New Year, New Software

Direct B2B Engagement With Consumers On Social Media

An ever-expanding number of B2B businesses are using mobile and digital communication technologies to converse in real-time with consumers. According to a Google report, social media is becoming the dominant business communication strategy, overtaking all legacy channels (such as newspapers), and even the telephone. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are enabling firms to build relationships with their audiences in real time, bypassing the need to develop their own parallel communication channels.

Mass Employee Texting Tools

Texting your employees, informing them of various business updates can feel a little controversial. Business likes to remain squarely in the realm of email for official correspondence. However, if you take the plunge, it could enhance your internal communication strategy tremendously.

Research suggests that employees are more than fifty percent more likely to open an SMS text than an email. Thus, companies often find it a better way to get messages out. It’s helpful for:

• Reminding employees about various HR deadlines
• Providing construction or project updates
• Informing individuals of IT network outages (when traditional email isn’t available)
• Notifying employees of office closure

There are a wide variety of employee texting tools on the market, such as Simplified Alerts and Trumpia. These allow you to send multiple SMS messages with the single push of a button to the contacts in your list, all from the comfort of your PC.

AI-Powered Chatbots

Chatbot technology is continuing to advance and, in 2022, this software will become more capable than ever before. Chatbots provide companies with opportunities to dramatically improve their efficacy and efficiency, processing more users at lower cost.

Today’s chatbots are better at natural language processing than their predecessors. This means that they can accurately interpret what users say, even if they pose questions in non-standard forms. Once customers submit a query, chatbots can then supply answers and then ask them if their response resolved the issue. If it did not, it can then forward users to agents who can help them.

Having a chat box for website communication is helpful. In many cases, 2022 chatbots will be able to pre-empt user questions and provide answers upfront, without the need to type the query at all.

Task Management

Finally, we are likely going to see dramatic improvements in task-management and communication software, such as Basecamp 3. These tools will allow large teams to collaborate on a wide range of ongoing projects without the need for constant email back and forth. Features include file and document sharing, milestone tracking, chat and messaging and time-management charts.

Naturally, software that offers all of this doesn’t come cheap. But it does represent another step away from old-fashioned and clunky email communication.