The days of pining for a corner office are dwindling at a rapid pace all thanks to advances in cloud communications, the increase in remote working, and business mobility.
Sure — it’s beneficial to have a working area that inspires you to do your best work, but that doesn’t mean it has to be in an office. As long as you have a way to communicate and be productive, you can work anywhere there’s an internet connection — whether that’s at home, in a coffee shop, or even across the globe.
Remote is the New Normal
While remote work was already on the rise, the pandemic even further shifted the work-from-home trend in order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their teams. And it’s a trend that’s here to stay. In fact, 66% of U.S. workers will continue to work remotely in the long-term and 42% will do so 5 or more days/week.
Of course, none of this is possible without the major advances that have been made in the cloud. Cloud-based collaboration tools for internal messaging, video conferencing, and virtual phone systems all offer mobile apps that make it easy to work on the go.
Another component of a successful remote business is ensuring it is optimized for mobile communication with its customers or clients. In this post, we go over the ways to achieve business mobility, and how to provide an exceptional experience for your customers.
How to Build Business Mobility
Just like you’re no longer bound to an office building for 40+ hours per week, your customers aren’t either. That means they’ll likely contact your business while on the go or even from the comfort of their homes. We already know businesses today compete based on experience, so this opens up the need for more communication channels and accessibility than ever before.
Wondering how to get started? Follow these 5 steps to achieve complete business mobility today.
1. Optimize Your Site for Mobile
When was the last time you checked your mobile site for ease of use? With so many of us searching for businesses on our smartphones, the importance of optimizing the mobile experience has surpassed that of the desktop experience.
An air-tight mobile experience is mandatory in today’s world of remote working. To get started, check out this resource from Yoast on ways to improve your mobile site.
2. Utilize Click-to-Call
One component of offering a mobile-friendly experience is making it as easy as possible for your site visitors to contact you. Enabling click-to-call eliminates the extra step of having to copy and paste a phone number into a dialer.
People prefer to call when they’re considering making a purchase, so why not simplify the process? It’s easy to do. Check with your CMS for instructions, or here is a step-by-step guide from WordPress.
3. Streamline Your Customer Journey
Have you ever tested your customer journey? How long does it take to get support from a social media message? How quickly can a customer get your team on the phone?
Consumers will only wait so long before moving on to the competition. A virtual phone system can help. With flexible features like smart routing and auto attendants, your callers will be pointed in the right direction the first time — enhancing their experience with your brand.
4. Offer Live Chat
Sometimes the best way to get a quick answer is to chat with a business. Which is exactly why live chat is quickly becoming an essential channel to establish business mobility.
Although this requires resources such as personnel and new software, there are ways to offer around the clock live chat support for a relatively low investment. Plus, live chat is a quick way to convert site visitors and capture more leads.
5. Build a Knowledge Base
Knowledge bases are gaining popularity in the support world, and for good reason. Allowing customers to serve themselves from anywhere for frequently asked questions is a massive time-saver for your business.
For an even more streamlined support experience, integrate your knowledge base with your live chat tool to give customers the option to serve themselves before getting a representative involved.
Creating business mobility goes beyond taking calls in your car or sending a fax from your phone. It’s essential that the customer experience is aligned, both online and off. By optimizing your site’s mobile experience and making it easy for customers to get the support they need from your business, you can build a business model that’s as mobile as you (and your customers) are.
