Top Smartphone Apps for Small Businesses

Almost everyone has a Smartphone these days, and savvy business owners know how to take advantage of their mobiles in order to advance their business interests. When it comes to “apps” that can be downloaded, however, there are literally millions, with billions of people downloading them, and so it gets confusing trying to determine which apps to download that could be beneficial to small and medium business owners. So in this issue, we thought it would be helpful to you if we list and explain some of the latest and hottest apps available.
Lots of businesses do in fact provide apps to their clients because they are easy and efficient to use. More importantly, apps are an excellent way to connect and keep in touch with your clients and help your business to be more recognizable, especially if you have a great logo that customers can easily recognize. Apps are not only helpful for communication purposes, however. As apps become the new normal for Smartphone users, they are becoming especially relevant to business owners because there are apps available that can be put to good use and get your business going, growing, and running smoothly. Apps are now available that can do everything from helping you handle client concerns and complaints, to keeping track of your employees’ work schedules, to monitoring your expenses, to helping you keep everything organized. Here are a few of the most popular apps being downloaded by business owners that have the potential to help increase your overall productivity.

Communicative Interactions
Pushover is excellent for those businesses that have multiple Smartphone users being operating by company employees. This one app helps you organize in one place all of the different messages coming from each device connected to, or used by, your employees. The app also allows you to send out and receive thousands of messages a month. Pushover comes with a free seven-day trial, and if you like it the one-time cost is $4.99, with no monthly fees. It works on most devices, including your tablet, laptop, or desktop.
Addappt lets everyone you are connected with, including of course friends and family as well as all of your customers and business contacts (suppliers, etc.), update their contact information in your list of addresses. The app even works on its own. For example, say it’s the case that one of your suppliers also has the Addappt app. Any changes they make, like getting a new phone number, for example, is automatically updated on your cellphone. The app also helps your organize your contacts into groups that you have created, and you can send a message to just a single group, several groups, or everyone in your address book. The app is free for both iOS as well as Android users.
Fuze is great if you happen to do a lot of videoconferencing and need something easy for hosting online meetings. The app is easy to set up and use, and offers high-def video and crisp, clear audio, and works on most devices. The basic plan is free to use and supports up to 25 videoconference participants. A Pro plan is also available, costing less than $15 a month, and lets you host up to 125 participants.
Slack works as a team or group conversation organizer, permitting you to keep both public and private channels, allowing you to send messages to groups and well as individual employees or business contacts. With Slack, dragging, dropping, and sharing images, PDF files, or any kind of document is a breeze. Slack owners use the app to send out e-flyers advertising their business as well as offering specials and updating company information. According to a company survey, those with the slack app reported a substantial drop in the need for internal emails and users held over 25% fewer meetings, all of which led to a 32% overall increase in business productivity, according to those slack users surveyed. The standard plan will cost you $8 per month, but comes with added benefits, including providing a full archive of your team’s message history.

Project Management
Project management apps are great for keeping you and your employees on the same page with day-to-day operations, particularly helpful with those in the field like drivers and technicians on pumper trucks. They are designed to streamline scheduling and workflow, putting everything literally at your fingertips, which allows you stop wasting precious time trying to figure out what all of your workers as assigned to do and where they are, increasing business productivity.
Basecamp is one of the popular project management apps out there, and also probably the easiest to use. It’s equipped with a sleek and intuitive interface, which makes it easy to chat with everyone on a particular project, track everybody’s progress, create helpful checklists, and attach files you want everyone on a team to have instant access to. Basecamp charges by the project rather than by users, who are unlimited. Various plans are available, the least expensive starting at $20 per month for 10 projects, while the most expensive ones will can cost up to $150 a month, but unlimited projects are possible.
Asana is a bit more advanced than Basecamp, but also comes with more helpful features. Your project or projects can easily be prioritized within its interface, while a dashboard visually charts your project’s progress. The app allows you to chat with all team members working on particular projects, lets you assign due dates, and choose the kinds of notifications you receive, among other cool features. The app also integrates with an impressive number of other services, including Evernote, Google Drive, Box, Slack, MailChimp, WordPress, and ZenDesk. The basic version comes free for up to 15 users, a nice feature for those on tight business budgets, and the premium costs about $20 a month for five users. Look to future issues for information on Smartphone apps that you can use for your business.

Story by Mark Joseph Manion

Please follow and like us: