You might have been quite flexible already with where people work in your business or working remotely might be completely new to you. If you’re going to be able to properly support your customers there’s a real need to become a fully remote business. With nearly all sectors on lockdown, your business must make the most of the available online and cloud resources, so you can continue to do business and maintain contact with your customers.
We’ve highlighted 5 key areas you need in place to keep your business running.
1. Remote working set-up
With everyone except key workers now self-isolating at home, your business won’t be able to operate from the usual office space. So, having the ability to work remotely is going to be crucial.
Many businesses will already have embraced cloud technology in some form. A lot of companies already use Google Drive which is a great place to collaborate on text documents and spreadsheets. While you might have been used to managing work and projects as they arise in the office this doesn’t often translate well when you don’t see people in person. To manage projects more efficiently while working remotely, tools like Trello are often used.
2. Video calling platform
Contact with your customers is obviously going to be limited during the current lockdown. So, most of your communication is likely to happen online.
A video-calling platform allows you to have group meetings, reviews or one-to-one confidential meetings with your customers, without leaving your home. Video platforms, like Google Hangouts, Zoom, Skype, or Microsoft Teams, provide the audio-visual functionality needed to see your customers in real-time – allowing you to connect with them through these challenging times.
3. Online messaging for your team
Staying in touch with your team when you’re all working from different locations will be tricky. Some form of online or instant messaging will be vital if you’re going to overcome this.
Obviously, you can still pick up the phone to talk to each other, but online messaging can be more productive, allowing the whole team to interact. A team messaging app, like Slack, can help to build some team feeling when working remotely. And having a WhatsApp group for the team makes it easy to quickly send out short messages and updates to each other. Staying in touch and keeping motivated is likely to be a critical factor in success while in lockdown.
4. Emergency updates for clients
Keeping your customers updated as the crisis evolves is a vital service, allowing you to reassure your clients and provide some proactive assistance.
Many small businesses are facing a highly uncertain future over the coming months, so any resources, tips, links and advice you can share will be incredibly helpful. Online communication is likely to be a key part in starting conversations about how you can help customers.
5. Cloud-based CRM system
Managing your client interactions, inquiries and follow-ups can be hard enough under normal circumstances, but it’s more difficult when your team is working remotely.
To stay fully in control of client interactions whilst in lockdown, you need a client relationship management (CRM) platform that works in the cloud. An online CRM system, like Capsule, provides one cloud-based point of truth for all your client information – allowing everyone in the team to access and update client notes, campaign details and contact information.
CRMs give you online control over your client information, emergency communications and follow-up tasks during the tough times that lay ahead to base your emergency emails around – and a key suite of tools to help you stay in control of your conversations with affected clients.
We hope you found some useful tools from our team and feel more confident about working away from the office.
