Business First Family Business, Accounting, Finance, Investing, Marketing And Management
To help a brand new business get off the ground, you definitely need more than a great product or service and affordable prices. You also need some different types of technology that will help your budding business succeed and thrive. When shopping for what you need, consider the following four types of hand-held and other forms of technology:
Mobile Devices With State-of-The-Art Processors
To help your team work as efficiently as possible both in and out of the office, as well as stay in touch with clients, consider equipping them all with some type of mobile device. This could either be a smartphone or tablet that can be used on the go as well as when they are on site working on different projects. To help ensure that the mobile devices have the best speed and energy efficiency, equip them with advanced mobile processors; for example, you can’t go wrong with one of the innovative Snapdragon mobile processors from Qualcomm. The Snapdragon series offers cutting-edge features including super-fast charging and a long battery life, outstanding connectivity, enhanced camera functionality and top-notch security solutions that will help your team and their mobile devices perform at peak levels.
Credit Card Reader
If you and your employees often meet with clients outside of your new office, a credit card reader that attaches to the aforementioned mobile device will allow you to quickly and easily accept credit card payment. For example, processing companies let you accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express and deposits will show up in your account as soon as the next day. After signing up for one of their budget-friendly plans, they will also send you a free magstripe reader that will let you swipe credit cards — the newest reader also takes chip cards.
Cloud-based Storage and Security
In addition to tech devices that you can hold in your hands, you also need “behind the scenes” technological tools. For example, in order to successfully and securely manage and store all of your company’s sensitive data, invoices, vendor bills, employee data and more, consider a cloud-based storage system. Cloud computing will give you and your team easy access to data from a number of computers and mobile devices; this will allow you to send an invoice while on-site with a client or do other work-related tasks while you are away from the office. A cloud-based storage system also means you will not have to shell out hard-earned money for file storage, data backup and other software programs that are taking up space on your servers and office computers.
Live Chat or Help Option
In order to help your valued customers get answers to their questions as quickly as possible, consider adding a live chat option to your business website. A live help option involves adding a widget to the lower right-hand corner of a website with an agent who is on standby to answer questions, recommend products and offer assistance to potential and established customers. A newer tech twist on the live chat option involves chatbots, which are computer programs that use artificial intelligence industry innovations to answer customers’ questions. These chatbots can also help track orders, let people know where you are located, search for products on your site and more. For more information about chatbots, Microsoft’s Bot Framework website is a good place to start; they build and connect bots to interact with customers on your website, as well as other platforms including Skype, Office 365 mail and more.
By investing in and incorporating these four forms of technology, your brand new business will have the tools that it needs to succeed and grow, both in its early days and in the future.
