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How Alexa Can Integrate With A CRM for Your Small Business

Amazon is making headlines in the business world (again) just a year after Alexa for Business was launched in November 2017. Echo’s lineup of smart speakers proved a commercial success with tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices sold and over 50,000 skills (and counting) developed for Alexa by a growing community of users and developers across the globe.

Forward-looking companies have already seen the potential of deploying Alexa for Business particularly in customer service, productivity, and workflow. Companies like Air Canada, Telus Corp, Manulife, and TD Bank are working with Amazon in building company-specific skills for Alexa to create a seamless experience for workers and customers alike.

Alexa Skills in a Nutshell

Skills are essentially apps designed to work on Alexa to fulfill specific tasks. Amazon made it open for partners and third-party app developers to build skills which can either be used exclusively by the company who made them (private skills) or publish the skills for everyone to use (public skills) after being certified by Amazon.

Skill engagement has grown by 75% in 2017 and continues to grow by 50% year over year. This is key to Amazon’s success, outperforming tech giants Google, and Apple in terms of smart speaker sales during the 3rd Quarter of 2018.

Building a Smarter Workplace

Amazon goes beyond consumer electronics for smart homes to voice-activated workspaces for small businesses by adding a layer on top of Alexa’s basic features. Small businesses can do a lot more by configuring Echo devices to work with room profiles, calendars, conferencing systems and by creating custom skills to fulfill specific tasks.

Here are some examples of use cases of Alexa being used in the workplace.

Hands-free Conferencing

Conde Nast and Propel Insurance were among the first to use Alexa for Business to schedule and conduct meetings with co-workers. Alexa helps eliminate cumbersome steps when looking up for available rooms, scheduling meetings, and so on.

For instance, you may ask Alexa to schedule a meeting and it will pick a date for you, or have Alexa pull out your company calendar and choose one yourself. Join meetings on the fly by simply talking to Alexa to patch you through – no dialing in or typing passwords.

Owners of small businesses also like the fact that Alexa supports third party conferencing apps like Skype for Business, Cisco, WebEx, and Zoom, making it much easier to transition from screens and keypads to voice-activated systems (or have both at the same time).

Smart Offices

Wouldn’t it be great to have an AI who could tell your way around, pull out specific information for you, or ask maintenance to fix things around the office? Valence and General Electric were able to accomplish this feat by building Alexa skills and configuring Echo devices in a certain way.

What’s really interesting is how these companies came up with these ideas. Normally, they’ll have everything printed out on inch-thick corporate manuals/inventories or have them posted in their company website and people will have to search through them for answers.

But what if they can simply ask and have just the information they want from a voice-activated smart device like Amazon Echo? Using cutting-edge technology in conversational AI and voice recognition, businesses are able to build company-specific skills for Alexa, anything from answering specific questions, providing technical guidance, to sending out requests in a more natural way which is through spoken language.

Voice-enabled CRM

One of the best use cases of voice AI (which also feels more natural to use) is being able to interact with CRMs by speaking to it. Although there are some kind of voice-enabled CRM in the past, it’s nothing close compared to what Alexa for Business has been able to achieve.

Small businesses can now create their own custom skill or API for Alexa to interact with existing CRMs like Small Businesses Dream using their own voice. This can save them a lot of time looking up through each list or typing in new leads. So instead of switching back and forth making calls, typing customer information, inquiring about their leads and prospects, and taking notes on their last call, sales people can stay on their smart speakers and have Alexa and Small Business Dream do the rest of the job.

Stonehenge NYC is a perfect example of how a private real estate company was able to deploy Alexa for Business to create a seamless experience for their employees and rental customers by linking Alexa with their database and CRM service. They have over a hundred skills for Alexa and are continuously building more skills as they go.

Choosing the Right CRM for Alexa

Alexa’s extensibility makes it an ideal choice for a lot of third-party software solutions like Small Business Dream. It has been successfully deployed to work with some CRMs with a little help from the CRM providers, app developers, and Amazon.

Small Business Dream allows first time users to experiment with its email autoresponder, sales funnel, survey setup, landing page editor, and analytics. It’s especially important for small startups who need sales and marketing automation they can easily work on without spending too much on trainings and onboarding new employees. Small Business Dream will guide you through the whole process one step at a time, or you may reach them for consultations and mentoring on the best practices of using sales and marketing automation for your business.

Learn more on how you can successfully build your small business at SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of Boxing Day Sales

Sales and discounts are everywhere this time of the year as businesses gear up for the shopping spree. For many small businesses, this could be their chance at getting more customers, boosting sales, and reigniting old customers. Customers who missed out on Black Friday and Cyber Monday would certainly be scrambling for Boxing Day sales, so take the time prepping up for the holiday frenzy.

Gear up for the Occasion

As a small business owner, this could be your chance to reengage customers who haven’t bought from you in a long time. What better chance than to entice them back with a nice juicy Boxing Day Sale?

Try to be competitive with your pricing. Finding the sweet spot is a fine balancing act which requires some knowledge in marketing and managing your cash flow. However, since every store in the city will be dropping prices as much as 25 to 50 percent, you might want to consider a sale if nothing more than to stay competitive with your competition. Think of price cuts (also known as “loss leader”) as part of your marketing expenses.

Freeing up your store from old inventory and putting them on sale is also a good way to beat the competition. Make sure they’re still in good condition, though, to avoid hurting your reputation.

Maximize Customer Engagement: Online and Offline Sales

Small businesses don’t usually end up having “blockbuster deals” like you see in big chain stores because they can’t beat them on price so don’t even try to compete with them. Instead, the more successful small businesses have their own signature product, speciality goods, or service not found at any other place.

You might have the perfect several items sitting on your store for some time. A Boxing Day sale is the perfect time to mark them down to attract sales volume.

Having an e-commerce site or a Facebook Page for your business can also help maximize customer engagement if done correctly. Alternatively, you can set an email autoresponder to notify your customers a day ahead when they subscribe to your newsletter. Small Business Dream suite of tools can vastly improve shopping experience by engaging with customers on multiple channels such as phone, SMS, social media, email, landing page, sales funnel, and so on, whichever method they prefer.

Follow up on Your New Customers on Boxing Day

Aside from being a great way to maintain customer loyalty, one of the great things about the holiday season is the amount of information you’ll get from new customers. You’ll need a tool such as CRM to collect customer information (online or in-store visits and purchases), manage your customer database, and maintain customers’ interest through customer communication (email autoresponders and newsletters subscriptions) long after the shopping frenzy is over.

Shoppers are in the holiday spirit so they are more likely to sign up for newsletters to be notified for the latest deals to make sure they never miss out on anything. They want to know which products will be on sale and when. CRM makes this all possible for you, at little or no expense to your business.

You should also collect new customer information even before Boxing Day starts by using CRM to conduct customer surveys or newsletter subscriptions via social media. Small Business Dream puts all the information from your Survey Page or Sales Funnel straight to your customer database, segment your customers right off the bat and send them on to your email autoresponders.

You can do it the old way and let Small Business Dream take it from there. Have your in-store customers fill up a short survey or ask for their business card and quickly add them to your database using Small Business Dream’s Card Scan feature, or you can do it yourself on your spare time.

Conclusion

Take this opportunity to grow your business and get noticed this holiday season. Use technology and your creative flair to your advantage, but most importantly to bring joy and satisfaction to your valued customers. So go ahead and make this Boxing Day an unforgettable shopping experience!

Learn more on how you can successfully build your small business through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

What Small Business Can Do In a Depressed Market

The Economy is extremely volatile at the moment and if it becomes a bear market, it can have severe consequences for a lot of small businesses. For some, it meant cutting back on expenses, downsizing, or even bankruptcy. However, during these times businesses can give real value to their customers and stand out from their competition. Your ability to adapt, shift priorities, and look for opportunities during a downturn can help you stay afloat and gain a decisive edge above the competition.

We’ll be focusing on three main areas considered to be the most vital during this phase.

Customers

Customers tend to be more price-sensitive during tough times. Buying habits change, as well as their priorities. But despite all that, you need to keep a steady flow of income for your company. Getting enough customers to keep the ball rolling should be high on the list of your priorities. There are at least 3 ways you can achieve this:

Cross-sell/up-sell
Be more competitive
Focus on Customer Service

Although it seems counterintuitive, cross-selling or up-selling when most people are trying to stay on budget actually works. In retail business, this could mean offering bundled items, a discount, or selling them in bulk. Services like salons may offer one or more complementary services at a slightly lower price than if customers were to avail of them on separate occasions. Customers will take every opportunity to get the most out of their dollar whether it’s through discounts or storing up for the rainy days.

Staying in touch with your customers is a lot easier these days because of sales and marketing automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Small Business Dream helps business owners acquire new customers and maintain customer loyalty through email autoresponders, survey forms, inside sales tools for salespeople (Action List, phone script, notes, etc.), landing page templates, and sales funnel.

Cash Flow

Maintaining a positive cash flow can be tough for businesses during recessions. People tend to be more conservative with their finances, and businesses might have a hard time finding more capital to run their businesses. This often results in drastic measures like downsizing and outsourcing certain tasks, while others may try reducing their workload through automation. Check your cash flow and see if your business spending gives the best possible output.

Identify important areas in your business. If you are to strip down your business to its core, which ones would likely stay and keep you in business all throughout? Is there any task that hasn’t been automated, and is taking up too much time to accomplish? How effective is your marketing, and does it justify the cost? In many cases, business owners find themselves spending too much on things that don’t have significant impact on their bottom line. You could be hiring more people when you could have just spent a fraction of the cost using sales and marketing automation. We want our business to be as lean as possible and still be able to maximize our gains.

Reallocate your resources as needed. Technology has come a long way towards improving our efficiency from customer acquisition to maintaining good customer relationship. In fact, some businesses are already moving towards inside sales using CRM because it allows them to save up on gas, meetups, business trips, and other related expenses doing outside sales. This strategy greatly reduces business costs and helps them stay cash flow-positive when most businesses are barely making it.

Opportunities

When the economy is bad, most people turn to cash. Savvy investors and business owners use this opportunity to acquire more assets and properties as many of these will go on sale during recession. This is where businesses with enough cash stored away can benefit the most. If you are able to stay cash flow-positive, this can be your chance to grow your business significantly.

Foreclosures and auctions are pretty common during economic downturns. Take some time looking for opportunities to buy assets properties on the cheap which include real estate, office equipment, vehicles, goods, and raw materials. Some of these normally cost a fortune, but you might be able to acquire them for your business at significantly reduced prices. Market downturns allow you to grow your own business by picking up the pieces from what is left of other people’s businesses.

Final thoughts

You can succeed with any small business regardless of the present economic conditions so long as you have the mindset, skills, and the right tools to get the job done. You can always achieve more by working smarter, not harder. Use technology to speed up and automate your tasks, and be prepared to step up your business when opportunities present themselves.

Facebook Is Back on Track for Small Businesses

Facebook has gone through difficult times. The social media giant had the largest single-day drop in stock market history, falling by $119 billion in value after being heavily criticized for compromising the privacy of nearly 2 billion users. Facebook also changed its algorithm. Ads won’t show up as often as it used to on the newsfeed, and as a result, a lot of businesses are moving away from the platform.

With the latest addition of business page, local, and standalone app, small business owners will have more reasons to promote their business on social media aside from the usual newsfeed post.

Finding More Ways to Improve Reach

Facebook changed the way ads work in response to the recent decline in reach and intense competition on the newsfeed. For anyone following this story over the last year or so, it’s pretty obvious that ads and promotional posts become less visible on the newsfeed.

Facebook business page provides businesses a place to thrive without competing for people’s attention. As a result, businesses can only reach out to a specific audience (similar to permission marketing) instead of showing up on everybody’s newsfeed. It’s a win-win for businesses and Facebook users.

With this new feature, Facebook is betting the social media platform will be more relevant for businesses, hoping people will use the social media platform to find goods and services, or book hotels and make reservations.

Facebook local and standalone app might also help small businesses through organic searches of the nearest shops, restaurants, and brick-and-mortar stores. Small businesses might actually fare better using the service as competition is narrowed down to a specific location.

Optimized for Small Businesses

Facebook page offers a way to encourage more businesses to build a strong brand on social media through CRM integration and data gathering. They’ve also made it easier for users to find information about business by improving its layout, esp. the home page where most users look for specific details like store hours, location, and contact information.

It gives Facebook a breath of fresh air with templates that are more industry-specific. Hence, a Facebook user who runs a hair salon business can choose a template suitable for his or her business. This applies to more than 80 million small businesses that are currently using the platform along with 1.6 billion users connected to them.

Fans and followers can also provide useful feedback about their experiences using the products and services via Recommendations. This, too, will improve online visibility on the page feed and local search.

Faster Way to Promote Business

It’s quite difficult to rank these days without spending a ton of money on SEO. Small businesses won’t stand a chance against big, established ones on Google. Thankfully, we have social media where the playing field is more even. Here, users can talk about their experiences using a product or service and be able to share it with others (also known as user-generated content).

Facebook has been diversified to accommodate both day-to-day social interactions and business promotions. There’s no doubt about social media being more cost-effective in spreading the word about your business than Google. It can be used as a starting point for any kind of business. However, it may not be a long-term solution for establishing an online presence. Sooner or later, you’ll need to be able to market your business outside of Facebook, create your own website and build your own sales funnel.

You can also connect your Facebook leads directly to a CRM service or request for CRM integration. Facebook Page contains a list of popular CRMs for managing leads when you avail of their Facebook Lead Ads.

Building Your Online Presence the Easy Way

Small Business Dream is a simple, yet powerful CRM solution for business startups and traditional businesses wanting to establish an online presence. There are a number of ways Facebook Page can be utilized for Small Business Dream CRM, including:

Lead Generation and CRM Integration

This requires setting up an Ad Account and choosing a daily or weekly budget. Promote your business page or integrate your own CRM like Small Business Dream and lead your potential clients into your custom-made sales funnel. There are at least 4 ways to integrate CRM on Facebook: direct integration, third-party integration, many integrations, and Facebook Marketing Partner.

Create Your Own Sales Funnel

You can easily make your own sales funnel with Small Business Dream and use it on Facebook to acquire new customers. The first method uses CRM integration mentioned earlier in this article. The second method is by customizing your Facebook Page and embedding your sales funnel link. However, unlike the first method, you’ll need to get enough ratings via searches and customer reviews to get results.

Or, you can create your own microsites and use both Facebook Page and Small Business Dream to generate leads. Having a website for your own business has several advantages over Facebook Page. For one thing, you’re not risking your online presence on someone else’s website (Facebook can boot you off of their platform, or it might disappear). However, it would be a great option for small businesses and start-ups who want to accelerate growth apart from traditional marketing strategies.

Conclusion

Giving users the ability to promote their business on Facebook is considered a smart move for the social media giant, especially during these times when the company is in need of a better solution in creating meaningful social interaction, and at the same time creating business opportunities for users.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

How Prepared Is Your Business For the Future?

As business owners, we know we live in tremulous times. New industries – such as cryptocurrency – are being created overnight. Jobs are disappearing. Companies are switching industries. Tech companies continue to push the boundaries of automation through deep learning and artificial intelligence.

As modern technology pushes forward into our traditional businesses, the question for many of us is, how prepared are our businesses for the future?

Machines Are Taking Over

Businesses that fail to adapt won’t stand a chance in today’s fast-changing industry. People are now being replaced by robotics and automation for quite a number of reasons. People can only do one task at a time. They get distracted, make mistakes, and buckle under pressure; machines rarely make mistakes, they don’t take breaks, and are incredibly efficient at multi-tasking.

Technology enabled businesses to grow faster than ever, and it only gets better with time. As people put more resources in technology, production costs go down, giving more room to invest in better technologies. Back then, long distance phone calls cost 25 cents per minute or around 2 dollars overseas. Nowadays, we can talk to someone from half a world away through the internet for just a fraction of the cost. (Imagine what this would do to traditional phone industry.)

Soon, nearly every task will be automated. This implies two things: first, most manual jobs that don’t require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity are in danger of being taken away by automation. Industries will continue to downsize and low-paying jobs might soon be gone. White-collar jobs aren’t safe from the onslaught of automation. Neural networks might soon replace analysts, accountants, and personal assistants, as A.I. and deep learning continues to evolve.

Second, companies that rely on traditional methods could soon go out of business, unless they keep up with the times and stay relevant with modern-day customers. Amazon and online shopping will always be a threat to traditional retail businesses, and telecom companies are in dire need of a solution against the growing popularity of internet calls.

Uber and Airbnb have redefined travel and accommodation, challenging long-established companies within the industry. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is a growing threat to our financial sector with its permissionless, secure, peer-to-peer payment system. Innovation is no longer just an option for a lot of businesses. As a matter of fact, it’s the only way for businesses to survive in this day and age.

Fortunately, some jobs are more resilient than others, particularly those that have to do with complex human emotions. So-called soft skills and out-of-the-box thinking will be more important than ever for businesses.

The World Has Changed, and So Will be Our Businesses

History is littered with the remains of old industries that fell out of use as better technologies emerge. You’d be lucky to find relics of the past in people’s attics like the portable cassette player, VHS, film camera, and encyclopaedias. Yet they remind us of the bygone era when they became a booming business in the late 80s and 90s.

Fast-forward to the present, people do things a lot differently. We spend more time on the Internet and consume online content more than from traditional media. Over 2 billion people connect with each other using handheld gadgets many times faster and more powerful than the NASA computers of the first moon landing. Our world today is vastly different, and so will be our businesses.

Conclusion

Businesses have evolved over the years alongside modern technology. Sooner or later, they’d have to come up with something fresh, something which has never been tried before. It could take the form of a much better technology, a new concept, a better strategy, or a business opportunity. Who knows what the next disruption will be?

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.