Technology is the future of business. There’s no doubt that the technology trends we see in the next 5 years will bring big changes in how people buy and sell products and services. Whether you’re thinking about business apps or marketing methods, it’s important to identify the most important technological trends, especially those that will have a long-term influence.
Artificial Intelligence Will Drive Customer Experience
Forbes says most people tend to think of dehumanizing interactions when they think of artificial intelligence (AI), but this isn’t a primitive form of automating marketing. In fact, three levels of machine learning exist:
- Machines performing tasks humans would normally perform
- Machine learning where the machines learn on their own
- Deep learning where machine learning is chained together for a rich learning experience
Today’s leading companies are embracing AI to perform repeatable, redundant tasks and process large amounts of information. They’re not trying to avoid human interaction. Instead, they’re attempting to enrich human lives. This can be seen in how:
- Google Maps uses real-time customer data from your phone
- GPS Insight helps companies shorten the scheduling window
- Municipalities use it to better deploy emergency responders and repair crews in crisis situations
You should expect to see more of this as additional tools and technologies become available, accessible, and affordable.
All This Helps You Connect with Customers Instead of Worrying About Selling to Them
The Aspiring Gentleman says millennials are the new powerhouse with over $1.4 trillion in spending power by 2020. This is why every brand is now making them their priority. Unfortunately, this isn’t easy to do since they all have different values, approaches to life, and the one thing most of them do have in common is the fact they hate being sold to. As such, your business must change its marketing strategies since pushing marketing messages to them doesn’t work.
While traditional phone systems offer a lot of the same great features you’ll enjoy when using a VOIP, it’s difficult to use them. Figuring them out not only takes time for employees who aren’t technologically savvy but now you no longer must worry about any of these things. You can essentially say goodbye to any complicated phone interfaces and the frustration they bring with them.
Augmented Reality (AR) Does More Than Entertain
Success as Your own Boss says businesses will find four main ways to put AR to work, including:
- Entertaining
- Safety and rescue
- Shopping
- Urban exploration
The main focus of AR is in product visualization though. It’ll let your small business perfectly showcase your products in real time. Since this is one of the main focuses in marketing, this is a trend you’ll want to pay attention to.
Choose a VOIP Business Phone System
Business News Daily says the right business phone system is one that’s both sophisticated and affordable, like a VOIP phone service. This system uses your internet connection instead of copper wires. In doing so, it’s able to provide your business with a lot of great benefits, including:
- Allowing your remote employees to have access to your phone system from any location since they’re easy to set up and configure without any technical help from the VOIP provider or a technician’s visit – it’s as easy as plugging in an Ethernet cable and a phone handset or headset
- Giving you all the same bells and whistles larger companies enjoy (e.g., automated attendants, call queues, computer integration that allows voicemails to be sent to email inboxes) since they’re much cheaper than landlines
- There’s no more wonky phone switches, closets full of physical phone lines and hardware, or IT personnel to hire to run all these things since your VoIP system becomes your phone switch
- You’ll have more space in your office while enjoying great features that are difficult to access with a traditional hard-line system
- VoIP vendors can quickly respond to marketplace changes so you can stay ahead of your competition
- Quickly set up and start using your new phone system
- Easily forward phone calls to the correct people, even if they’re not in your office with you or if you’re using your mobile phone while you’re away from your desk
- There are no more crazy codes or # signs to remember when using the find-me, follow-me and voicemail features
- Voicemail can easily be transcribed and sent directly to your mobile phone as an email
All these features allow you to offer better remote customer support since they’re developed for today’s market whereas traditional phone systems were developed for markets that are now 30 – 50-years-old now. This makes it easier to quickly respond to your business’ needs instead of having your customers waste time trying to get what they want or need from you.
Your customers aren’t the only ones who will benefit here. Your employees will also benefit from having a more user-friendly phone system to use. In fact, many people are pleasantly surprised to know that they’re already using a VOIP phone system without even realizing it. Of course, there are some companies who will tell you that they’ve found it effective to train some of their employees how to use the VOIP system’s administration features while only training the remainder of their staff in regards to how they can manage their own account settings. Overall everyone will still be pleasantly surprised by how user-friendly the VOIP phone system’s features are to use.
With this type of cutting-edge functionality, easy-to-use features and an enhanced customer support experience, available to businesses of all sizes the VoIP phone system is especially well suited for all companies – even entrepreneurs who want to look more like a small business. All of this is thanks to the VoIP phone system’s flexibility which can bolster your business productivity and business communications alongside the systems that your employees are already accustomed to using.
Mashable says in 2017 the FCC reported a 21% increase in the use of VoIP with over 30 million subscribers in the U.S. alone. Clearly, you can see there are a lot of great reasons behind this popularity.
