The cloud empowers employees in ways never seen before in business; it provides the tools and services, much needed, by employees to proficiently conduct their work without the limitations of being tied to their terminal. Because of this flexibility the employees can now manage sales, network, market, and conduct customer service at any point in time without the tedious nature that comes with dedicated, localized software or hardware.
What are some of the benefits of using the cloud you may ask?
• The opportunity for globalization (to give the necessary tools/services to those abroad)
• The reduction of operational costs (versus the investment in proprietary software/hardware)
… and the list goes on.
You’ve heard the buzz about going to the cloud and you may have entertained the idea. Now the basics to bringing your company into this arena and gaining all the wonderful benefits.
A) Perhaps the biggest advantage of using cloud based services is to improve customer service. Through offerings like Astea field service management your company can use cloud-based services to maximize potential through marketing automation, reporting, business intelligence, scheduling, and streamlining areas such as field servicing, CRM automation, and dynamic scheduling.
These services become ingrained and intuitive (though this area may seem intimidating). Once your company have ditched the rolodex, hard copy reporting, and scattered, interlinking software for one that handles it all there will be a major boost toward productivity.
B) Team Management has always been troublesome for any business operating using traditional means and there’s no reason to, anymore, thanks to great cloud-based services such as BaseCamp, Trello, Time Doctor, and those offered by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.
Team management services will keep projects in line due to accountability but more so because the tasks can be delegated, divvied, and monitored through just about any device imaginable. A field operator can update those in the office on-the-fly, and vice versa, to keep things moving smoothly.
C) Cloud storage and security are yet another major improvement that come with hopping to the cloud. No longer is the stability of the business reliant on what happens within the brick and mortar. Events such as theft, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks can be thwarted and quickly dealt with through the benefits of cloud-based security services and regular cloud-based backups (off site).
D) Social media and those tools used for its automation and the like has been phenomenal for providing better customer experience and service. Tools like Hootsuite are at the top of their game because they house the social media experience under one, easy-to-use roof that takes the task that would otherwise require a handful of social media mavericks to conduct and condenses it to one that can be handle by just a sole individual.
Before long you will find that much of your sales generation and customer service will come through social media and the use of cloud services in the social media arena will be doubly as valuable.
Bringing your business to the cloud can be a daunting task considering that the systems and hardware in place is already getting the job done. However, this is where your competition has decided to move and with these cloud-based services they will soon gain an edge because of all its value and flexibility. You won’t want to wait too long before making the leap even if it’s just one area of your business at a time.
Is your business ready for the cloud? It is and there’s no better time to start that transition than today.
Written by Jane Brown
