What are the top three “must do” technology upgrades for small businesses?
A small business owner’s most valuable resource is time, and smart, low-cost automation of business processes can make work more efficient, said Florence Hardy, director of the Small Business Development Center at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
She is the creator of Werkflow, a free online dashboard that lets businesses keep track of the software they use.
Hardy recommended three essential yet affordable upgrades for small businesses.
—Develop your voice with customers. Businesses should use email marketing and customer retention tools so employees can focus on using the same voice for all kinds of messages.
“Any correspondence that goes out to customers should be continually monitored because that is how a customer will build a perception about a business,” Hardy said.
—Let your employees chat. Small businesses can take advantage of free versions of internal communication tools such as Slack to encourage collaboration and make sure everyone in a small team understands what’s happening in the company and why.
“There’s little risk in doing it if there’s a free version or free trial,” she said.
—Document how things get done. “Who answers the phone? A lot of businesses don’t document their processes. They give that responsibility to a person who creates a process, and then that person leaves,” Hardy said.
Instead, small businesses can use simple technologies such as word processing tools or video to explain, step-by-step, how employees should do certain tasks. Those guides can make it easier to train future employees or let others step into new roles.
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