In the digital age, having a website and social media presence is no longer enough to grow your business. Businesses need custom software solutions to streamline operations, optimize workflow, and get data into the hands of team members that can act on it faster.
This also gives you an opportunity to stand out from competitors and show them who’s boss. While developing custom software may seem like a significant investment, in the long run, these solutions save businesses time and money while increasing efficiency.
Read on to find out how custom software will help you grow your business.
Increase Efficiency
At the heart of every business is the ability to operate efficiently, which is why the investment in custom software development can really help your business grow. Before building your own custom solution, assess how your team currently operates, what are the pain points, and potential gains.
Once you have a clear understanding of your team and their needs, you’ll be able to design and create software that will help them work more efficiently. When it comes to sales, prospects want a fast and easy experience.
A slow or clunky sales process can lead to missed sales opportunities. This can be an issue if your team relies on Excel spreadsheets to manage sales pipelines.
With custom software, sales teams can sync relevant customer data from many different systems into one central location. This gives sales reps access to all the data they need in one place, which enables them to close sales faster.
When it comes to operational roles, you can also increase efficiency by building software for your finance department and marketing teams.
Show ROI
Custom software can be a significant investment for any business. Before you invest in developing custom software, it’s important to demonstrate how this investment will deliver measurable ROI.
Start by assessing the business impact of various software solutions, including on-premise, cloud-based, and SaaS solutions. Then, determine the initial and long-term costs associated with each solution.
It’s also important to understand the impact on your employees by identifying the skill sets required and what level of staff members will be required to operate the software.
Strengthen Customer Relationships
Custom software can help companies strengthen relationships with customers by providing a superior experience. This starts with onboarding new customers by giving them access to their data from various systems. Helping new customers get set up and track their data quickly and easily after onboarding builds trust and shows that your business cares about their success.
When it comes to managing existing customers, you can use custom software to collect feedback, make suggestions, and deliver personalized content that benefits their specific needs. You can also use this software to send automated follow-up emails after specific milestones, such as after the first purchase or when they’re due for a product upgrade.
Build A Stronger Team
Custom software can help build a stronger team by helping employees become more efficient and providing data that they can use to make better decisions. When building software for internal use, it’s important to make it user-friendly.
Don’t complicate matters or make your team work harder than they have to. Instead, find ways to make their jobs easier, such as providing access to data that’s relevant to their role.
For example, marketing team members need access to customer data so they can send personalized emails to customers. However, the same data might not be relevant to accounting team members.
Help Establish Your Brand
Custom software is an opportunity to show your customers that you’re in charge and know what you’re doing. It’s also an opportunity to show your team that you have confidence in their abilities.
When building software for your customers, you have the opportunity to position yourself as an authority in your industry. You can also use your custom software as an opportunity to brand your company by including your logo and colors in the interface.
When building software for your internal team, you have a chance to establish your brand. You can also use this software to educate your team members, such as teaching them how to use the software, showing them how it works, and why they need it.
Summing Up
Custom software is an investment that will pay off, but only if you take the time to do it right. When it comes to building custom software, less is often more. Don’t try to build too many things at once.
Instead, start small and identify one pain point to solve at a time. When you’ve developed a few internal software solutions, you’ll have a better idea of what’s next and how to grow your business with custom software.
