Apps for Businesses – Are You Making the Most of Them?
Raise your hand if you thought your business was good at communication – both internally and externally. Now keep your hand up, if during COVID you still felt that way, and lower your hand if you found “holes” in how you communicate with your staff and your customers that needed patching. If you just lowered your hand, you are NOT ALONE. More often than not, people found some holes. The good news is they are recognizing where they have needs, planning a solution and then the implementation of that solution. Wireless services can play a key role, and the use of apps is just one of the ways your business can communicate better – anywhere, anytime, on whatever device you choose.
Email has always been a big communication tool for businesses, but that alone is just not enough any longer. Your communication needs to keep pace, and it is moving fast. It needs to be productive and solve problems. Working together while apart is easier than it’s ever been, but you need some tools in your belt. You need a mobile device, and the best apps to connect your people to each other, and to a network of knowledge and talents.
Some of the top apps in the past year:
The most obvious are those that somehow involve conferencing, and virtual meetings.
- Flock – chat, video and screen share. Easy to use and it integrates with some of your other tools like Google calendar, Zoom, and Mailchimp. The better your apps work together the less time you spend getting your work done.
- Zoom – now a household word, it’s synonymous with virtual meetings. Easy to use and works for both small and large meetings. The breakout rooms allow more personal connections.
- Google Meet – great if you are already a G Suite user. It’s a secure option for small to large groups, it’s a fantastic choice for quick and easy conferencing.
- Microsoft Teams – integration with Office 365 makes it an easy pick if your business uses their software already.
Additionally, there are many apps that just plain make sense for use in your business, as they will allow you to share documents & data with your team members and access it all in the cloud. One of the main goals is collaboration, working with your team, clients and vendors.
- Dropbox, Google Drive, or One Drive – all to keep your data safe and available to you.
- Salesforce
- Office 365 includes the office software apps many businesses need: Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
- Asana – project management software. Lots of bells and whistles, allowing you to know who’s working on what project, and when.
- LinkedIn Pulse -An organized way to gather news relevant to your industry and interests. News bites as well as professional content collected and sent to you in a quick and easy to use format. You control the content of your feed and choose the sources and influencers that you want to follow.
- Salesforce mobile – every B2B business should have a CRM in place. Salesforce is a great option. Everything you need to access in your regular desktop CRM is included with the mobile version, allowing any B2B owner on the go to make sure that the business is staying profitable and that sales are closed.
- Expenses – There are plenty of expense trackers out there, and Expensify is one of the simplest. It keeps track of expenses and mileage via multiple platforms. Receipts can be scanned and uploaded. Expenses can be submitted by a click of a button.
- Mileage apps – there are many to choose from, some offer free apps if you make limited trips, or for a small fee you can track unlimited trips. So much easier than the old “pen and paper”, and more accurate too. Also along these same lines, if you do a lot of travel for work, check out travel apps that allow you to keep track of your meetings, flights, hotels, expense and everything else all in one spot.
- One of the most obvious items is how your wired and wireless communications work together to better your business. VoIP apps allow you to use mobile devise as an extension of your office phone but keep your mobile number to yourself. They allow chat functions, collaboration tools and so much more. Most integrate with your other business apps too, so make sure you choose one that best fits your needs.
We are your business communications experts, and we love to help you find all the right tools to run your business. We also love feedback, so if there is something you’d like to know more about let us know how we can help!
