BID® Daily Newsletter
Oct 23, 2012

BID® Daily Newsletter

Oct 23, 2012

SMALL BUSINESS TECH USAGE


Community bankers are always interested in staying on top of things their small business customers are doing. One area of particular interest is in the realm of technology, because it is quickly changing branch traffic patterns, customer access points, increasing competition and altering the underlying delivery of products and services. That is one reason we were intrigued by a national survey of small businesses (between 2 to 99 employees) conducted by AT&T. The survey found 96% of small businesses use wireless technologies in their operations and 43% say their employees use such technologies when working away from the office. This is up 80% in the past 3Ys and shows a fundamental shift in the way your small business customers conduct their own business. In addition, the survey found 67% of small businesses say they now use tablet computers (up a whopping 18% over the past year alone) and 85% use smartphones for their operations (double the usage of 5Ys ago). When asked how they use mobile devices, GPS navigation/mapping (80%) surfaced most often, followed by location-based services (44%) and social media marketing (42%). To double-check this data, we looked at another survey by market strategy company iGR. It found that 52% of small and medium sized businesses now use a tablet to help run their business. Further, the same study found the top reason small and medium sized businesses said they bought a tablet computer this year was as a substitute for a laptop (32%). These results follow the general trends outlined above and show mobility is increasingly important to your business customers. Now that we have explored the types of devices used by small business owners, we delve deeper into what exactly they are doing with these tools. Here, we find businesses are actively using tablets to reduce costs and improve productivity. Competition is fierce, so it makes sense that tools that empower the user are driving change at a fundamental level. Key areas where small businesses are leveraging the tablet include signing contracts electronically; taking notes; billing customers; scanning business cards; scanning receipts; producing visual dashboards or videos to improve sales; as a credit card reader; for internet conferencing and a host of other applications. The sky is really the limit here, but a survey by Yankee Group found the most common types of apps used on tablets by small businesses (50 or fewer people) were for email, to access a database, for corporate instant messaging and as an internet conferencing tool. As you consider how to empower your own bank personnel to get out and mingle with customers to generate more business, we suggest you start by wandering the neighborhood and looking around. At restaurants, you will find tablets in use as a way to more easily seat patrons, take orders, reduce staffing and update menus. At other businesses, you will find tablets being used to make payments as customers sign with their finger and get an emailed receipt (allowing the business to capture the email address and improve marketing). Finally, businesses are using tablets to display products and services (applicable to banks) or fill out forms or contracts on the fly. This shortens the time and reduces the effort required to close business. No matter where you are with your own bank's technology applications for your small business customers, know they are moving along nicely and see these as tools to get the business done faster, easier and with more style than ever before.
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