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The Agency of the Future
written by
Mateusz Pliszka
Customer Consulting at SoftwareSupport
According to Flexjobs already nearly 50% of the US population is operating in some degree of remote mode.
The recent coronavirus pandemic forces us to go remote whether we like it or not. But it’s safe to say that this historical event will only fuel remote work trends. The number of people working from home already grows by 8% every year.
This boosts the growth of freelance platforms becoming more significant suppliers of the workforce. But it’s not only about freelance platforms expected to grow. With the remote work trend, more and more of us are using cloud and integrated software to help us communicate, collaborate and deliver our work when working from home.
At SoftwareSupp, we’ve been working on the projects for fully remote companies, supporting them in building their remote work processes. We also work remotely every day, so we‘re happy to share with you an insightful guide on how to work remotely, helping you go through this difficult period without getting lonely or crazy.
So how to set up a complete remote workplace in your company using cloud SaaS software?
The first thing on your todo list is to start communicating with your team in one central place. There is no better way to do this than Slack, so let’s look at how to use Slack in the remote work times.
Make sure you use Slack’s private and public channels to bring team members to the projects you’re working on. Post to the channels often, so that the team knows what’s the current status of the projects (normally, you’d tell everyone in the office about some important milestone).
Integrate your Slack workspace with Google Drive to improve on the way you collaborate with your team. If you haven’t started to use Google Drive yet, it’s the best time to start using it. Integrate with Slack to get notified about changes/comments to the documents and to collaborate, faster.
Staying at home will feel lonely sooner or later. Do more regular wrap-up calls with your team to update you on your work and projects. This will maintain your team’s morale but more importantly will help you stay healthy.
Make use of Slack’s external invite system to collaborate with people from outside of your business, without them seeing all your internal Slack conversations. Collaborate within your shared channels, no need for physical meetings.
Using a built-in reminder feature will let you remind your team about events, like project meetings or due dates. Use it to stay up to date without having to manually update your team.
To reduce the number of emails and calls sent back and forth, set up a Calendly account to allow for booking meetings and automate sending meeting invites to participants.
Use Calendly to set up your work time and availability for scheduling meetings. Make sure you integrate Calendly with your Google Calendar to automatically exclude the time booked in your calendar for other events.
Integrate your Calendly account with video conferencing solutions to make sure each meeting has an automatically generated link (no need to manually send the link to the conference).
Integrate your Calendly account with #meetings channel on Slack to help you update your team on the meetings scheduled through your Calendly. Let others handle the meetings when you’re not available.
If, for managing the company’s contacts you have so far been using Excel spreadsheets, collaborating on spreadsheets when working remotely might turn out to be a difficult or impossible job.
Use a built-in import feature to upload all of your company’s data like contacts, companies or deal chances.
You likely don’t want to allow all of your company members to access all the data stored in your CRM system. Use Pipedrive’s permissions’ settings to set up access to specific information for selected Pipedrive users.
Use Pipedrive’s integration with Slack to update your team on the events inside your CRM (like completed activities or new leads added), without the need to manually send updates or your team having to access a CRM.
Using a standard banking environment is not the most convenient financial way of managing the company in the remote world days.
With the Revolut or Stripe in place, you will be able to easily issue virtual credit cards for your team and keep track of the payments and expenses in your business.
Allow selected company’s members the access to your Revolut or Stripe account to allow for financial management or analysis. Add users with different access types, e.g. to restrict sending outbound transfers only to selected groups of users.
Use Revolut’s virtual cards to allow your team to use the company’s resources when they actually need them. Set up limits for selected cards and avoid the need to manually pass your card to team members.
Integrate with Slack to automatically send updates about payments. Get updated about your expenses and revenues immediately. Make sure you keep your funds safe at the same giving flexibility to your team members.
Use project management software like Monday or Asana to collaborate on projects with your team and customers. Track the time spent on specific tasks with the built-in time tracking feature.
Create boards for your teams and projects to assign and handle tasks in real-time. Use project management boards to plan for your team’s and company’s activities/next steps.
Use sharing and link functions to share your boards with customers and other stakeholders in the projects. Allow external parties to collaborate and keep everybody updated about your project’s status.
Use Slack integration to automatically update your team about the most important progress on your project boards. Keep your company up to date without the need to manually check on the information by using one general channel or by using a dedicated channel for each project.
Make sure you improve on customer communication by using customer service software like LiveChat or ChatBot.
Set up a live chat or ticketing feature on your website to allow your team to handle incoming inquiries by chatting or handling incoming tickets.
Integrate customer service software with your CRM to identify leads and handle the sales process through your CRM, closing more sales.
Distribute incoming customer service queries to specific team members, depending on their location, division or specialization.
Use software like 1password to handle access to your technology by your team members. Reduce the time spent on manually requesting and sending access.
Implement the rule to provide passwords only through adding access to the 1password software. Keep your access data secure.
Create separate vaults for different access data stored in your company (like website, payments, marketing). Make sure specific team members have access to selected vaults and keep your passes secure.
Add your software as a Chrome or Safari extension and have your access data filled in automatically. Save time on manually asking for the access data or copying and pasting.
Start using freelance support platforms like SoftwareSupp to outsource the manual work you do every day and save time for most important business tasks.
There is a ton of work needed to set up your remote workplace when it comes to software implementation and automation (Zapier integrations, API connections, etc.). Use professional support from a Certified Experts and save time on integration tasks and maintenance you do every day.
Some of the development work you handle in-house can be outsourced to an external freelance expert. Working remotely is a good time to start using this kind of service to improve your workflow and save time spent on tedious dev work and resources on internal hires.
Generating content takes time. With so many freelance workforce available it becomes easier to outsource any content you want to deliver to your customers. Use freelance support to outsource content creation tasks and save time for content planning and strategy.
Becoming a remote company takes time and requires a designed process. In SoftwareSupp we help businesses become more remote by supporting them with proper tools’ implementation/integration, creating remote work processes/documentation and team/individual training. Turn your company into a remote workplace by yourself or hire our expert to help you in the process.
written by
Mateusz Pliszka
Customer Consulting at SoftwareSupport
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