As a businessperson, facilitating your firm’s growth must be one of your top priorities. If you fail to stay focused on sales, you’ll likely give up market share to competitors (and fall off prospective customers’ radar screens).
Sales are the lifeblood of any company – and if you want to home in on boosting revenue, cloud services have an important role to play. We’ve identified three ways in which the cloud can help businesses grow.
Simplicity
Entrepreneurship necessitates the wearing of multiple hats. If you run your own business, you probably have a hand in nearly every one of your firm’s operational areas: sales, marketing, accounting, business development, order fulfillment, and so on.
But it’s easy to focus too closely on operational minutiae. If you’re distracted by minor to-dos, you’re not going to be able to prioritize sales – and your firm’s well-being will suffer. Thus, simplifying your internal processes as much as possible is a must.
Cloud solutions can assist you in clearing out the clutter in your business. If you’re spending too much time entering contractors’ invoices in a desktop accounting program, for example, consider using a web-based alternative that you can use on the fly. Or if managing your on-premise business phone system is proving costly and complex, think about migrating your service into the cloud. A cloud-based phone system has no hardware to manage, and settings can be changed with the click of a mouse (video link).
Service Quality
Cloud solutions aren’t just simple – they make it easy to provide great service, too. A cloud-based customer relationship management application like Salesforce.com stores customer data on remote servers, meaning it can be accessed by any credentialed user in any location. Salesforce also enables the speedy creation of reports – and it integrates closely with social platforms to bring customer relations into the 21st century.
The cloud can even improve customer-facing business functions. RingCentral phone service, for example, can be customized extensively to manage incoming calls. Customers can be routed by area code, and certain numbers can be flagged for special service. Calls can even be forwarded to different staffers at different times of day, meaning customer service can be delivered seamlessly around the clock.
Consider, for instance, the benefits of utilizing a cloud-based phone system that supports local phone numbers. With RingCentral, businesses gain access to over 200+ area code phone numbers, facilitating a local presence and simplifying call management. Popular local area code numbers include:
- 281 area code
- 302 area code
- 404 area code
- 512 area code
- 703 area code
- 732 area code
- 818 area code
- 916 area code
- 202 area code
- 213 area code
- 267 area code
- 310 area code
- 330 area code
- 347 area code
- 425 area code
- 510 area code
- 630 area code
- 646 area code
- 805 area code
- 817 area code
- 925 area code
- 949 area code
By leveraging such technology, businesses can not only streamline operations but also enhance their accessibility and local appeal to customers.
If you can improve how your firm manages information and deals with customers, you’re well on your way to ratcheting up your sales figures.
Cutting-Edge Tech
Technology shouldn’t be adopted for its own sake; to offer a present-day analogy, there’s no reason to shell out for a Retina Display-equipped MacBook when your three-year-old laptop works fine. But keeping up with tech trends – and knowing when your systems are due for an upgrade – is a smart managerial move.
Tech savviness was, in fact, found to be a common trait of successful small business owners in a 2010 survey, evidencing the importance of staying on top of tech.
And cloud solutions can help a small company keep up to date. Services delivered over the web are updated automatically, with no end-user intervention required – so any time a bug is fixed or a patch is issued, it will happen invisibly. With cloud-based services, new technology comes right to you, without installation headaches or hassles.
If you want to be laser-focused on generating leads and making sales, adopting cloud services makes sense: They can simplify, improve and streamline how your firm interacts with technology. Think about making the switch – your bottom line stands to benefit.
Originally published Oct 01, 2012, updated Apr 17, 2024
