The new year is a good time to create better efficiency around the office so you can spend more time meeting with clients, says Kirtarath Dhillon, social-media and public relations coordinator with Advisor Websites in Vancouver.
Using the latest technology can grant more opportunities to provide a “human touch” with clients, Dhillon adds.
Here are three online tools that can improve your productivity for 2016 and free you up to meet more clients in person:
1. Drop Box (https://www.dropbox.com/)
You can store all of your marketing assets in once place with Dropbox, Dhillon says. This file-hosting service is an ideal tool for keeping logos, media kits, video and audio files, and company information in the cloud, making them easy to share with clients or colleagues.
However, Dhillon warns: “Even though Drop Box is very secure and used by some of the biggest businesses around the globe, I wouldn’t suggest storing any sensitive data or client-centric information.”
2. Zapier (https://zapier.com/)
Zapier is an application that connects supported apps so that you can automate tasks and speed up the administrative process.
For example, if you’re using the application Wufoo to design online contact forms, you can “zap” that application to work with Salesforce (a popular CRM system), Dhillon says. When a web visitor submits a form, his or her information will automatically upload to your Salesforce database.
Using Zapier, Dhillon says, removes the need for someone to manually input data from the contact form into your Salesforce account.
3. Global Relay (https://www.globalrelay.com/)
Global Relay is an archiving tool that helps to create a permanent record of selected communications. Regarding compliance issues, this tool can be helpful because it creates a database of messages from email to social media, Dhillon says.
Audits also become much easier, Dhillon adds, because you can easily search your records.
This is the third part in a three-part series on online tools.
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