We are in 2021, the year of hope after 2020 severely affected our day to day lives and businesses. Last year has taught us that making the right decisions, and spending on what matters rather than what seems appealing is the way to go, the way to survive the hardest of business challenges. 

Choosing cloud computing over traditional computing methods is a no-brainer. Flexibility, scalability, cost-effectiveness, high ROI - the advantages of choosing cloud systems are countless, and the pandemic has made it more of a necessity than a choice. Work from home has proven to be more productive and safer, but businesses need several types of cloud solutions to get the best out of it.

This decade is expected to see WFH getting more acceptance, and so businesses will have to rely on cloud systems and tools to ensure seamless workflow and excellent customer experience. We considered several industries and businesses and picked four cloud systems businesses need in order to offer customers the best experience while ensuring productivity within the company. 

Customer Relationship Management system(CRM)

A Customer Relationship Management system or CRM is a tool for managing your company’s communications and relationships with your customers and prospects. CRMs help businesses improve messaging and communications, collaborate effectively, and respond to customer support requests quickly, improving overall productivity and customer experience.

Apart from these, CRMs can provide detailed, trustworthy insights into customer pain points, product feedback, and opportunities, allowing decision-makers to develop excellent product ideas backed by trustable data. Since all CRMs are now cloud-based, your marketing and support staff can access them from anywhere, allowing you to attract the best talent from anywhere in the world.

In short, customer relationship management is highly critical and complicated, especially when there are thousands of customers and prospects. A CRM does more than just relationship management, it provides insight into the areas that need attention, ensuring a great customer experience, and helping you make the right decisions even in challenging times.

Collaboration tools

Establishing a culture of collaboration is not easy, but it is an invaluable tool that drives your business to success.  A positive, inspiring office atmosphere builds a healthy collaborative culture over time, but it is equally critical to provide employees with the tools and resources needed to make it convenient. Effective collaboration will help you reach new productivity goals, exchange knowledge, and develop self-awareness among employees.

But what collaboration tools do you actually need? Obviously, there are many collaboration tools with unnecessary features, and some of them even lack critical features. As a business, you should ask questions like what limitations do your employees face when it comes to collaboration, what kind of tools will improve the workflow and increase productivity, and do your employees know where to turn when they need answers.

Businesses generally need multiple collaboration tools, a file-sharing tool, a workflow management tool, a video conferencing app, and a messaging app. A file-sharing tool may not be necessary since most cloud messaging and video conferencing tools today allow file-sharing. However, some of these tools do not allow users to share large files.

Hyperoffice, Breezio, uShare.to, Google Apps, Microsoft office 365, and Slack are some of the popular collaboration tools with proven track records. When it comes to project management, Basecamp, Huddle, and Box rule the industry.

Website Robots

Website traffic, landing pages, leads, conversions - these are the ultimate goals of every business. Getting the maximum traffic and converting most of it is highly critical, and companies now use the latest tools and techniques to overcome increasing competition.

One of the most effective tools businesses use to generate leads are web robots. They aren’t new, and just when people started to ignore chatbots, artificial intelligence came to the rescue. AI-based website chatbots initiate human-like conversations with website visitors and collect their contact details. These kinds of chatbots can convert a major part of the website visitors into leads and also solve customer support requests in real-time, which is why businesses need them in 2022. 

Apart from website chatbots, businesses also need other types of web robots that can organize and manage communications with leads. Marketing employees spend a lot of time organizing and managing leads, and today website robots have automated a solid portion of the work up to sales qualification so that the marketing team can focus on more important areas. These robots also notify the employees when human intervention is needed.

Phone System

Yes, cloud systems have changed the way businesses operate and communicate with customers, but if there is one thing that has remained the same over the years, it is the phone systems. Business phone systems are still critical in offering a good, personalized customer experience. The chatbots and email support are there, but some support requests need immediate attention, and phone calls still remain as the best way to solve such requests quickly.

A phone system also ensures increased productivity and quick problem solving since the immediacy of phone calls makes them harder to neglect than an email or a message. Also, when customers are able to reach someone real, and the representatives give the attention deserved, it can contribute largely to your brand’s reputation. Apart from all of these, having a phone system will improve your marketing team’s performance as they can convince prospects to buy your products through one-to-one communication. 

Summary

Cloud systems have transformed the way businesses operate and communicate with customers. Their importance has gone up to the point that companies can’t survive without cloud-based solutions. For startups and SMEs, buying the necessary cloud systems and staying away from unwanted expenses is of utmost importance. 

All businesses, irrespective of the industry, need a CRM, a few collaboration tools, website robots, and a phone system to ensure maximum productivity and an excellent customer experience. Cloud-based solutions bring flexibility, scalability, and high ROI and will continue to play a significant role in business operations as WFH is gaining more acceptance.