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Businesses and technology go hand in hand. Many companies that find ways to automate jobs that humans once did can shrink their staff and reduce their payroll. They can start to dominate their niche if they own proprietary technology that no one else has.
Even if you’re a business owner who can’t monopolize a particular technology form, you can still use whatever tech pertains to your industry, and that should help you establish your brand within a specific niche. Let’s look at some technology examples that can potentially help your business.
Inspection Systems for Converting Lines
Let’s say you create a product or product line for your business. You have a factory where you do that work. You might do the work with both machines and humans who oversee those machines.
You will probably need to have a converting line. A converting line is a process where an unfinished product starts at one end, and your system modifies it as it moves along. When it gets to the conveyor belt’s other side, it’s typically ready to box up and ship.
If you use a converting line, the process along that line might involve cutting a sheet of metal in half, or it could involve something much more complex. The point is that you need to make sure the converting line does what it should. Any error from that converting line could result in unusable products and wasted resources.
Inspection systems for converting lines can help your manufacturing company a great deal. These automated systems check to see that your converting line functions properly. If the inspection system detects any abnormality, it can notify a human worker who can shut down the line until you fix the problem.
A converting line inspection system can save you a lot of money since it lets you reduce system downtime. If you get one, you’ll want one from a company that stands by its product and can offer technical support for it whenever you need it.
Apps
You probably use apps many times every day if you have a smartphone. Most business owners know that shoppers buy products and order services using mobile devices more in 2023 than those who use laptops or desktops.
Because more potential customers shop while on the go with their smartphones or tablets, you may want to consider creating an app for your company. Companies like Uber, Amazon, and other huge conglomerates have apps, but did you know that many much smaller companies have them too?
You don’t need to run a huge business to at least consider creating an app for your company. Even if you’re a local pizza place with only two or three locations, you should consider how much it would cost you to create an app.
If you have an app, it’s likely you’ll attract more customers. Using the pizza place example, they probably don’t want to bother calling your store to order food, as people have mostly relegated that custom to the past.
If you can create an app for your business and you’re always ready to fulfill orders that come in through it, you should be in a much better position to compete within your industry, even if you’re a small, mom-and-pop establishment.
Chatbots
Chatbots are AI-infused programs that you put on your business website that can communicate with potential customers who have questions but don’t necessarily want to talk to a live operator. You can get someone to create a proprietary one for you and feature it prominently on your site.
eCommerce does big business these days. Maybe you have a physical storefront, or more than one, but you should also create a website and sell your products online if you want to expand your market base. That’s not possible with every business model, but it is for many of them.
If you create a chatbot and feature it on your site, you won’t need as many live operators standing by to help customers who visit your site and have questions about a particular product or service.
You can program the chatbot to answer any questions the customer might ask that you don’t cover in your website’s FAQ section.
The chatbot can address a concern someone has if they visit your site at any hour of the day or night. If the chatbot gets a complicated question that it can’t decipher, it can pass the potential customer on to a live operator.
Customer Relationship Management Systems
Customer relationship management systems, sometimes abbreviated as CRMs, can help your business as well. You can have someone who works in IT create a proprietary CRM for you, or you can also get an out-of-the-box one if it seems to fit your business model and has all the features you need.
A CRM helps you to store, collect, and analyze customer information. It uses cookies to track what customers visit your app and website. It’s great if that individual converts, meaning they buy something from you. However, even if they don’t convert, you can gather information on them if they accept cookies that track their online movements.
You can start to compile ideal customer data from the individuals who visit your site or app. You might learn what customer groups like your marketing and which groups you still need to reach. You can collect data like a customer’s age, gender, marital status, income level, or anything else you need that can better inform your marketing strategies.
Based on the information a CRM gives you, you can tailor your marketing to make headway with certain groups you want to reach.
You might choose which social media platforms to target based on which ones you know these groups use.
That can save you money and effort. If you know that you should target Instagram more than Meta, for instance, you’re not bothering with social media marketing efforts that won’t ultimately help your business. The right CRM makes that possible.
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