Get Smart: 6 Ways To Boost Your Business With Smartphone Technology

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Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays, but hardly anyone uses them to their full potential. Most of us consider them a leisure toy for perusing You tube and playing games – but they’re also a business owner’s secret weapon. Embracing smartphone technology can improve your productivity and allow you to constantly be on top of business on the move. Here are ways to smarten up your business and use your mobile to its full potential.

Use apps to speed up processes

Apps have helped speed up many business processes that once were a chore. Getting people to sign documents and contracts previously involved have to pay and wait for postage or meet in person. Electronic signature apps have now solved this. You can get an employee or client to sign a document within the same day without leaving your office.

A similar technology that has sped up business is video communication. If you need to meet a new person, you can simply download Skype and talk to them from wherever you happen to be in the world. You can also give visual presentations and guided tours without having to spend the cost and time travelling in order to meet in person.

Other apps can help with accounting, rota building and personal organising, all of which can speed up previously tedious business processes.

Make your own app

Given apps are all the rage, why not create your own app? There are many software companies such as Wonderment Applications that can create an app for you easily and relatively cheaply.

This could be something to help market your business. If you’re a real estate business for example you could use it to show all your property in a slick fashion. It could even be a game related to your business such as a driving quiz if you’re a driving instructor.

Alternatively the app could be for you and your business’s personal use. It could be used as a training app or a quick manual for cocktails if you own a bar or common tools and fixes if you own a handyman company. Your imagination is your only limit.

Social media on the move

Having strong social media is important for ensuring any business’s online presence. Thanks to smartphones you can now update social media wherever you are in the world. If you work on the move you can take picture of clients and finished work at your location and post them online (if you’re a gardener you could ask a client to take a picture of their garden for your social media on a nice day). If you’re at a business convention and have a stall or you are doing a talk or workshop, you can keep your followers posted on events. Facebook’s Live stream option means that you even record a talk or momentous event in real time and get live feedback.

Schedule keeping

Keeping on top of one’s schedule on the move used to be a real inconvenience. No longer do you have to carry a diary or calendar around with you (or have to deal with stolen and broken pens). Most smartphones already have diaries and calendars on them as in-built applications. This means that if somebody wants to make a meeting with you or cancels on you whilst you’re out of the office, you can quickly update your schedule there and then. No need to write notes on the back of your hand like the old days.

You can also download more elaborate apps that can deal with more detailed personal organisation. Some even allow you to share information with others such as a rota or diary that all your employees or clients can see. Others can share their personal diaries, so that if you have a business partner and need to know where they are at a given time, you can look at their diary and check before making a call or adding an event into your own diary. Similarly you can keep them updated on your schedule. If you’re a boss who’s fed up of constantly being disturbed during meetings, share your diary with your employees so that they can always check before contacting you.

Last minute research

The internet has given us infinite information at the touch of our fingertips wherever we may be in the world. It’s something many of us take for granted – no longer is there a reason to enter a situation blindly when you quickly do some research beforehand. Having to go to a meeting early in the morning might once have involved brushing up on facts and information the night before. Now you can do some quick research on the commute there and free up at that time. Similarly if you get news of a late notice meeting with somebody, you can quickly look up their company or your last email transaction on the phone. The need to blag has been lessened – all those embarrassing times you didn’t know what a word meant or forgot a client’s name who you’re about to meet can be quickly rectified.

Replying to emails out of the office

If you commute to work via overground train or bus, why not use that time to answer all those annoying emails you get on a Monday morning and soften the blow. Similarly, you can keep in contact with clients and employees when you’re at home and deal with any emergency situation quickly and efficiently.

Of course, having constant access to your work emails can be a double edged sword. Your free time can easily be invaded by work life if emails are constantly popping up on your mobile. Some people will get a separate work phone to solve this issue that they can use on the move whilst working but switch off once they’re home. Once you get into the trend of answering emails out of work hours, clients and employees may take advantage of your constant availability. Create an ‘out of office’ message for when you don’t want to be disturbed and keep a work routine.