Gone are the times when sophisticated tools for business growth were available only to large enterprises that kept growing and reaching immense success while small businesses struggled to keep up the pace. The main reason for that were financial resources, which don’t exactly come so easily to small businesses, especially when they are just starting out.
Fortunately, this is no longer the case, as small companies can now easily compete with the big guns and leave a long-lasting mark on an overcrowded market. What greatly helps them cut through the noise of competition and achieve a lot more growth than ever before are various online tools that they can use. Here’s why they are huge money savers that can significantly contribute to your small business.
Cutting Down on Paper Costs
Technological advances have made it possible for you to store and share documents digitally, and using tools for doing so will help you greatly cut down on your expenses. This means that you don’t need to print and store physical documents anymore, so you can save quite a lot of money that you were used to spending on paper. Of course, you need to print some documents from time to time, but you can start using various online tools, such as Google Docs, for digitally storing and sharing all the necessary information that you need in order to streamline your every business operation.
Not only will moving your documentation to the cloud help you cut down on paper costs, but it will also help you increase productivity and efficiency within your company, as everyone will be able to access all the files they need, whenever they need them. Greater productivity and efficiency will directly contribute to your business growth because all of your employees will be able to complete any given task much faster and more easily when everything is right there at their fingertips.
Allowing Remote Work
With the rapidly growing number of online tools, you can allow your employees to work from home, which can help you save money in more ways than one. You will need less office space, fewer pieces of equipment, and fewer office supplies, all of which will help you significantly cut costs. You will shave a lot of money off your monthly expenses, including your electricity bill.
There are various collaboration and communication tools that can help you enable remote work and make sure that your business remains effective. These tools are also essential for your in-office employees, because they can incredibly speed up every work process. Project management tools are some of the key tools that you should use, because not only will they help you easily plan, organize, execute and manage every single project, but they will also help you collaborate with both your in-office and remote employees.
Automating Tasks and Saving Time
Time is money, so managing time more efficiently enables you to save more money down the line. Using online tools to automate different tasks, such as email marketing and social media marketing, will save you a lot of time and make you more productive. Project management tools are very time-efficient, which in turn makes them cost-effective. You can also use a time-tracking tool to get an insight into how your employees are managing their time and improve your delegation efforts. This will also help with improving productivity and, therefore, it will improve your chances of growing your business.
Interacting with Your Customers
One of the greatest benefits of online tools is that they enable you to communicate with your customers in real-time and build trust with them, thus improving your reputation and credibility. However, not only do those tools help you provide your customers and prospects with a fast and high-quality service, but they also help you save money. Live chat is extremely cost-effective since it enables your customers to get instant answers to their questions without having to dial your call center and wait for someone to get in touch with them.
Having a good ticketing system in place can also be of immense help because it will help your support agents organize every submitted ticket and instantly provide your customers with solutions to their problems. This is especially important because it enables you to create a knowledge base, helping both your agents and customers easily access any information they need.
Yet another excellent online tool you need is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system because it helps you track and analyze every interaction with your customers and, thus, learn more about them. As a result, you can meet their needs faster and increase your sales and ROI.
Training Your Employees
Online tools make it possible for you to easily train your employees, so they can improve their knowledge and skills outside of work as well. You need to find the best eLearning authoring tools that will help you create online courses, surveys, and tests so that you can make sure that your employees improve their work and contribute to the success of your company.
With eLearning software, you don’t have to hire professional trainers for your staff and pay for weeks or months of training, since everyone will be able to access all the learning materials online anytime they want and anywhere they are. Make sure you check out eLearning Software, as it is one of the best tools available which can provide you with detailed reports on your learners’ progress.
These are some of the most invaluable benefits that online tools can provide you with when it comes to saving money and effectively moving your small business up the corporate ladder. There are much more online tools that you should have in your toolbox beside the few aforementioned ones, because one of their main purposes is saving time and money, and that is a surefire way to business success and growth.
