Australia’s small and medium-sized businesses invest $2.2 billion each year on digital solutions to help improve their business operations. However, according to a new report by business management platform MYOB, three in five of the 1500 SMEs surveyed are finding some tools actually hinder rather than help their businesses.
These alarming statistics are generally a result of ‘bad’ digitisation, where business and people management, software apps, and tools are not seamlessly integrated. Whilst business owners are increasingly recognising the importance of going digital, this approach falls short of the strategic benefits that arise from well-designed digital strategies. For many small businesses, terms like “systems integrations” and even “digital marketing” can feel intimidating and overwhelming. This can be due to the perceived magnitude of time and investment that might be required to implement them. This is especially the case where the business does not have access to internal or outsourced expertise and capacity for digital adaptation.
Digital solutions should never be hugely complex and business owners should approach any potential digitisation with the rationale being to select technology that solves the problems they need to solve, without causing them the expense of more labour or time. Thankfully, there are now many cheap – or free – tools available for small businesses that make digitisation simple and straightforward.
Live chat is one common tool that many small businesses would like to integrate into their website as they recognise the rising consumer demand for instant messaging. There are plenty of live chat tools available that are affordable and easy to use – for example, Facebook Messenger is a free starting point for a small business to trial live chat on their website. The Facebook Messenger widget can be colour-branded and applied to the website, whilst configuration of Automated Responses, FAQs, and message responses are managed in the business’s Facebook Inbox. This free, simple, integrated approach to trialling a website live chat is well worth the time to set up in order to provide better quality service to your customers and research shows that it yields commercial returns with 79 per cent of business owners saying live chat has a positive impact on their sales, revenue, and customer loyalty. (Source: Webalive.com.au)
Automation is a tech buzzword that leaves many small-business owners feeling like they’re being left behind when it comes to adopting digital into their business and marketing. Thankfully, even automation has been given the user-friendly treatment thanks to tools like Zapier. Zapier allows you to connect different apps to create a workflow that is efficient and time-saving, whether you’re using Gmail, Slack, Shopify, Trello, Instagram or YouTube. Nearly every business can use Zapier as an affordable, user-friendly resource that doesn’t require any special technical skills to get started.
If you’re doing any kind of data entry or repetitive tasks on your computer on a regular basis there’s a high chance that you will be able to automate those tasks with Zapier. A few common uses for Zapier in a small business setting include: passing new customer details to your CRM (customer relationship management) or email marketing system; following up with an email or feedback form after an online sale; or creating a new Trello card whenever you ‘star’ an email in Gmail.
In order to implement these kinds of integrated tools into your own business, it can be helpful to hire a digital expert that understands how to improve business processes and improve efficiencies.
