Your Post-Pandemic Business: 4 Things That Are Here to Stay

Rebounding from COVID-19 challenges, the post-pandemic business environment offers abundant opportunities for companies willing and able to adapt to this “New Normal.”

Nearly every business has had to change, or at a minimum evaluate, their approach—in their relationships and communications with their customers; in the measures they have taken to protect their team members and meet their personal needs; and in the ways they have had to promote their business and manage new procedures.

Being able to quickly adapt has allowed many businesses to survive, and even thrive through an evolving post-pandemic landscape. These elements of growth are likely to remain, even after business returns to its pre-pandemic routine.

4 ELEMENTS NEW NORMAL THAT ARE HERE TO STAY

1. WORKING REMOTE: As the business world has gone increasingly virtual, maintaining productivity while protecting team members has become essential. Cloud-based software with complete document management enables a seamless electronic workflow in a paperless environment. Offering real-time access to quotes, invoices, purchase orders, delivery information, and even hand-written documents, creates an “electronic file cabinet” that all team members can access, whether they are in the office, at home, or somewhere in between.

When all transactions are linked in your software, you can improve communication, eliminate the need to re-key information, and reduce costly errors. Plus, when your data is available in real-time, you can manage your business from anywhere, making it possible to run reports, analyze performance, process purchase orders, and answer inquiries from anywhere in the office, at home, on vacation, or at a trade show.

2. MOBILITY — How Technology Can Help You Mobilize

Our post-pandemic new normal will continue to require flexible businesses operations in many ways, and mobile technology can help your organization adapt to an ever-evolving landscape. Whether you use a smartphone, a tablet or a laptop, mobile solutions can help you operate more effectively. Mobile options help you to interact with customers wherever they are, whether they’re at the curb, in the lumberyard, outside in a garden center, at the checkout line, or at an offsite location.

Mobile solutions provide more flexibility for your field sales staff as they can use their devices to complete sales in the field, create quotes, check inventory and research delivery status. Incorporating mobile devices in a retail environment can also save time while managing inventory, tagging, labeling, and line busting during busy times.

Customers also benefit when businesses increase mobility. You can answer account questions, look up sales history, or research outstanding invoices, with real-time information is available from anywhere. . Sales staff can free up internal personnel by answering questions and handling issues at the counter, or in the field. Leveraging business management software with mobile options saves time and will make your business more efficient.

3. DELIVERY: During the Covid-19 crisis, many businesses quickly incorporated delivery or other alternative shopping options to meet customer demand. Even if essential businesses were allowed to remain open, many consumers were reluctant to actually go inside retail stores and wanted convenient pickup and, even more important, delivery options.

Businesses that have long offered delivery for key accounts already realized that they can offer a more personal delivery experience than their big box competitors, and a branded fleet of trucks can be a huge differentiator. Integrated business management software can help you provide an exceptional delivery experience that increases sales and builds customer loyalty.

Advanced delivery features can help streamline processes so your dispatchers can organize deliveries without drowning in paper. Plus, by incorporating mobile devices you can take photos or obtain signatures for proof of delivery, which helps your customers while protecting your business. By sending notifications to customers, you can keep them informed of their delivery status, further strengthening your relationship and driving repeat business.

4. ECOMMERCE: Too Important to Ignore, capacity limits, social distancing and CDC guidelines made ecommerce even more significant to B2C and B2B sales. Affordable, integrated, and straightforward to use, customers need a secure log in, need to be able to see in real-time what inventory, and be able to pay quickly and have a variety of delivery options. They also need access to invoices, reports, sales history, and more.

Both contractors and consumers need to be able to use the application anywhere, on a desktop, tablet, or phone. And, most importantly, it requires a software application that integrates seamlessly with the core business so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

As the business landscape continues to shift and the world moves increasingly online, opportunities abound for companies that take advantage of the tools available. One cloud-based system can allow you to see your entire business—whether in person or virtual—as an integrated whole.