Tech that works (for you)

Small business digital tools that can help you automate process and reduce time consuming and repatitive tasks.

Do you ever wish you had more time to do what you love, like running your business? When leveraged properly, technology can help your business work smarter, rather than harder. Here are a few ways to leverage technology and automation to help your business run more efficiently.

Scheduling automation

“What time works for you?” As a small business owner, your time is precious and you need to make sure you’re making the most of it. Spending half an hour going back and forth trying to find a time to schedule a service,  an appointment, or a follow-up call is just a waste of time. Especially when there is an easier alternative.

With automated schedulers, you can allow clients to schedule their time with you based on the schedule you set. Clients and future clients can click a link and see your availability and book your time. BOOM! Done.

Allow clients to schedule their time with you based on your desired schedule and your dynamic availability

Business owners that prefer to control their schedule can add another step to the process where they approve the requested time.

Scheduling automation also adds the following advantages:

1. Intake forms: As part of the scheduling process you can have client add all the information you need to know (e.g. age, type of insurance, etc.)
2. Policy: When scheduling online, you can make sure the client is aware and even approves your policies & terms of service – that can prevent misunderstandings later.
3. Appointment reminders: Scheduling automation can send clients multiple reminders before an appointment to prevent customers no-shows or remind them to bring something or prepare for the meeting
4. Appointments followups: Scheduling automation can send clients followup messages right after an appointment to remind the client to schedule a follow-up, request feedback, or promote other services.

Some applications have also a business schedule, which enables you to:

• Manage your calendar from anywhere.
• Schedule appointments directly from social media platforms.
• View and assign tasks to employee calendars.

Billing automation

Your business needs to make money. If there was a way to make receiving that money easier, would you do it? Of course, you would! Enter billing automation. With an automated billing platform, you can:

• Send estimates, invoices, and receipts.
• Allow clients to pay online via credit card and PayPal.
• Send multiple reminders for late invoices.
• Vault credit cards to be used for the next payments.
• Schedule payments to be sent out at the same time every week, month, or year.
• Create and track coupons, packages, and subscriptions
• Track clients balance
• Automate reports to make finances easier (your accountant will thank you!).
• Much more…

Get paid faster! Chasing down invoices is now a thing of the past

Marketing automation

Marketing is an essential element of any small business’ success. However, it is time-intensive and can often be pushed aside or handled improperly due to lack of time. Luckily, marketing automation is here to make the lives of small business owners a bit easier. Marketing automation enables you to create marketing rules that will automatically send your emails, posts, and messages while you’re off handling other elements of your business. Here are two of the most popular marketing automation tasks:

Email Automation

Email automation can help you communicate with your audience strategically. With automated email marketing, you can create emails in advance and set up a variety of triggers. When a trigger is pulled (ex: someone enters their email in your ‘Contact Us’ form), an email (or a series of emails) is automatically sent. You can also:

• Segment clients based on geographic location, demographics, and interests, and send targeted messages based on their characteristics.
• Send scheduled email blasts with special events, discounts, and more.
• Follow up automatically to inquiries.

Use email automation to send a Happy Birthday wishes to your clients, you can also add a coupon for their next service.

Social media automation

Social media automation has been around for years and continues to get better and better. When you automate your social media, you can load up a week, a month, or even a year’s worth of social posts to be shared with your loyal followers. In addition, many social media automation platforms offer detailed reports so you know if your efforts—and messaging—are driving the right results.