How can business apps provide solutions for companies?

There are already millions of apps available that solve many problems. However, the idea that the app market is saturated is false. There are two ways of publishing your idea through an application. You can either provide an already existing app with a unique feature or you invent a completely new application. Most apps are tailored towards customers. However, companies are also looking for apps that can benefit them. For this reason, in a lot of cases companies prefer to develop their own tailored app instead of using standard apps available on app stores. What are solutions that business apps can provide to companies?

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Customer Service

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A company’s main objective should be to have an effective and working post-sales platform. This way, customers can easily get into touch with the business if they have a problem. From a PR perspective, bad customer service is detrimental. Companies could add an FAQ to their application to quickly solve common problems. For more complex problems, you could integrate a message function to support the customer. If the customer wishes to speak with someone over the phone, they can create a support ticket to be picked up by staff. Additionally, a company can provide 24 hour customer service. Also, an integrated social media functionality can help you keep up-to-date with your social media customer service. Businesses can track messages and interactions to help solve their customer’s problems efficiently.

Keep track of reviews

By having all of the review-based websites in one place, the process of responding to and tracking reviews is much more efficient. This includes all the ways a customer can leave a review, whether it be through Google, TripAdvisor, Google Play store, Apple App store or any other review site. This is another post-sales task that is important for your company’s reputation. In this case, it is important to designate the task of checking the reviews to a specific team or employee. In some cases you may not have much control over what reviews are left about your business. However, you can still feedback this information to others in the company as it is important to know what your customers think about you. Being able to view these reviews in one place increases efficiency and makes the task a much simpler and quicker one.

Improving internal communication

Companies are always looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the flow of information between their employees. This information could include files and documents or messages. Regardless of the type of chain of command within your company, communication problems can always arise. Business apps like this can be tailored to the preferences of those at the top. The company may have a top-down or bottom-up policy and an internal communication app could adhere to this. Reaching all of your employees instantly and separating internal communication from external communication facilitates and improves communication processes.

Furthermore, a cloud based storage app specifically for your business can assure that no information gets lost, creating monthly or weekly backups of your important files. Within big multinational companies located in different countries, a video chat functionality to arrange meetings through a calendar can be very time saving. Business apps that integrate existing software such as Skype, Zendesk or Google Calendar or even a tailored solution are likely to be used to enable faster communication among all employees.

Time management

Time and project management are a crucial factor for the success of a company. Therefore, considering important meetings, events, birthdays etc., companies could establish an application that reminds all people associated to the specific event. After all, “Time is money”. As a result of working with an efficient time management app, companies could improve their output and productivity and use their time in the most productive manner.

Many apps and software for this purpose have already been developed, for example Google Calendar. So why should you develop your own application rather than use Google Calendar? The reason is simple. Google Calendar does not offer any functionality that allows the user to track the data from it. With your own data, you can track the time taken to complete tasks within your company. This could range from simple daily tasks of your employees to large scale projects. With this, you can track whether tasks are being completed on time or ahead of time in order to optimise the delegation of tasks and improve efficiency.

Employee training

Training new employees can be time consuming. However, having training material in one place for a new employee to access whenever they like can help to redistribute the workload of managers or senior staff. If a new employee’s supervisor has to prioritise other tasks over the training of the new employee, the employee can still progress their training without outside help. For example, many companies have to spend a lot of time training new employees in marketing about Google Adwords. However, there is a large amount of learning material available specifically for this online. Having this all in one place for a new employee to refer to can be very beneficial. This practice works best for larger scale companies who take on lots of new employees. Those programs can be tailored for the company’s specific training.

Business apps for the business itself

While this may be an obvious need for a company, it is still important. Companies that are selling their products online now need an e-commerce app more than ever. You need to position yourself where your customers are. Most of the customers are likely to use their smartphone and tablets when they want to shop online. That’s why companies need to be available on mobile. Another advantage of making yourself available on the smartphone is that it opens up a new channel for potential customers. However, with a multichannel strategy including smartphones, companies should convey the same message of their business within the application as in other channels they use. You can also use the app to send push notifications to customers and emphasise sales promotions.

All in all, there are always business solutions that can be developed in the form of apps. Those business apps can be made for external use as well as for the company’s specific need. The market for business applications is still very open and there are many opportunities. Companies are always looking to optimise their processes. Therefore, the development of business apps in order to solve business issues helps companies to improve overall efficiency in terms of saving money, time and resources.