Establishing an effective workflow process for your company is central to how successful your business will be. Though workflows differ from one company to the next, the end goal is always the same: increased productivity and sales.
If your team is tangled up in emails, deadlines, meetings and software across multiple platforms, you risk not tapping into your company’s true potential. Though some companies operate well enough without a streamlined workflow process, why wouldn’t you want to be better?
The goal of running a business is to exceed your initial expectations, and one way of getting there is through consolidated workflow systems.
Today we will take a look at three companies leading the way in consolidating workflows for businesses of all levels.
Intercom: Communication functions
Whether your website is an e-commerce store, a blog, a portfolio or an information hub, at one point you will need to communicate with your visitors.
Unfortunately, effective communication between website owners and their customers is often overlooked or full of challenges. Things like slow response times, repeated information and inaccurate information can turn a customer away. In fact, 29 percent of customers say they would go to another vendor over a “communication blunder”.
That is why today I am sharing with you Intercom.
Designed as a new way for online businesses to communicate with their customers, Intercom provides ways to communicate via your website, inside web and mobile apps and by email. They have two distinct products for every level of communication making this workflow solution a great option.
- Engage. This product is meant for on-boarding and retaining customers through targeted email and in-app messaging. Automatic emails to customers who drop-off, integration of ‘How-to Guides’ for easy customer viewing and a place to showcase breaking news and encourage upgrades are all included.
- Support. Intercom’s shared inbox allows for a quick and streamlined way to handle all support tickets. You can assign requests to specific team members, get access to customer profiles, and respond either in-app or by email. To improve the support workflow even more, Intercom lets you forward email support requests directly to the shared inbox so nothing goes unnoticed.
If you’re looking to take your communication with customers to another level, consider using Intercom. With everything communication related in one spot, your workflow is going to be smoother than ever.
PRICE: Starts at $49 / month
HotJar: Analytics and feedback
Knowing who is visiting your site, what they are looking for and how they are getting to your site is valuable information in the online world. Having access to this information gives insight into what your customers’ behavior is once on your website so that you can make improvements, increase traffic and engagement, and make sales.
Using the popular and free analytics tool Google Analytics definitely has some benefits. However, I’m here to tell you about HotJar, an analytics/feedback tool that supplements what Google Analytics just can’t provide.
Here is what you get with HotJar:
- Heatmaps images of visitor clicks, taps and scrolling behavior.
- Visual recordings of clicks, taps and mouse movement.
- Funnel diagrams of customer behavior.
- Form behavior to understand why customers don’t convert.
- Poll questions to find out what your customers really want from you.
- Survey creation and results.
- Profile information for research and testing purposes.
Optimizing your website’s conversion rate and improving user experience is all about knowing your customers and what they need. By having these effective metrics available on one unified platform, those in charge of your website’s analysis will have no problem streamlining their workflow and making the information provided work for you.
PRICE: Free (pro starts at $29 / month)
Transpose: Team and project management
Running a business is a lot of work. There is a lot of information that needs to be saved regularly and if you’re not careful to keep it all organized you will find yourself wasting precious time that could be better spent growing your business.
Today I will share with you the ultimate project and team management tool that will improve your workflow tenfold. It’s called Transpose and it will change the way you look at business management forever.
Transpose focuses on the structuring, storage, and management of business related projects, records, inventory, and forms. Not only does it help you coordinate your daily tasks, it also helps you maintain good housekeeping when it comes to your business’ “paperwork” and processes.
Transpose replaces the individual information management tools you had to access one by one to get different tasks done. With its easy user interface and convenient drop & drag feature, you can create templates from over 30 different fields for things as simple as a to-do list to as complex as a website design overhaul.
When using Transpose you remain in complete control. You can designate what information can be seen by which team members, record meetings/memos/audio notes that automatically convert into text form, assign collaborators to projects, provide electronic signatures, and connect to Google so all of your contact information is accessible. Plus, each team member can choose how they view their information (Kanban, Table, Calendar or Chart).
This single app runs on Mac and Windows, any mobile device, syncs across all platforms, and even runs offline. You can easily search using the intelligent filter and sort feature, and store all of your business’ important documents in one central place. By combining all of these needed functions into one single project management tool, Transpose will keep your entire business organized and efficient.
PRICE: Free (Prime plan is $14.99 / month)
Final Thoughts
Inefficiency, frustration, unorganized, complicated. These are all words you never want to hear when it comes to describing your company’s workflow.
By taking advantage of the above-mentioned leading workflow tools, you will never hear those words associated with your workflow again.
Communication with customers will be more clear, organized, and helpful hopefully leading to more sales. The way you analyze your website will be more complete with metrics that free tools don’t provide and chances for feedback directly from your number one asset, your customers. Your tasks, records, and loose end notes will be centralized into one accessible location so your time is spent elsewhere growing your business.
If you’re looking to improve your overall workflow in any of these three areas, communication, analytics/feedback or overall project management, I highly suggest you take a look at Intercom, HotJar and Transpose. You, your team and your customers will be thankful for your company’s improved productivity and efficiency.
Read next: 6 tips for better project management
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