8 Apps Every E-Commerce Business Should Be Using Right Now
If you’re an e-commerce business owner, you know that you’re required to wear a lot of different hats at any given time. Here is a list of the eight types of apps you should be using right now, regardless of the current hat you’re wearing.
1. Productivity and Organization
Stay productive by using a time tracker app. Document which projects take you the longest and which projects you aren’t focusing on enough. Most time tracker apps offer reporting features too. Use these to send reports to clients with their billable work hours, as well as to track your team’s progress on assigned projects and tasks. Another way to stay productive is to keep your documents and files organized in an app that uses the cloud. If you save your documents and files in the cloud, you’ll be able to easily share them with others and access them on any device.
2. Customer Support Help Desk
Use a customer service support and help desk app that collects support tickets and inquiries from your customers. Not only will this type of app help you respond more efficiently to your customers’ concerns, but it will also keep their concerns recorded and organized. This way, you’ll have organized data you can use to improve your products and services in the future, based on actual requests and issues your customers have experienced. Using online live chat software that combines chat and support desks will also help you expedite your customer service operations for maximum efficiency.
3. Outsourcing and Virtual Assistants
If you’re a small business owner, you know that there will be times you and your staff are overextended. There might even be certain projects that you simply don’t have the skills to complete in a timely manner. Fortunately, there are apps you can use to hire virtual assistants, freelancers, or contractors. They will complete tasks that you or your team don’t have the time or knowledge to do. You can easily find an online marketing agency that will help with your efforts.
4. Social Media and Content Management
Share your social media content with apps that allow you to schedule your posts and notify you when others engage with your posts. Monitor hashtag campaigns, comments, likes, and shares, all from one dashboard. To have focused web content that’s consistent across channels, use a content management app (CMA). It will allow you to create, edit, and store your web content in one place. Most CMAs also include templates that automate many of the tedious aspects of content creation and editing. We also recommend finding an online marketing agency and people that have an expert grasp on social media and managing content.
5. Team Collaboration
An app that lets your team collaborate on multitiered projects with multiple development phases in real time takes your business’s overall productivity and innovation to the next level. A team collaboration app is especially useful for remote teams, or teams whose members have different work schedules. Team collaboration apps keep all files, timelines, and communications for any given project or team in one place so that everyone working on the same project is always on the same page, literally.
6. Analytics and Website Data
Analytics apps track who visits your website, how they got to your website, how long they were there, and what they clicked on while they were there. There are also apps that show you how your website ranks in search engines. These apps can help you determine which keywords you should use to get more page views and a higher ranking.
7. Email Marketing and Contact List Building
If you want to continue to grow your online business, you should use email marketing apps that send targeted and personalized messages on an automated and consistent basis. Some email marketing apps are even equipped with templates you can use to build your contact list. They also provide performance reports, so you know which emails are getting the most engagement and conversions.
8. Financials and Invoicing
Last but certainly not least, you should use an app that tracks all your finances, invoices, and expenses in one place. When you use an app that manages all your finances in one place, you increase your chances of getting paid on time. You will also never forget to pay a bill or send an invoice and will significantly reduce the risk of complications if you’re ever audited during tax season. As you can see, there’s an app for just about any aspect of your business, and often these types of apps can be acquired at a relatively low price. Nonetheless, the investment would be well worth it if it means streamlining all the vital tasks that keep your e-commerce business prospering.
