When you are a small to a medium business owner, you are expected to have all the answers, at any given time. Such as solving problems, intern communication with the employees, finance, production and marketing, and the list goes on. You are constantly searching for ways to make work more effective and at the same time increase productivity for both yourself and your team.
Another thing that is inevitably more important is to streamline the customer experience and satisfaction, making them happy and coming back to buy more is what pays the salary and the bills.
In this article we have collected a bunch of "must-have" business apps for your business that will help you with making decisions faster and accurately, getting more tasks done, keeping track of your progress, and streamline processes across your company.
When it comes to looking for tools that can help you manage your business, there are some key factors to consider and most tools need to tick off these boxes.
• Is the tool affordable?
• Has no commitment plans.
• Is easy to use.
• Is scalable and flexible.
• Offers great customer service.
• The possibility to measure ROI instantly.
Below is a list of apps that are highly recommended to use, and we will provide a couple of reasons why you should use these tools.
1. Decision for Microsoft Teams
Type of tool: Internal communication
You have probably attended a Teams-meeting at some point where the conversation has veered off-topic. Even if you have an MoM (minutes of the meeting) template that you try to follow where you detail agenda topics, action items, and deliverables, keeping to such a strict agenda can be challenging. One potential solution for this is Decisions, where you can manage everything from creating the meeting agenda, preparing for a meeting to managing the tasks and decisions made in the meeting. With Decisions, teams and employees can get better control over meetings and help people stay on track. Read more about Decisions here.
2. Toggl
Type of tool: Project management
Toggl can help boost productivity; "The simplest time tracker to help you get things done. Ideal for teams, freelancers & agencies." All you need to do is push a button. Toggl will quickly break down the numbers and the data is laid out at your feet in a clear, easy-to-understand format. Plus, the Toggl Button browser extension efficiently allows you to track your time in over 80 online tools. Once all the data is accessible and you see where all your time is spent, you can adjust as you need.
3. HubSpot
Type of tool: CRM and Marketing
Forget about cluttered Excel spreadsheets or a complex onboarding process, HubSpot is the perfect CRM for you. Why? Well, all interactions are automatic, you receive up to 1,000,000 contacts, users, and storage until the end of time and best of all, it is free! Just link the CRM to all locations (website, social media, email service providers, etc.) HubSpot said it best, "Organize your contacts, get deeper insights on every lead, and monitor deals with ease — all for free."
HubSpot makes it easy to streamline all the data for current and future customers so that your team can focus on making money instead of navigating through endless paperwork. On-boarding is super easy, so it's a small business app your entire team will want to use over and over.
4. Trello
Type of tool: Project management
Use Trello for all business needs like project management, a daily/monthly task list, organization, meal prep, maintaining a blog, and so on. All of their Kanban boards are shareable, flexible, and so much detail can be added to each card. You don't even need to use Trello just for work purposes, use it to organize your life too!
Choose from Trello's two pricing plans: free or $12.50/monthly per user.
5. Buffer
Type of tool: Social media management
Schedule and manage every one of your social media posts from a single place. Easily send your message to your social platforms, without any of the added hassles. Create posts, analyze the data, and engage your followers.
Up to 25 users can be added to your Buffer account, and you can choose who has full posting access or needs permissions. Choose from free or $15/month starter plans or their business plans. Based on what your needs are, take a close look at each of the plans so you can choose the right fit for you.
6. DocuSign
Type of tool: Legal and Finance
We all know that getting that last signature for a contract or purchase order can require many emails. Since many people suffer from inbox clutter, getting the recipient to download, print, sign, and send the contact back to you can be more challenging than it should be.
DocuSign allows you to easily collect signatures online or via a mobile device. This is the perfect tool for collecting necessary information from clients and remote employees.
The price for DocuSign starts at $10/month!
Key Features:
• Offers rapid app development.
• Stops inconvenience of collecting signatures in person.
• Provides powerful integrations with Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and more
7. Slack
Type of tool: Chat and Instant messaging
Slack is one of the most popular communication apps on the market. With Slack, you can create different communication channels, send group messages, and even break off into one-off meetings within a slack channel. It's easy to use and they have a freemium model that is one of the best in the market. This is a perfect tool for small companies who do not want to subscribe to lengthy contracts and expensive scalable options.
8. Connecteam
Type of tool: internal communication / collaboration platform
Even if you are a startup, scale up or even an established business, employee communication is a continuous struggle. Having a central hub where employees meet, engage, and communicate is a challenging thing to achieve especially when if you want to synchronize and integrate many systems into one.
Luckily, solutions such as Connecteam exist, as an all-in-one application where you have everything from the schedule, new employee onboarding, feedback surveys, GPS tracking and location, and training and knowledge center. It is easy to use, and they offer a freemium model, and you can scale with the number of features and users as your company grows.
9. Databox
If you are tired of logging into multiple tools to see how your company is performing? View all your performance data in one place so you can spend less time checking data and creating reports and more time acting on insights. Mix and match metrics from various sources in one data board and get a more complete view of your performance immediately.
You can set measurable goals and track your progress, set goals for specific metrics from any of the Databox 70+ integrations or any other data you integrate into Databox. Track them all on one screen or visualize your progress toward them on any dashboard. Keep everyone focused on the metrics that matter most.
Databox offers a freemium version where you can create up to 3 dashboards. This works perfectly if you want to track overall company overall goals to team goals. With the insight you get, you can create actionable tasks right away.
10. DatabeatOMNI
Type of tool: Digital Signage
DatabeatOMNI is a proven digital signage solution used by hundreds of companies across thousands of screens. DatabeatOMNI is cost-effective and simple, helping you to tell the story of your brand, its people, and its history in a matter of clicks. Suitable for a variety of businesses across multiple industries, from small businesses to large corporations — and everything in between.
Whether you're keen to enhance your team's communications internally or boost your advertising, DatabeatOMNI addresses many common business challenges. Try for free here.
11. Intercom
Type of tool: Customer service & experience
Every customer interaction is an opportunity to build a relationship and earn a lifelong fan. Intercom is a conversational and messenger-based app that has many of the key features to create the best experience online, from chat to knowledgebase where customers can find the information they need. With customers wanting to talk less with support agents and finding the information they need on their own.
By having customers spend more time using knowledgebase and support centers rather than talking to a support agent, this is one of the apps that are key to have in place, creating a more self-service approach that benefits both your company and the customer. Read more about Intercom.
12. Mailchimp
Do you want to send out newsletters straight to your customer's email? Or create landing pages, signup forms, and Facebook ads? Mailchimp is the solution! The interface is easy to navigate, their unique templates are professionally designed, and you can even start for free. Easily reach your clients and get new ones as you increase your marketing efforts in a snap.
As your audience grows, Mailchimp grows with you. The small business app has even more features that can help automate all your marketing goals and it is not complicated to understand. Their customer service is always available, and membership is free, then costs you $10/monthly.
13. Promo.com
Type of tool: Video creation
If you are creating video content for social media or marketing in general, then you are aware of how time-consuming it is. From writing script to editing, it is an entire process that you must go through. With an application such as Promo which has a wide library of great generic video content and an easy-to-use video creator tool, you can create videos quickly, that will deliver your message while staying on brand
14. Bit.Ai
Type of tool: Collaboration platform
Modern teams use modern document editors like Bit.Ai that help them create, manage, share, and track all documents in one place. Organize content in different workspaces and folders, collaborate, and chat with co-workers in real-time, store all media assets in the content library, and create interactive docs- all from this powerful platform.
With smart search, quickly find what you are looking for and improve your productivity multifold.
Take it for a spin (as it has a free version) and see Bit.Ai's awesomeness for yourself!
15. Miro
Type of tool: Digital whiteboard and collaboration
Miro is a great digital whiteboard designed specifically with remote and distributed teams in mind. Just like you would on a physical whiteboard, add text, sticky notes, images, diagrams, drawings, prototypes, spreadsheets, and more or work with templates to quickly start your brainstorming session.
With an infinite canvas, Miro encourages a free flow of ideas and doesn't let anything come in the way of your creativity and imagination!
Conclusion
Some of the best business tools out there to help you run your business efficiently. All the above-mentioned tools are great at what they do, and you cannot go wrong with any of them. Still, your choice is bound to depend upon numerous factors like the size of your business, your target use-case, a particular business problem you are looking to solve, and of course, your budget.
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