4 Online Business Tools We Use and How They Can Help You

At VeryConnect we use a variety of tools to help our business operations run smoothly. Here are four of our favourites that can help you and your organisation too. If you would like to have a chat with us to learn more about these tools and how we can help you to set them up, feel free to give us a call.

Having the right online business tools is one of the keys to success.

Slack

Slack has the mission to make you less busy by replacing emails for quicker, leaner messages. Slack is a team messaging tool that's gaining a lot of attention at the moment. Rightfully so, having been chosen as one of ten breakthrough companies in 2016 by MIT Technology Review.

Team messaging with business process integration is at the core of Slack. Team messages can be in different channels for teams and subteams, or in direct messages between two or more team members. Your business processes can be hooked in to notify appropriate team members when important actions take place. For example, we have this set up for when @veryconnect is mentioned on Twitter, or when someone gets in touch on our website.

At VeryConnect we use Slack on a daily basis and it makes our team communications a lot more efficient and enjoyable. Since slack works as an app across all common devices we can easily talk with each other even when we’re on the go. You can find out more about slack at slack.com

Trello

Trello is taking your to-do list to the next level by letting you create different to-do boards together with your team. Trello wants to help you to keep track of everything - from the big picture to minute details.

When we deliver membership software to a new client it is important that our sales and technical teams have an efficient way of communicating with each other. We need to know what actions are done, and what’s still in the pipeline, including who is responsible for delivery. It is useful to be able to discuss and comment on various actions, and it is also very satisfying to swipe completed items off the list!

In short, Trello helps us to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Have a look at trello.com to learn more.

Our online business tools helps us with our teamwork.

Google Drive & Google Docs

Google Drive has been around a little longer than Slack and Trello, and provides a suite of online tools including Google Sheets for spreadsheets, Google Slides for powerpoint presentations and Google Docs for word processing. All your documents can be organised in different folders, and the search function makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Replacing clunkier word processing software, Google Docs makes it easy to write and share texts of all kinds. As with Slack and Trello, collaboration is key, and it is easy for teams to create documents together. You can also securely share documents with contributors outside your organisation.

Google Docs is the foundation of all of VeryConnect’s written documents. This is our starting point for everything from blogs to proposals. Our favourite aspects are the ability to track changes when working on documents together, and how easy it is to discuss these changes in the comments. Try it here to see what your favourite aspects will be: gsuite.google.com

Stripe

A little different from the tools we use to collaborate, Stripe helps organisations of all sizes to accept payments. Stripe was created to satisfy a need for sound payment technology, and we know first-hand that their support team goes to great lengths. As a result, Stripe is on the rise with 100,000+ international businesses using their service across 25 countries.

Stripe was the natural choice of primary payment partner to us. Their technology is outstanding in terms of being secure, friendly, and easy to integrate and to manage. It is easy to make recurring and one-off payments on the web and on mobile.

We use Stripe every time our clients take membership payments, and also when some of our clients pay us. Stripe delights our team and clients with its simplicity and efficiency. Have a look to see if it can help you too: stripe.com

Stripe makes online payments easy online and on mobile.

(Sticky) Whiteboard

In addition to the four online tools we’ve shared, we are also fans of the classic whiteboard for brainstorming. Even though our business and passion is about digital technology we think best with a pen in hand. To integrate our brainstorming and future plans as part of our working environment we have whiteboard posters stuck to each wall in our office. These whiteboards stick to walls without leaving a mark, meaning that we can move them around as we wish and really make the most of our office space. You can get these quirky and useful whiteboards online at www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk

Hope you have found learning about these tools useful. If you need any more advice or would like help with setting up Slack or any of the other tools, get in touch - we are more than happy to help!

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