If your business sells to customers or clients on a regular basis then chances are good you've already heard about "Software As A Service" (SaaS). It's an easy way for businesses who don't have their own IT department to outsource all aspects of technology. It allows them to focus more on other areas in their organization while leaving behind the day-to-day operations like server maintenance and upgrades. This makes sense if you're running a small business with limited resources. But what happens when your business grows larger than you anticipated? Do you still need to maintain servers and pay for someone else to manage them? What if you want to offer something special to new clients but aren't sure how? And what if you just want to be able to sell a product without having to worry about all the technicalities involved? You could always hire employees, but this would mean paying salaries, benefits, taxes, insurance, etc., which isn't cheap either. In fact, there's no reason why anyone should ever have to deal directly with any tech support issues because they're supposed to take care of those things for you! That's where white label software comes into play.
A white label solution is one that lets you brand your software so that it looks exactly like another vendor's offering. Think of it as buying a house instead of renting an apartment. If you buy a house from a real estate agent, you get to choose everything about it including paint color, flooring type, cabinets, appliances, roof material, landscaping, furniture, interior design, exterior siding, windows, doors, and even whether to add a deck. The only thing you cannot change is the address number at the front door. Everything else is up to you.
The same goes for white label solutions. You can pick whatever features you'd like, decide what kind of interface works best for you, and customize every aspect of the software package to make it look completely unique. There's nothing stopping you from creating a fully functional CRM system that rivals Salesforce, nor anything preventing you from building a simple email marketing tool that will wow anyone who sees it. All you need is access to templates, images, logos, widgets, colors, fonts, and other assets that others have created for use by themselves. So, let's explore three ways you might incorporate white label software into your workflow.
When people think of contact management tools, most immediately envision calling lists. Some vendors allow you to build these yourself using custom fields or tags, but many also provide pre-built contacts and phone numbers. For example, Active Campaign provides a whole suite of options here and even has a built-in auto dialer feature. However, this functionality doesn't come free. Instead, you'll need to sign up for a plan. But if you do, you won't have to spend a dime upfront and only pay monthly after that. Once you start adding contacts, you can send emails, schedule follow ups, create tasks, or set reminders. You can also import data from Excel spreadsheets. When you're ready to upgrade, you can simply renew your subscription rather than purchasing entirely new licenses. These plans range in price depending on how much of the basic features you need.
But what if you really prefer to use voice recognition? Or maybe you have lots of contacts coming through multiple channels, not just phones. How can you know which ones are important? With Active Campaign, you can assign one or two different categories to each contact based upon information such as name, job title, location, industry, age group, gender, birthdate, marital status, and more. Then you can easily sort all your contacts according to these criteria. Plus, you can include notes or attachments along with each contact record. This helps you stay organized and remember details better. Best of all, you can export all this data in CSV format so you can share it with colleagues, partners, contractors, etc., or load it back into your account later if necessary.
When we talk about call tracking, we usually picture something like CallRail. This is a service that tracks every single incoming call made via landline or mobile device. Not too long ago though, this was prohibitively expensive. Nowadays, however, it's possible to find affordable rates for unlimited usage. There are several services available and plenty of competition among providers. Even so, it may seem strange to opt for a third party over a native app, especially since most major carriers now offer apps of their own. Why not save money by avoiding extra fees and get additional features like caller ID?
One option worth considering is Weblium. Although it offers fewer features than competitors, the pricing structure is reasonable enough that it shouldn't break the bank. On top of that, it integrates seamlessly with Google Voice, meaning you can forward calls to your cell phone number regardless of carrier.
Another solid choice is Shift4Shop. They offer both desktop and web applications that integrate with popular platforms like Outlook, Gmail, Skype, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Zoom, WhatsApp, Hangouts, iMessage, Telegram, Signal, Discord, Teams, Hubspot, Zoho Mail, Microsoft Exchange Server, Office 365, Evernote, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Trello, and more. Their pricing starts at $9 per month.
Most salespeople rely heavily upon CRMs to help them stay organized. Whether you use one of the well known names like SalesForce or Pipedrive or opt for something simpler like QuickBooks Online, there's probably going to be a place within the application where you enter leads and appointments. Sometimes, it will require you to log onto a separate website to input contact info manually. Other times, it will automatically pull records straight from your inbox. Either way, once you have a list of prospects, you can begin communicating with them regularly until you close the sale.
There are several great options out there right now. One of our favorites is DashThis. While it's not strictly a CRM, it acts as one by letting you organize your deals and interactions. Here's how it works: first, you create a dashboard listing all your opportunities. Next, you define rules for assigning actions to specific types of events. Finally, you designate triggers for when certain conditions occur. Once you've done this, you can automate processes related to scheduling meetings, sending documents, making followup calls, and more.
You can even connect DashThis to your favorite chat apps. Just install the extension and select ChatThis as the trigger whenever you receive messages in your preferred messenger. From there, you can respond to everyone, copy/paste relevant content into text files, or perform various other functions. Of course, you can do similar things with any other messaging client, but sometimes convenience trumps customization.
Finally, there's Weblium. Similar to Shift4Shop above, it gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of integrations. The web version supports integration with Zapier, Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Jira, GitHub, Basecamp, Freshdesk, SendGrid, PayPal Payments Pro, Stripe, and dozens of other common systems. Its mobile app connects with iOS and Android devices, and you can sync between your accounts across computers and tablets. Pricing starts at $14 / mo. And if you're looking for something even cheaper, try Invoca. It costs less than half of DashThis and includes similar features like automatic responses, calendar automations, and a wide variety of integrations.
As previously mentioned, there are a few white label software products focused specifically on call tracking. Among these is Invoca. It offers four levels of service starting at $39 / mo. Each level increases the amount of data collected and processed, allowing you to see trends and patterns regarding how often individuals reach out to you. You can also view reports on individual conversations and identify problem spots.
In addition to the standard features found in other options, Invoca offers tracking capabilities for voicemails, SMS messages, faxes, and e-mails. And unlike competing products, it actually saves recordings for future reference. Also, if you subscribe to a higher tier, you can even link your account to your existing call center.
All told, there are tons of white label software options, so you should feel confident finding the perfect fit for your needs. To learn more about how to find the right solution for your business, check out our guide on choosing the best CRM for your needs.
Tracking calls from your website or app to help you understand how users interact with them can be very useful information in terms of improving user experience (UX). You may even want to use this data for marketing purposes. But before you start using any kind of phone tracking solution, make sure you know what type of tracking you need.
There are three main kinds of tracking available for businesses today. The first one involves recording calls made by mobile phones through an API. This method allows you to track the activity on your site without installing anything on the client device itself. However, if you're looking to get more granular details about the traffic on your site, you will have to install some sort of software onto each visitor's device.
The second type of tracking involves third-party services like Google Analytics or Facebook Audience Insights. These tools allow you to see where people come from when they visit your site. They do not record the actual audio of your visitors' conversations but rather just their IP address.
Finally, there is also live chat tracking which records every word spoken in realtime. In addition, these programs can monitor all interactions between your customers and salespeople so that you can measure the success rate of your customer service agents.
In this article we'll discuss why most websites don't use any form of phone tracking at all and instead rely solely on analytics to learn about their audience. Then we'll go into detail about the different ways that you can implement phone tracking on your web application or store. Finally, we'll talk about some of the best white label solutions out there that offer great features for building applications around voice tracking.
Most websites don't require any special permissions to access the information needed to track someone who visits their page. All they need is permission from the person whose account they wish to track along with his contact number. And because almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays, this should be no problem whatsoever.
However, there are certain situations where you might find yourself needing to gather much more detailed information than usual. For example, if you run a business that sells products online then you probably want to know whether those purchases are coming directly from your website or indirectly via another source such as Amazon.
Another situation where you may want to track someone's actions would be during a live event where you're trying to figure out exactly how many people attended. If you had a physical location where you could hold events, you'd definitely want to keep track of attendance numbers so you can accurately plan future events.
So in short, there are two distinct categories of tracking that you must consider depending upon your specific needs. Let's take a look at both of them now.
As mentioned above, there are basically two major methods of capturing caller info. First, you can ask your clients to send you their contact information whenever they sign up for your product. Second, you can collect this information automatically. Here are the pros and cons of each approach.
Using manual collection means that you'll have to actively convince potential customers to give you their phone number. After all, it's quite intrusive to force people to share their personal information. On the other hand, having automatic phone tracking gives you full control over the process since you won't have to worry about human error.
On top of that, you get the benefit of being able to save money while doing so thanks to the fact that you only pay for active subscribers. With the latter option, however, you still need to think carefully about how you intend to monetize the collected data.
For instance, it wouldn't make sense for you to charge people $10 per month if you're going to sell their private details to advertisers anyway. So you really need to decide beforehand whether or not you actually want to profit off of this data.
If you choose to opt for automated collecting, here are several options that are worth considering:
Weblium Call Tracking - One of the oldest and most reliable services that offers the ability to capture incoming phone calls. It works well across platforms including iOS, Android and Windows 10. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on desktop browsers yet.
Shift 4 Shop – A popular choice among developers due to its ease of integration. Users simply add a few lines of code to their website and voila! Their entire sales funnel gets tracked down to the smallest detail. As far as pricing goes, the basic package costs $99/month and includes unlimited agent support. There's also a free version called "Call Tracker" that lets you test the waters to see if you actually need the premium plans.
DashThis – Another highly rated program that provides similar functionality to Weblium. Its interface isn't as intuitive as Weblium's though, especially if you aren't familiar with Javascript. Moreover, it supports fewer languages than Weblium does.
Active Campaign– Although Active Campaign is primarily known for email campaigns, it can also perform real-time calling. Like Weblium and DashThis, it comes with a subscription fee starting at $29/month if you buy it outright.
Let's say that you've decided that you want to track the movements of your customers. Perhaps you're planning on offering discounts to frequent buyers based on the amount of miles they drive. Or maybe you want to know how often your delivery drivers stop at gas stations on their route. Whatever the reason, you'll need to equip your vehicle with something that tracks the GPS signal sent from inside the car.
If you already have a fleet of cars running around town then you can easily set up a system that monitors their positions remotely. However, if you're renting vehicles, you'll probably have to invest in specialized equipment and hire a technician to install it. Either way, you'll end up spending thousands of dollars on hardware alone.
But wait, there's good news too! Thanks to a new technology called LoRaWAN, vehicles are becoming increasingly affordable. Companies like Nomi Networks are currently developing IoT networks that connect millions of cars together without the need for expensive infrastructure. Once this happens, you'll be able to create real-life apps that track everything from fuel consumption rates to driver behavior patterns.
Yes, it is. Voice tracking is certainly possible and it can provide tons of benefits to both small businesses and large corporations alike. Just remember that you shouldn't expect miracles overnight. Depending on how advanced your project is, it may take weeks or months to fully integrate the necessary APIs and SDKs into your existing systems. That said, once you get started, you'll quickly discover that this feature can boost your revenue considerably.
And although it sounds complicated, it isn't nearly as difficult as you might imagine. So why put off investing in this valuable tool until tomorrow when you can reap the rewards right away?
Software White Labeling (also known as "white-labeling") refers to when a product or service's name has been changed from the original manufacturer's brand without any changes made in functionality, such as removing features or altering code. If you've ever seen an ad for a new car with no brand logo on the hood, then you may be familiar with this practice. The idea behind using a third party instead of the actual manufacturer is to save money by not having to pay licensing fees every year. In some cases, the software will also allow customers to customize their experiences more than just changing the branding. This can include adding custom logos, colors, images, and even customizing the look and feel of each page. Many times these modifications end up being much better than what was offered at the original price point.
The term comes from the industry where most people think it originated — tech products like computers. However, it also applies to services that require specialized hardware, like cars. There are three main ways that businesses go about selling their goods: reseller, independent sales rep, and wholesale. Each one requires a slightly different set of rules and regulations. When it comes to software, there are two major categories: cloud computing and enterprise resource planning (ERP). While both offer similar benefits, they're used for very different purposes. If you work within either field, you'll likely encounter these terms often.
In order to learn how to choose the best type of software for your business, we spoke with Matt DeRienzo, CTO of Active Campaign, who specializes in marketing automation and CRM solutions. He explained why software companies prefer to sell directly rather than through resellers, which he called “the worst thing” an organization could do. Read his full answer below.
No, but you might want to keep reading! Here's the story: A few years ago, my wife wanted to buy a new car. She found her dream car online and she had me drive down to view it because she didn't trust herself alone. As soon as she saw it though, she knew it wasn't right for us. It looked too nice, so we went back home. Now, about five months later, she wants another car. So again, I'm driving out to see the car. Again, she doesn't love it, but she knows she needs something else. She says, "I don't care what it looks like, so long as it works." My response was, "You probably should get a car with a built-in GPS device," since she'd never been able to find our house without it. She said, "Why?" My reply was, "Because you won't remember the address next to all those other numbers!"
It sounds funny now, but it isn't. For example, let's say I have a dealership and I have several vehicles parked outside. One day, I notice that someone took pictures of them. They were taken inside my office building, which means I have cameras all over the place here. How did they do that? Well, they probably bought a program off the shelf that allowed them to take photos remotely. These programs aren't particularly expensive, so it wouldn't surprise me if they found one for $50-$100. After all, that's less than half the cost of a single camera. But that still leaves plenty of room for improvement.
Let's imagine that I had installed a bunch of cameras around the parking lot. Not only would that make taking photos easier, but it would mean that I could watch live video footage anywhere in the world. That kind of technology costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even worse, the person who takes pictures could potentially steal my identity, leaving me responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars. All because of a little bit extra money spent on a cheap piece of software.
There are many reasons why a customer might ask this question. Sometimes it's because they're looking for a specific feature. Other times it's because they simply want to ensure that their data is secure. Either way, knowing whether you have GPS tracking is important, especially if you plan on sharing sensitive information.
GPS Tracking is a great tool for monitoring fleet vehicles. You can track exactly where your employees' cars are located at all times. This allows you to monitor employee performance, identify safety issues, and reduce insurance premiums. Companies also use GPS Tracker systems to improve productivity across departments. Salespeople can follow a route while traveling between appointments, allowing them to call ahead to confirm meeting locations. And warehouse workers can monitor shipments throughout the entire process, ensuring everything gets delivered safely.
But before deciding to purchase GPS tracking devices, you must first determine if you actually need it. Before making the decision to install GPS Trackers on your vehicles, consider the following questions:
Will the additional equipment increase security?
Is it worth the expense compared to other options?
Would the equipment give you greater visibility into your operations?
Are you willing to share location details with your employees?
Once you've answered these questions, you can proceed with installing GPS Trackers. Depending on your situation, you may decide to use dedicated units, mobile apps, or web sites.
Most modern vehicles come equipped with a variety of sensors designed to help drivers stay safe. Some of these technologies include:
Lane departure warning systems warn drivers when they drift onto the shoulder of the road.
Collision avoidance systems alert drivers when they approach intersections.
Blind spot detection systems detect objects moving slowly in front of a driver's blind spots.
Automatic emergency braking systems stop a car if the brakes fail.
Forward collision warning systems alert drivers when they enter areas with high risk of collisions.
These systems vary widely in price, ranging from $300 to well over $1,000 per unit. Depending on your budget and requirements, you may opt for low-end models that provide limited capabilities or higher-priced versions capable of detecting multiple hazards simultaneously.
For instance, forward collision warnings typically fall into one of four groups based on the level of sophistication required: basic, advanced, supercharged, and ultimate. Basic models detect speed limits, traffic speeds, and distances to potential obstacles. Advanced systems add lane guidance and automatic brake applications. Supercharged models add adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection, and surround vision. Ultimate models offer 360 degrees of radar coverage, 360 degree views, and enhanced visual displays.
Depending on your preferences, you may choose to equip your vehicle with a combination of systems. Or you may wish to focus solely on certain components depending on your particular circumstances. Regardless of your choice, you'll likely benefit greatly by investing in a quality auto tracking solution.
Matt DeRienzo, CTO of Active Campaign
We asked Matt what advice he would give to small businesses interested in purchasing software. Check out his answers below.
When considering the option of buying software vs. hiring a professional developer, it's always good to understand the difference between a contractor/consultant and a vendor.
A consultant provides expertise in a particular area, whereas a vendor offers a product to solve a problem. Vendors tend to specialize in providing products that meet specific criteria, like a requirement for scalability, or compatibility with existing infrastructure, and thus tend to charge far lower prices than consultants. On the flip side, consultants usually have broad knowledge bases and can provide expert opinions on a wide range of topics. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages - consultants are generally cheaper, but lack domain experience and technical depth, while vendors bring deep technical expertise along with a wider array of tools.
Ultimately, choosing to hire a consultant or vendor depends upon a number of factors. First, you'll want to evaluate the skillset of the individual(s) you intend on employing. Do you expect the position to involve complex programming tasks, or perhaps require a highly skilled graphic designer? Next, you'll want to assess the overall project complexity -- what is involved in getting started, what does success look like, and what are the expected timelines? Finally, you'll want to assess the resources available to complete the task. Are you capable of paying for labor hours, or do you need to rely on volunteers?
To summarize, consultants and vendors serve different roles, and both are valuable assets to your team. Consultants can assist with smaller projects, while vendors can handle larger initiatives. Ultimately, the role you select will depend upon the size of the project, complexity, and availability of resources.
Looking for more information? Active Campaign offers a free trial of their software to anyone ready to explore the possibilities.
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.