In these days of rapid technological innovation, technology has become a buzzword. Businesses talk about technology in the abstract, as if it was more an idea, and less a set of tools for practical implementation. When the idea of technology becomes divorced from the practicality of technology, businesses do some weird and wasteful things in the name of modernization.
Before you purchase another piece of tech for your business, you need to assess what practical purpose that tech is supposed to serve. The number one reason to add tech to your business is that it makes your business more efficient, and more money as a result. If it doesn’t do that, you should leave it on the shelf.
Here are three types of office tech that can make your business instantly more efficient:
Call Handling Tech
There are a variety of reasons why you want to use a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution over a Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) for your business. Even traditional enterprise solutions are less efficient for the small business. Here are four advantages to a VoIP:
- Better sounding calls – High quality sound gives your business a professional polish that conveys a subtle, but useful advantage over the competition.
- Less expensive – If you opt for a SIP trunking solution, you only pay for the time you need. This can save you hundreds of dollars over traditional solutions.
- Call recording – Your business call recording needs can be done even over company provisioned mobile phones. This feature is useful for training and call accountability.
- Use any phone as a business phone – You no longer have to pay $200 a seat for each person in the call center to have a phone. Your PC or personal mobile phone can be provisioned as a business phone.
VoIP is a lot more than a buzzword. It is technology that can start saving you time and money from day one.
Go Paperless
Let’s get one thing straight: No one is going paperless anytime soon. Rather than thinking of paperless as no paper, we should think of it more literally as less paper. And less paper is a laudable goal, as it is good for the planet, and good for your bottom line. Because, remember, every time we use paper in the office, we are also talking about ink or toner, not to mention pens, staples, and the like.
One of the areas where less paper can be used is the sign-in sheet: the kind you encounter in a doctor’s office. But this is not just about saving paper. It is also about security, client confidentiality, and just all around doing a better job at securing personal information.
There are a number of sign-in apps that work extremely well with the iPad: a device likely already in use at the office. Technology can also be used to capture signatures on the spot when the exact form is not available or handy. Outsides sales departments can do more business when they no longer have to worry about not having form 26-A, because they used the last one at the previous appointment. Less paper means more business, and better security.
Go Mobile
Many businesses are waking up to the fact that their potential customers are out there, not sitting patiently in the waiting room, ready to hand you money. That being the case, you have to be out there as well. To do that, you have to take your business mobile.
These days, laptops are taking the place of desktops. And smartphones are taking the place of laptops. In a couple of years, smartwatches will take the place of smartphones. While tablets are in a bit of a decline, Apple is hoping to lead a comeback with the launch of the iPad Pro. It will stand toe-to-toe with the Microsoft Surface Pro for your business dollar. Choose one. These tablets are the future of mobile business.
Technology is more than a buzzword. Between call handling, less paper waste, and going mobile, no modern business can afford to be without it.