Creating a business is an exciting thing, and watching it grow is even better. There are some wonderful ways to do this such as expanding online, opening new premises, or even setting up franchise opportunities to increase your company’s reach even further. Something that could also be worth considering you want to make your company the biggest and the best is to create a mobile version of it. If customers can’t come to you for any reason, you can go to them. How can this be done?
Be Mobile Friendly
In order to be truly mobile, you also need to be mobile friendly. That is, you need your company’s website to be available (and usable) on smartphones and tablets. More and more people do most (if not all) of their online browsing and shopping on a mobile device, and if your website does not look good when shrunk down to a smaller screen, you will lose business.
A Functional Mobile Website
Looks are important, but functionality ranks highly too when it comes to someone’s decision to use your website on their smartphone or tablet rather than a laptop. The menu needs to be small enough to see it but large enough to use easily without constantly hitting the wrong selection. The same goes for contact forms and the entire checkout system. No one wants to be resizing their screen all the time just to read some information or complete their details when they want to get in touch. The whole point of using a mobile device is that they want to find something out quickly or buy something immediately. If they can’t do that with you, they will go somewhere else where they can.
Be Consistent
Consistency is another important aspect of being a truly mobile-friendly company. People use the internet differently these days; they may start on their laptop, then switch over to a mobile device because they have had to go out somewhere or move to a different room, or any number of other reasons. If your website is consistent across all devices you will foster a much better sense of trust from your customers; they will know they are definitely still with the same people, even if they have moved from a static site to a mobile one.
Mobile Payment Readers
Being able to take payments when you are out of the office is essential if you want to have a totally mobile business. If you have to ask customers to call in with their payment details or you need them to come to your store so that it can all be processed, then you can’t really take your goods ‘out on the road’. It just won’t work. People want to do things in the easiest way possible, and that means they will want to buy something from you there and then, no place an order, not have to make a phone call to pay, not have to go online to deal.
Mobile payment readers are the ideal answer. You can feel confident going to any trade show or networking event, creating a pop-up store, even going to people’s houses, if you know that you can take payment should someone want to buy something. Technology has really moved on, meaning that mobile card readers are much more advanced than ever before. They can even email a receipt to the customer, so you don’t have to write one out or have a printer with you. It makes the entire process of going mobile so much easier and a lot more profitable.
As a bonus, if you have more than one of these readers, you can take more than one payment at a time without the system slowing down and without a queue forming. That’s perfect if you have a busy trade stall, for example, and you need to process as many payments as possible in a short amount of time.
The Pop Up Store
If you are usually office based then operating a pop-up store can make a change from your usual environment and allow you to see more customers. These are people who may not have known about you before, so it will extend your reach and give you a much wider audience to work with. Make sure you have the right equipment with you, including your card reader, cellphones and tablets, and any tools that might be required to do your job properly. Equipment that can be used remotely has become increasingly popular over the years. You can buy mobile container booths for grinding and sanding from this company, for example.
You may be so pleased with the way that your pop up store went you consider going fully mobile and ditching the office altogether. After all, if you go to the people, you can meet a lot more of them.
Change Your Phone System
If you want to be a mobile company and be able to go out of the office when you need to, your phone system could be something that needs to change. Traditional landlines are becoming a thing of the past; do you use yours at home very much (do you use it at all?)? The answer is probably no – you use a cellphone or a tablet. You use Skype or Facetime. You use any number of other devices to contact people, but only rarely do you pick up the landline out of choice.
Since this is the case at home, why do we rely on traditional phone systems so much in an office when all they do is tether us (expensively) to one place? Using cell phones is a good start when going out of the office to meet clients or to hold a pop-up event, but there is still a wariness when it comes to having a business without a landline phone number in its details. Something about just having a cell number is off-putting and speaks to the company’s reliability and professionalism, even though in reality not having a landline doesn’t mean any of these things.
Switching to cloud-based phone technology such as VoIP can help you with this. It means you’ll no longer be tied to your office in a physical sense, but customers and clients can call a land-based number which will make them feel happier and more confident in your service. That number will be redirected to a cell phone, enabling you to always be available to customers whilst you are also as mobile as you need and want to be.
