What Does Digital Mean for a Small Business?

What does Digital mean for a Small Business?

Tech industry insiders (myself included) talk about digital transformation of Business, but very rarely do we consider the small and medium Business owners who view such terms as techno mumbo jumbo gobbledygook.  This turns them off learning more and how it can help their Business grow online.

What is Digital Transformation?

A well-known adage in Business is to understand what your Customers want, how they want to buy and consume those products and services. Digital Transformation is just that, how to better serve your Customers in today’s mobile first world.

I always like to consider a famous Wayne Gretzky quote (he’s a Canadian Hockey great) when I think about Digital transformation as it resonates with me.  

“I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”  

It's a great quote because it’s something that every Business owner wants to do but may not understand how.  

How does your Business impact your Digital needs?

This is a great info graphic from Hit Horizons Analysis of the breakdown of industries per Business sector across all of Europe, including EU, Eastern Europe, and UK. When discussing a Businesses Digital needs some traverse industry and some are very different, especially if you are in a service versus a product Business.  

Common areas of Digitalization need across Businesses are an Online presence such as an App, a Website or a Business social media page on Facebook or Instagram. Its also critical for Businesses to be found online, either through Google or industry platforms such as Yelp or Open Table for the Food and Beverage industry. Businesses need to be able to list their products or services for sale with prices (may not be possible for Bespoke items or Custom services) and Businesses needs to be able to take digital payments like Credit Cards or Apple Pay and Google pay as Cash is no longer king. Every Business, product and service needs to be able to offer Customer support, to answer questions for pre-sales and after care. And finally, every Business needs to understand their Customers, who they are, what they ordered and how to better serve them and encourage them to return – this is often called Customer Relationship Management and Loyalty is used to keep them returning.

In the services industry, appointment scheduling and rescheduling is critical. The ability for Customers to be able to select their favourite hairdresser or favourite groomer adds complexities with different shifts, holidays, and sick days. Then there is the need for appointment reminders through email, phone or messaging and confirmations.  Of course, there is the need to link into product delivery or for some form (e.g., like DPD or UPS for non-perishable delivery) or after the pandemic the rise in popularity of Click and Collect.

How to go about Digitizing your Business?

In a previous Blog Post (link here) we discussed all the solutions required to digitize your Business, from Mobile Apps, Websites, CRMs systems etc. But all these systems are complex, they are costly to put in place and they are costly to maintain.  For small Business, we believe its far better to have a solution that provides all the key basic needs for digitization, that requires no technical skills, just basic internet skills.  

An alternative for small Businesses is to leverage the Messenger Apps which are ubiquitous on everyone’s phone, accepted and ready for Business.  Think WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage or Line. As a consumer I don’t want to have to download an App if I don’t want to, and just pulling up my favourite messaging App and just engaging with a Business is simple and familiar.  

This is what we do at Message My Customer – we enable messaging Apps for Business.

Of course, all the key digital features must be available for it to be effective, such a lightweight Customer Relationship Management, an eCommerce store to list and sell your products and services, Digital payments, for service industries an appointment scheduler, Digital payments with Credit Cards or Banks and finally loyalty and promotion capabilities.  

What happens if you have already started on your digital journey and are looking for some alternatives or looking for another channel to engage with your Customers. Messaging is a perfect additional channel, and you can reuse or bring your existing eCommerce store or payment solutions. We ensure that it will seamlessly integrate with our solution.  

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Sounds Interesting – Get in touch now.

We would love to chat with you about how your business could benefit from OMNI channel messaging and WhatsApp business platform. Get in touch with us at sales@payemoji.com and we will schedule a call.

So go ahead and join the conversation by taking advantage of the 23 hours that consumers spend per week on their Messaging Apps and use that to grow your Business.

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