Everyday Operations: Rest of the Best [Essential Tech Part 5]

Website Magazine recently asked 'Net professionals what technology their Web-based business cannot operate without.

From analytics to virtual assistants, the answers were as diverse as they were interesting. Over the past week, we've released their answers by category: social and mobile technology (found here), development and infrastructure (found here), analytics and optimization solutions (found here), content management systems (found here) and other software types to run your digital business (found below). 

Collaboration

"Project collaboration tools that assist with project life-cycle. Each agency/business is different. It's important to work smart. There are a slew of collaboration tools (some free) available that can be used to effectively manage resources, which can keep the team on the same page, open the lines of communication, keep everything on track which yields a project that's on-time and on-budget.

Some examples of the ones we use:

- JIRA

- Hangouts/Slack

- Sococo (virtual office/teleconferencing)"

+ Steve Tamulewicz, Founder & Managing Member of eCreations

"1903 Studios is a Web-based digital agency with team members that are located across multiple states. We absolutely could not work like we do without Slack. Slack allows us to easily communicate in a way that just wasn't possible before without us being physically together."

+ Michael Heath, Owner and CEO of 1903 Studios

CRM

"As we offer a B2B SaaS solution, our website visitors are full of questions. Our customer relationship management (CRM) has saved us many leads that wouldn't bother send their queries via a traditional email. Who has time for that when there's a chat box available?"

+ Kostis Mamassis, CEO at Megaventory

"I run a small lead generation site that compares private universities and their costs and I use Desk.com CRM. I find it absolutely indispensable for my business for its easy integration and multi-channel support that tracks social media, email, chat and phone leads for only $20/month (U.S.)."

+ Vladyslav Ionov, Owner or eltimon.com

"You've got to have a CRM to get results. At Kansoly.com we're using AgileCRM because it has best of breed features for both marketing and sales."

+ Bruce Macfarlane, Founder of Kansoly

Automation

"One tool every business should be using is SumoMe. It's an inexpensive but powerful tool that helps fill the top of their funnel with new leads.  It also connects with major CRMs to let you trigger intelligent email automation programs."

+ Bob Clary, Director, Online Engagement of Intellibright

Ecommerce Platform

"Since 2012 we've found Shopify to be indispensable for our fossil and mineral retail business. We were able to launch a professional and highly functional site in about six weeks. Numerous apps that we've integrated offer us all the features that we need."

+ Peter Lovisek, CEO of Fossil Realm

"For a mid-size ecommerce operation like EVELO, Shopify plus Klaviyo is a must-have. This combines a leading shopping cart/checkout system, with an email platform designed all around sales. There's no better way to generate revenue from a smart, customer focused perspective."

+ Jonah Bliss, Director of Community at EVELO Electric Bicycles

Read: Essential Tech Part 1, Essential Tech Part 2, Essential Tech Part 3 and Essential Tech Part 4