The cost of living crisis is a global challenge and often at the forefront of business owners' minds. Many small businesses are looking for solutions to reduce costs and expenses to maximise their business growth plans. The following article summarises 5 simple tips that could be useful for businesses to consider as part of their operational strategy.
1. Remote working
With businesses across the world now embracing remote and hybrid working arrangements, having a large physical office is not as critical as it used to be. The price of office space can be the most expensive monthly fee for SMEs. If you workers already are embracing remote working then you may be able to take on smaller office space, reducing your rent. If working from home isn’t feasible for your business, other options include relocating to a more affordable space or setting up a virtual office. This gives the impression that your business is operating from a prestigious location whilst in actual fact, you’re working remotely.
2. Introduce Cloud VoIP technology
Traditional phone systems can be expensive and complicated to maintain and use. VoIP powered phone systems offer advantages over traditional phone systems due to the advanced calling capabilities and its customisation potential. Business VoIP providers include robust conference calling features built right into the service. Zadarma offers a cloud VoIP PBX phone system, which is faster and more reliable than physical landlines, making the phone system a much better choice for businesses that need to keep their customer servicing process running smoothly.
A PBX phone system tends to make communication more accessible and efficient, allowing your employees to work flexibly. It comes with less risk of service disruptions, compatibility issues, or other errors because most providers offer extensive customer support.
3. Introduce a CRM system
When looking for software and tools to improve efficiencies, the choice out there is vast. If you had selected one additional communication solution beyond your phone system, then a Customer Management System would be a wise choice. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It's a technology used to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps organisations build customer relationships and streamline processes so they can increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability.
There are a variety of CRM’s out there, some are hugely expensive and robust systems, and more suited to larger businesses. Zadarma has their own CRM, Teamsale. This CRM has been built with small, growing businesses in mind. The system is completely free to access, regardless of the number of employees your company has. Teamsale can assist with automating all traditional customer management processes without any additional costs. Teamsale is fully integrated with Zadarma telephony and PBX services.
The Teamsale CRM is cost effective and extremely easy to set up and start using, instantly providing a central place to store customer and prospect data, track customer interactions, and share information with colleagues. Customer service teams can access every question, every service request, every preference and every past contact detail on each returning customer, providing relevant communication, saving you time and money.
4. Cut unnecessary costs
This is an obvious way to save money. Cutting back on unnecessary business expenses is a no brainer. This could be anything from travel expenses, communication costs, to subscriptions, to office goods and infrastructure costs. The most common avoidable costs include printing, sending and storing documents and so moving these processes online is the best way to save money.
You can often discuss cost scenarios with your supplier to ensure you are on the best deal. For instance, this could relate to energy, printing, communication providers, all who will have cost effective packages available and will be open to negotiate and discuss better pricing and terms. You could start by researching and comparing prices and terms offered by different suppliers. Then, approach current suppliers and ask if they can match or beat the prices and terms offered by their competitors.
5. Marketing and Sales Strategy optimisation
Another consideration is to be mindful of your marketing budget. You can spend huge expenses on marketing and not see the Return On Investment (ROI). If marketing commitments are eating up a large portion of your budget, consider adopting a social media strategy which is more cost effective, and even free in many cases. Furthermore, if you select a CRM with a lead management functionality then you can ensure you are monitoring and prioritising your leads with the intent to buy. Integrating and optimising your sales and marketing strategy will provide efficient focus on ROI, and will allow you to save time in the long run.
Summary - Greater ROI with Teamsale
The Teamsale CRM system, integrated with your PBX phone system, allows you to gain full knowledge of your call performance, as well as your sales and marketing efforts. It is vital you understand whether your outbound emails and marketing templates, as well as your sales call handling techniques are working and effective. You need to evaluate whether communication modifications are required to improve and speed up sales conversion rates.
Teamsale CRM has an integrated email function, allowing your marketing team to have access to centralised and informed data insights. You can analyse data across email and phone channels to understand the effectiveness of your email and general marketing campaigns. The analytical reports provide insight into best performing tactics. These activities can therefore be replicated or optimised to improve and better focus communication performance. This will ensure that you can target the channels with the most effective return on your media, sales and marketing efforts.
Zadarma’s Teamsale CRM offers lead management capability. You can assign leads to agent CRM users through a couple of clicks. You can also add raw leads manually through importing excel files or creating the lead manually after a call. Teamsale offers an automatic lead creation feature during incoming and outgoing calls, which populates the lead automatically. This allows you to optimise your lead pipeline through qualifying the lead once you have completed your activity.
When you optimise your internal processes and focus on the technology that is most efficient and effective, you will fundamentally be saving time and money. Additionally, it is important to not forget your workforce and look after them at this point. Although tighter budgets may be required, ensuring your people are happy can be a lucrative strategy. It’s therefore important to look after and develop your team. This could be through providing your workforce with tools that will help them perform better such as a PBX phone system paired with a CRM system, as well as providing them with opportunities for personal development in the business. Invest in your company culture, stand strong against your company values and offer benefits and rewards to your team, to spur on productivity.
