Running a successful business is a continual effort. Since the focus is on new tech, many other obvious steps often get overlooked.
Let’s take a look at a couple of tips on how to enhance business operations by not forgetting the necessities.
Your Shipping and Delivery Times Are More Important Than You Think
Shipping is one of the things that tends to get complicated often simply because there are too many factors to consider. Implementing delivery management software is, hence, a good idea, and here’s why.
Delivery management software (DMS) manages the delivery life cycle on one centralized platform. There are many different DMS types, including easy-to-use apps that help with shipment scheduling and management.
In addition, you can also do a couple of things to improve the process. Obviously, planning comes first, and here’s a checklist:
- Plan well ahead for busy seasons (holidays, seasonal sales, etc.)
- Prioritize time-sensitive shipments
- Pick the carrier with the fewest delays
- Use digital freight software to forecast delivery times
- Track your containers’ delivery status digitally to be able to address potential problems in a timely manner
Next on, make sure to compare shipping services keeping in mind the following:
- Delivery service type (the size of packages, the number of packages, and so on)
- Delivery speed
- Security (security policies)
- Range of deliveries (for oversized packages)
- Delivery costs
- Professional experience
Creating detailed shipping labels comes next. Make sure that all shipping labels include the recipient’s name and delivery address, package weight, company info (name, address, website), and a handle with care warning for fragile products.
Finally, make sure to perform regular audits when receiving products adhering to the following principles:
- Scheduling deliveries
- Double-checking the labels
- Counting the products twice
- Confirming that all new products are stored properly
- Signing proof of delivery after verifying the shipment contents of
Even though it seems like a lot of work, it’s still worth the trouble. Keeping customers happy is, after all, what drives business success and RoI in the long run.
AI Can Innovate Your Contact Centers
Next on, make sure that your contact centers operate impeccably.
Some general recommendations include contact center automation, Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP), interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and automated call distribution (ACD) systems.
However, you may want to take that extra step to stand out from the competition: look into speech analytics!
Speech analytics, a.k.a. audio mining is a technology that identifies human speech and text and converts them into data. The data is structured in a way that enables actionable insights.
There are many types of audio mining tools, with the simplest one consisting of a speech engine that performs the converting, an indexing layer that searches the information, a query engine, and a reporting application that presents actionable insights.
Customer interaction analytics tools help businesses understand their customers’ needs better. This information, in turn, helps businesses come up with sophisticated approaches to improve their services.
Continued Learning Is Crucial for Career Development
Continued learning is essential.
However, you might want to, once again, go the extra mile to stand out! For example, consider the importance of instructional designers for eLearning.
An instructional designer specializes in building online courses for adults. These courses are a combination of learning science, educational technology, and user experience. Click on the link above to learn more.
The next step is to improve knowledge sharing by building the culture of learning into your overall business culture. One good way to achieve this complex goal is to set up a knowledge-sharing system (KSH).
A KSH is a platform combined with people and processes, which collect and store information in a central location. Everything should be accessible in real time to everyone.
Pro tip: give augmented reality learning a try! The AR technology blends computer-generated environment and the surroundings as it interacts with the users. AR apps integrate with other technologies, too, so give it a go.
Your Online Presence Matters
Finally, we come to the most obvious part: online presence.
A business that doesn’t get proper online exposure is likely to struggle. Nowadays, everything happens online and digitalization is simply omnipresent.
This doesn’t mean you need to brainstorm advanced digital marketing strategies all at once! Many professional websites are powered by WordPress, a platform even half of literates can successfully make use of. For advanced options, there’s a myriad of WordPress plugins that can transform your business website into exactly what you want it to be and also help with SEO and page indexing.
These four tips are a solid foundation for any business. Couple these new approaches with the ones you’re already using and watch the magic unravel before your eyes.
Don’t worry if you need some extra time. After all, it’s experimenting that creates breakthroughs, so keep up the good work and experiment away!