7 modifications to Make to your business in 2017

The New Year is all about resolutions. There are a variety of modifications and improvements that you can make to your business for 2017. With a little bit of planning, you can set your business to be more successful than previous years and provide more efficiency and productivity to operations.

Work on Reputation Management
If you don’t know what online reviews have to say about your business, 2017 needs to be the year where you focus on reputation management.
Your reputation is everything, and if you don’t know what people are saying about you, you don’t know whether it is good or bad. Negative reviews can affect your ranking in the search engines and prevent people from doing business with you.

There are plenty of reputation management services that you can utilise. This will place a dashboard in front of you so that you can see when new reviews come in from top websites and what they have to say. Positive reviews will give you a reinforcement that you are doing everything properly. Negative reviews will show you where you need to make improvements so that you can prevent similar reviews from appearing in the future.

Provide Online Training
Employees want more than just a job. They want to know that they are learning and growing within an organisation. By providing online training, you make it easier for employees to learn. Various portals are being set up where you can introduce employees to a wide array of topics that can help them grow. Topics can include time management, stress management, workflow processes, and much more. You can also have online training customise to the needs of your business.

Employees will have the ability to login, choose a training topic, and then take a test at the end to ensure that they have captured all of the necessary information. These training sessions can be required or employees can choose to take them on their own accord, which can help to boost employee performance throughout the year.

Introduce a New Payment System
It’s important to make it easy for people to pay for your products/services. Additionally, you want to make sure to use a system that will be fully automated so that you don’t make any late payments. When you can go paperless and transform the cash flow of your business, it is going to provide you with greater control. You can enjoy easier budgeting, improved customer service and better cash flow with a system like direct debit payments in place.

Establish a Loyalty Program
Customers have access to more companies than ever before. E-commerce has opened up more options, allowing people to purchase from outside of their community. By establishing a loyalty program, you give customers a reason to stay with you. Whether you offer points, discounts, or anything else, it shows that you are committed to doing what it takes in order to keep their business.

Consider a Mobile App
Mobile apps are gaining in popularity, and much of this has to do with the fact that people have a smart phone or tablet on them at all times. The mobile app can make it easier for people to make reservations, book appointments, obtain information, and even make purchases directly from their mobile device.

Use Social Media Marketing
Social media is a vital marketing tool. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other social platforms are being used by businesses every single day. Some are going to be better than others based upon your industry and your target demographic. Various apps and tools can be used in order to manage your social media presence, including scheduling posts and being notified when you receive a message or a post on your wall. It will improve customer engagement, which can help to build your brand considerably.

Allow for More Productivity
Sometimes, it’s important to change the rules around in order to enhance productivity. When you and all of your employees are more productive, it will allow you to get more work done. If you have been considering hiring more employees, you may want to focus on enhancing productivity first. After a few changes, such as allowing employees to work remotely or providing them with cloud-collaborative tools, you may find that additional employees are not needed. Everyone simply needed some flexibility in order to become more productive within their jobs.

You need to work out what changes are appropriate for your business and decide on the best way of implementing those changes as soon as possible. It’s a New Year, so it’s only appropriate to introduce some new systems.