6 Online apps start-ups need to use
When you’re a fledgling business, you need all the help you can get. When running a young business, you’re pulled in every direction and quickly become the king or queen of multi-tasking. Using online apps or ‘cloud software’ can make your life so much easier, it can save you precious time, automate repetitive tasks, provide you with important data insight, and help you get ahead in your business.
We have listed the software we would recommend you use when you’re starting out. Most of the software is either low-cost or has a free option and will really help streamline your business
Calendly
Calendly allows people to directly book a meeting with you on your calendar. This is really helpful because it stops time being wasted with emails back and forth to agree on meeting times. It syncs with your calendar and if you operate internationally will sync to your client’s time zone. Not only does it save time it also helps you to look professional.
Schedule sales calls: E-commerce companies can use Calendly to schedule sales calls with potential customers. By providing a link to a Calendly booking page on your website or in your email signature, you can allow prospects to easily schedule a call at a time that works for them. This can help to improve the customer experience and increase conversion rates.
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Manage customer support tickets: If your e-commerce company offers customer support via phone or video calls, you can use Calendly to schedule appointments with customers. This can help to ensure that your team is available to assist customers at a time that is convenient for them and can reduce wait times and frustration. Calendly also ensures that your calendar is always up to date and reduces the risk of you forgetting a meeting or double booking an appointment.
Google Apps
Google Apps allow you to create spreadsheets, word documents, manage your emails and many more options in the cloud. This means you can work anywhere from any device, easily share documents and have multiple collaborators on a document simultaneously.
As more and more e-commerce business owners are deciding to work from remote corners of the world, Google Apps allows you to continue to run your business from anywhere with an internet connection. Additionally, Google Apps has an ‘auto-save’ option so if your interest access is unexpectedly cut off, your work will be saved and ready to access once Wi-Fi has been restored.
Xero
Xero is the perfect bookkeeping software and our firm favourite. It allows you to sync up your bank account so you can easily reconcile your bank transactions. We love it because it’s so user-friendly but as your business grows you can sync up other apps to provide a whole integrated financial system.
Again, Xero is a cloud-based software so your business data and accounts can be viewed from anywhere whenever you need. Xero is the ultimate accounting software and acts as the financial hub of your business. Xero eliminates manual data entry and ensures your business data is always 100 per cent up-to-date and accurate.
MailChimp
Once you have built an email marketing list MailChimp lets you send out free marketing emails to clients. Their templates are super easy to use, and you can use it for general marketing, newsletters, offers etc.
By using MailChimp, you can create impactful and effective email and social media campaigns that target your audience directly. When you use MailChimp, you get detailed analytics about how your email marketing strategy is performing so you can easily identify what works for your brand and what needs improving. What’s more, its generous free package makes it appealing to small businesses starting out.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics provides you with important data from your website. You can see where the visitor has come from, how many visitors a day to your site, what pages they are looking at and so much more.
By collecting data from your website, Google Analytics can create reports that provide significant insight into your business. This data is essential for optimising your site and helping you to generate even more sales leads.
These insights will also allow you and your e-commerce brand to identify your target audience, understand user behaviour, and provide invaluable information on how to improve SEO and your content marketing.
Slack
Internal communication is a problem on the best of days, however, when employees work remotely from multiple locations across the world it’s even harder. That’s where Slack comes in, it offers chat rooms, direct messages, and private groups. This allows you to keep up-to-date on the going on of your company without having to chat with your staff face-to-face.
Slack is a great place where employees can remotely come together to share ideas, make decisions, and improve efficiency. With this communication platform, your teams can communicate quickly with each other in a secure and efficient manner.
To conclude
Building up the correct mix of software is vital to get your business off to the best start. Getting it right at the start will save you countless problems later down the road and can even turbocharge your business growth. Often for free or a small monthly price you can utilise software to increase your efficiency and enhance your professionalism.
Better yet many of the software options can be integrated together to further enhance business proficiency
Contact Ecommerce Accountants
We are accountants who cater specifically to e-commerce businesses. We’ll provide you with an online accounting system that will enable you and us to have easy access to the latest figures at all times. We can port over your existing data from any accounting system (even Excel) and offer bookkeeping and an app advisory service as standard for all of our clients. If you are looking to take the next step, our team are always happy to help, so get in touch today.
The best time to start is now.
Related articles
https://unicornaccounting.co.uk/blog/7-remote-working-destinations-ecommerce-entrepreneur/
https://unicornaccounting.co.uk/blog/4-of-the-best-e-commerce-ideas-2020-has-to-offer/
https://unicornaccounting.co.uk/blog/free-shopify-apps/
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