Every year, we like to take a look at some of the best apps and platforms out right now that can help businesses of all sizes function better and do a round up of ones that you should look forward to trying in the new year.
These business platforms include any app or tool designed to simplify your work life and help solve common business problems. We especially like to evaluate business platforms that help you communicate, collaborate, and just generally be more productive.
Keep reading to find out what a few of our favorite business apps and tools are right now and give them a try in the new year (or after you finish reading this) to see how they can help you do business better.
Best Overall Business Platform for Communication, Collaboration, and Productivity: Spike Email
Spike mail is the first conversational email app to hit the market and is a platform that you should definitely try out in 2022 if you want to increase productivity, improve communication, and promote collaboration at work.
The problem with traditional email is that threads quickly become cluttered, repetitive, and just generally messy. Things like repeating subject lines, headers, and even body text make it hard to get the information you need quickly, and responding to long email threads can suck up unnecessary amounts of time.
Spike email solves this problem by turning your emails into chat-style conversations, allowing you to read and respond to emails more naturally, just like responding to any other text or chat message.
Spike also features a priority inbox that filters out other noise, such as promotional and marketing emails, to show you only the most important work-related messages when you need to see them most.
As if that weren’t enough, the Spike conversational email app is chock-full of other useful features that make collaborating with your team, partners, or clients a breeze. These include:
- Built-in video meetings
- Voice messages
- Groups
Online notes - Tasks and to-do lists
- Super search
- File management
- Calendar
These features essentially turn your email inbox, or inboxes (Spike lets you sync multiple emails), into a central workspace to manage all your projects and tasks.
For example, the online notes feature allows you to start collaborative notes with others that feature a chat sidebar, so you can discuss and collaborate with your teammates in real time. Or, the built-in video meetings let you have instant video conferences without having to switch to another platform.
If you’re looking for a single business platform that can really change the way you do things at work, we highly recommend testing out Spike today.
Best Business Platform for File Sharing/Collaboration: Google Drive
For sharing and collaborating on word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more, we think Google Drive is the winner. When you sign up for Google Drive, you get access to the full suite of Google Workspace tools, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and everything else.
When you want to collaborate on drafts or even send final copies of documents or reports to clients, Google Drive makes it incredibly easy. You have full control over who has access to your files and what they’re permitted to do, and everything stays nice and secure in the cloud.
Google Drive doesn’t have any features like conversational email or collaborative notes, but you can sync your Gmail account to Spike email (mentioned above) to integrate the two platforms and boost your productivity even further.
Best Business Platform for Digitally Signing Documents: DocuSign
With so many companies doing business online and employees working remotely, it’s important to have a way to securely and legally sign documents in a digital manner, and DocuSign does just that.
DocuSign is the most widely trusted and used eSignature platform for businesses right now. If you want to make doing official business remotely easier than ever, give this tool a try.
Best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform for Businesses: Salesforce
Salesforce is the world’s number one CRM platform. It unifies marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT teams into one central platform where you can keep track of everything related to your customers’ experience (and your sales).
Businesses of all sizes can use Salesforce to sell smarter and grow their number of customers faster.
The platform is fully cloud based, so you and your team can access it from anywhere, making it ideal for sales teams that work remotely and connect to your enterprise networks from different devices and in different locations.
Best Business Travel Platform: TripIt
TripIt is a platform that keeps track of all your business travel arrangements, from flight itineraries to accommodations and meeting times. It even keeps you informed about relevant weather and anything else that could affect your business trips. If you and your team travel a lot for business, or are planning to start doing so, having an app that helps you get to your destinations on time and avoid unexpected issues is invaluable.
Best multichannel marketing automation platform: SendPulse
SendPulse makes a worthy contender when it comes to all-in-one marketing solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. Due to a wide variety of necessary lead generation and nurturing tools as well as communication channels, combined with flexible paid plans and superior customer support, you can’t really go wrong with SendPulse.
Chatbots are becoming a go-to solution suited for many tasks, and it’s never been easier to create a chatbot of your own. The platform provides an intuitive chatbot builder equipped to design chatbots for major social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram or popular messengers WhatsApp and Telegram. Chatbots can answer simple queries, accept payments or react to mentions of the brand on social media.
A landing page is a cornerstone for any online business. The landing page can serve as a basic lead generation funnel or a full-on online store. SendPulse allows you to create a custom landing and have it connected to a chatbot through a subscription widget. This combination can prove to be more effective for both lead generation and as a simple customer support solution. Generated leads along with customer data are stored within SendPulse’s CRM. Customer relations management capabilities can come in really handy by means of automating sales and customer communication.
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