structure it is easier to track inventory in real time and to stay on top of consumer trends and customer preferences. While in the past this type of information gathering and analysis was really only available to large corporations who could pay for access to reams of data, now even the smallest home-based businesses can get access to helpful details.
As a result, entrepreneurs and their teams don’t have to spend time compiling lots of information themselves. They can then use the data to make important (and quicker) decisions about various areas of business like marketing, inventory levels, and staff rosters.
Mobile Applications
There’s probably no better example of technology that can help workers to be more productive than mobile applications. With millions of apps available today for free or low cost, there really is something to make every task take less time than ever before. Whether you’re keen to save time in the area of administration, marketing, sales, customer service or finance, you’re sure to discover multiple apps that will do most of the work for you.
Take, for example, a system like Evernote. This app helps business people to keep all of their ideas, notes, lists, websites, photographs and more in the one spot and accessible from multiple devices like desktop computers, laptops, tablets and cell phones.
There are also great apps which make it a breeze to put together expense reports each month (e.g. Expensify); those which make tracking time spent on each client account stress free (like Toggl); and those (such as the award-winning Mint) which take the hassle out of setting, tracking and managing business budgets.
