Why Technology is Important for Business?
No matter what is the size of the business, or what product it deals in, technology is very important for your business. Technology not only helps you generate leads thereby increase the revenue but also help you understand the behavior of your clients of their feedback.
Let us understand, how technology is changing the way you do business or how you communicate with your customers.
Improves Business Communication: All businesses rely on several aspects of technology for communication such as email, instant messaging, skype, video conferencing, etc. Communication failure can lead to business disasters. The technology ensures that you can communicate in even the most difficult situations. Thus, technology plays a very important part in improving business communications.
Increases Efficiency: There is no secret that there have been advancements in technology in recent years. Advancements are strategically designed to improve efficiency and reduce laytime in office.
Protection of Important Assets: Cyber attacks have been growing since the past few years, so too are cybersecurity defenses. In an era where all the important business data is stored in the cloud or on endpoints, it is necessary to employ security technologies to protect the data. There are various tools and software available that safeguard the confidential and important data of a company from being hacked.
No Limitations: Businesses across the nations are diverse in needs and cultures. Technology helps these businesses to spread their empire throughout the globe. There is no limit to what you can accomplish with the help of technology advancements. Great targets can be achieved with it.
Saves Time and Money: Now, technology performs various tasks for which we used to depend on the manual efforts. This allows employees to focus on other important duties. It saves money by cutting employee expenses and improves productivity.
Increases Business Capacity: Technology allows a business to reach more people in less time. Businesses use a variety of technology mediums to communicate the clients, potential clients, and experts. Webinars, e-newsletters, and blogs are hosted by technology. That is why it increases the capacity of businesses to work together through CRMs.
Improve Work-Life Balance: Technology also enables employees to maintain a work-life balance. From work-from-home to work at remote locations, improved network connectivity allows employees to work smoothly. Most businesses work paperless, so employees are also able to work at flexible hours outside the office.
It can not be denied that technology ultimately made living worthwhile. So, one has to be responsible enough in utilizing the power of technology and enjoy its benefits.
6 Ways to Keep Your Customers Happy
An important key to your business success is keeping the customers happy and satisfied. It not only plays a major role in helping a business reach new heights but also ensures a good brand reputation. On the other side, poor customer service can cost a lot to a business. It not only affects the company’s profits but also results in loss of customers and a bad reputation.
Hence, it becomes very important to retain old customers while making new ones, and ensuring that you enjoy an edge over your competitors. It also increases the lifetime value of customers and boosts the revenue of the company.
However, due to the great competition in the market and a vast variety of products and services, it becomes difficult to maintain the client base. We have listed some ways through which you can provide a better service experience to your customers and gain their loyalty towards your business.
Personalize your Communication: Connect with customers with personalized and one-to-one communication. Talk to them like your own people, like your friends. Understand what your customers expect from you and try to engage them through social media – reply to their comments and try to frequently answer their queries. Use customers’ names in emails. Find ways to show your business’s personality and engage customers in it.
Listen to your Customers: Communication is the most important factor in providing excellent services. Be attentive to your customers and listen to them carefully. Understand their needs, make notes, and try to solve their queries as soon as possible. It prevents misunderstandings and miscommunications that are the most common problems in service settings.
Ask for Feedbacks: Customers have an opinion about your company. No matter if it is negative or positive, they share it with people eventually. That is why it is important to give your customers better service. Provide them the facility of customer reviews on products so that other potential leads can also benefit from it. If the company acknowledges and acts on their feedback, it sets a precedent that automatically benefits the company.
Be Consistent: You need to be consistent in providing quality services to make them happy. Let them know that their satisfaction is your business’s goal. Improve the channels of communication and schedule meetings with employees in order to get any new ideas that might help to increase the customers’ satisfaction
Be Realistic and Transparent: The idea of under-promise and over-deliver is the best practice that can help you gain the trust of your customers. Customers share their experiences with other people. So, set realistic expectations and satisfy clients to make them happy.
Add a Loyalty Program: Add a loyalty program to your business. Various offers and incentives prompt your customers to keep coming back to your business. When they get rewards, they feel good. This is an easy way to make customers feel that your company cares about them.
Business needs to be focused on customer relationships. Be sensitive to their time and requirements. Understand them and stay in touch with them always. Then only they will be loyal to your brand and will help you build an exceptional organization.
How to Scale up Your SME Business?
The difference between a small business or a startup and an established successful company is time and experience. Keeping a business up and running it smoothly is a very immense task. A business requires a constant monitor and consistent improvements. You also need to plug the loopholes that can harm your business. To see yourself scaling up with time, you need to understand the business trends and also keep yourself updated with corporate compliance rules. Do not forget to utilize social media platforms, as they are an important tool to speed up your business growth.
To boost up your business, you are required to put effort, should focus on the long term goals and maintain a sound relation with the customers. This is the way to go a long way and establish the image of your business in the market.
It is not important whether you are a small business or a medium one, these are a few steps that can be helpful to improve your business prospects:
Keep a Detailed Record of Your Data: To improve the performance of your SME business, keep an eye on the daily, weekly, and monthly sales figures, profit margins, and maintain a proper report of these. In this way, you can analyze the financial trends of your organization and also identify the sales pattern.
Boost Your Marketing Strategies: To meet the plans successfully and to meet the monthly and yearly targets, it is recommended to make a full-proof marketing strategy. Implementing high impact marketing strategies would pay high dividends. In the beginning, make a trial of one or two marketing ideas and analyze their consequences. The best way to promote your business is the use of social media platforms as it involves low cost and maximum reach. Tactfully organizing the marketing plans will be helpful to make a network of loyal customers and encourage your business.
Monitor Market Trends and your Competitors: If you want to improve your business, you will have to keep track of your competitors. To figure out where you are lacking and where you need improvements, you must ploy of your competitors. Research about them and streamline your business accordingly.
Set Realistic Goals: It is a very important part of a business. It does not matter whether the goals are small or big, these should be realistic and achievable. Use these goals as stepping stones to move forward with your business.
Running a business smoothly does not always mean achieving the targets and following the trends. You also need to be determined and should have out of the box attitude. This will take your business to uncharted heights. Motivate your employees and achieve the unachievable for your SME business.
Steps you Need to Take:
Areas to Assess:
How Modern B2B E-Commerce Business Will Thrive With These Trends?
E-commerce is one of the most thriving sectors in India and has changed the shopping pattern of individuals. Gone are the days, when people used to shop for fashion from these online stores. Today, even B2B sector relies on online shopping for their industrial and business supplies.
This positive shift in the shopping trend of the customers has been welcomed by the online marketing sector, which raised a number of entrepreneurs venturing with various products. However, this has increased competition in the market.
B2B e-commerce business has opened immense opportunities for the online industry, and the following has been forecasted for Indian e-commerce:
Growth in Marketing
Marketing and branding activities are an important part of e-commerce sites. Many e-commerce sites have seen a gradual growth in performance-based marketing and have turned out to be a blessing. This offers great profitability. It is important to pay attention to the market that brings in a considerable amount of sales in the future.
Rise in Wallet Usage
With everything shifting to smartphones, businesses have become more digitized in payment. Last year, wallets and online payments were in trend, and in the coming years, the trend is not going to fade away. More and more people are adopting digital and cashless payments. Wallet usage will surely become the preferred choice of payment mode in the coming years.
New Categories to Take Over the Stakes
Now, Indian e-commerce companies are not only limited to fashion, food, and grocery; they have entered in categories like electronics, tech, and gadgets. New entrepreneurs have set their foot to create, capture and dominate various categories that have a regular impact on our daily lives.
Digital Transformation for B2B Sector
B2B business can save up to 90% on sales and operating costs due to B2B e-commerce websites. Digital transformation will help in bringing speed, predictability as well as profitability to the B2B segment.
Customer Care and Engagement will be Crucial
The existence of customer support services allows nearly instant feedback. This feedback keeps sales executives aware of the improvement areas. In the future, there will be a more tech-based approach to this. It will likely help businesses handle real-time customer queries.
More Emphasis on Data Analytics
Every e-commerce company relies on data analytics to drive decisions. This practice will grow in the future as more specific data tools become available. Data analytics can also be used to drive traffic to the website and also to drive the right offers to the user base. Data-driven campaigns always perform better and the scope of data analytics will surely increase in the upcoming years.
Virtual Shopping Experience will Increase
The time is changing and so is the shopping experiences. The key purpose of e-commerce sites is to bring the shopping experience alive for the customers. With e-commerce websites, you get an option to visualize how a product is without actually going to a store.
Artificial Intelligence
In this era, artificial intelligence is a part of our everyday lives. This will also play a key role in e-commerce as we rely more and more on our mobile devices. At present we have features that suggest our products based on our purchase history, browsing history, likes, etc; however, in the coming years, the tools will become more specific and provide us suggestions more accurately.
Now the technology is evolving every day, and with this, the shopping and e-commerce trends are also changing. Now e-commerce aims to increase sales and multiply the number of online shoppers. The above-mentioned trends just not only aims at enhancing the operation of a website but also focuses on complete customer satisfaction. With so much to be implemented in the e-commerce sector, the B2B e-commerce industry is sure to thrive more avid.
Government Subsidy Schemes for MSMEs
SMEs and MSMEs are the backbones of the Indian economy. However, in order to sustain the cut-throat competition from the big giants in the industry with its limited access to resources and technology, the SME and MSME sector needs proper assistance and support. This is why the government provides subsidies and rebates to small and medium enterprises.