Some of us are lucky enough to work for companies that support remote working policies. For others, this might be a new experience. And while many people report that they can actually concentrate better away from the hustle of the bustle of the office, it has to be said that remote working doesn’t come naturally to everyone.
Remote working requires a certain level of discipline. Whether you’re sitting in a cafe or, yes, holed up at home, you’ll face distractions of a completely different kind. And if your team’s not accustomed to working remotely, it can get lonely. In some cases, such as when you need to meet prospects and customers in person (I’m looking at you, Sales), you might even think remote working makes your job impossible.
Two-thirds of managers report that employees who work from home increase their overall productivity. Fundera
So what can you do to keep morale high, communication smooth, and your team productive when the end of the year is looming, you’re not quite hitting target, and you find yourself in a position where the business is asked to work from home?
6 HubSpot integrations and tools to help you work from home
1. Slack
Slack is a messaging system perfect for day-to-day communications when you and your team are out of the office and need a quick answer. Catch up on the morning’s progress, share files, and collaborate (and let’s not forget buoying team spirits with a well-timed GIF).
From group chats to one-on-one conversations with your colleagues, real-time communication with Slack is much simpler than email for handling daily communications. Not at your ‘desk’? Set a status letting everyone know you’ve nipped to the shops for lunch. Getting your head down? A polite ‘do not disturb’ sets the expectation that you’ll be an hour or two replying to messages. You can even make a quick video call through Slack if you feel the need to speak with a colleague over the phone (or simply see a friendly face).
With its integration with HubSpot, you can turn Slack conversations into HubSpot deals and associate them with a contact or company. You can also share a HubSpot contact with colleagues and receive notifications on your HubSpot CRM activity, from reminders and mentions to follows and form submissions. No slacking with this tech integration.
See the potential? Discover how Slack can be used to facilitate employee advocacy
2. Zoom
No matter which department you work in, online high-quality video conferencing and meetings with Zoom makes working from home that much simpler.
Zoom is a tool that automatically syncs with your calendar system and can record meetings to the cloud. Remote teams can review the video later on to stay informed. During video calls, you can send written chats to the participants as well as share your screen to increase collaboration. You can even schedule a Zoom meeting from any contact record and automatically send dial-in conference call details to your HubSpot prospects.
The best thing? Being able to see the people at the other end of the meeting adds a human element to long-distance comms. In fact, 93% of communication is non-verbal cues, so whether you’re ‘meeting’ with a new customer or liaising with your colleagues, you’ll feel that little bit less remote, no matter where you’re working.
3. Vidyard
If you work in sales, you might well be thinking “there’s no way my team or I could possibly work from home, we wouldn’t be able to do any face-to-face meetings with our prospects”. I’d challenge you on that by asking ‘why’?
Once upon a time, remote sales activity might have meant cold calling and impersonal outreach. But today it’s never been easier to conduct personalised, face-to-face sales outreach and meetings virtually. We’re talking about video again.
We’ve just mentioned Zoom as a great integration for having virtual meetings and video calls. Video software provider Vidyard builds on this, opening up the rest of your sales process to personalised, 1:1 videos you can shoot at home.
Use it to record custom videos for sales outreach and start building a relationship with the recipient from the moment they press ‘play’. When you follow up with a prospect afterwards, they feel like they know you better as a person.
Using video is not only a great way of helping your prospects to buy, but it changes how your business is perceived. It’s more interactive, it humanises your brand, it increases engagement, and it allows for your sales team to work fast. So click ‘record’ and wave hello to a more productive sales team — wherever you and your prospects happen to be based.
See how LAN3 smashed year-end sales targets by using video outreach
4. CircleLoop
As an ‘all-in-one business phone system’, CircleLoop allows the people within your business to answer or make calls, whether it be at the office or working remotely. With the ability to take the phone system wherever you go, every employee is on hand to receive inbound calls and provide the best possible customer service, no matter their location.
With CircleLoop, your HubSpot contact data is automatically synced and offers enhanced inbound caller ID, allowing you to see full contact details if that person is in your HubSpot CRM. Every call and voicemail is also recorded and logged against your contact in the CRM, enabling you to review what was said during each interaction. Your sales team can even add notes, tag people in call records, and have visibility over call metrics. This includes both inbound and outbound calls made by your team.
5. HubSpot dashboards
As a team manager, if you’re not physically with your team, it can be difficult to view their progress against KPIs and track productivity. One of the great things about HubSpot is being able to easily set up customised dashboards that solve these challenges.
Let’s say your new business development rep is making sales calls and following up with prospects. He’s six weeks in the role and the business has made the decision to work remotely. A custom dashboard could be just what you need to have visibility over his data:
- Report on any metric from the HubSpot Hubs, CRM or any data from your integrated apps
- Use templates or start from scratch with tailored reports to visualise your data how you want
- You can even schedule daily/weekly/monthly emails to share the dashboard so everyone on your remote team is aware of the results and whether they’re on track to hit their goals
Learn how to create and manage your dashboards with HubSpot
6. Google Docs file sharing
Although this isn’t necessarily a HubSpot integration, using file sharing such as Google Docs allows you to store and organise all of your documents which can easily be shared and accessed to anyone across the business. Remote collaboration becomes that much easier with Google Docs as multiple people on your team can be viewing and feeding back on the same document in real-time.
Grab the app and you can make changes from your phone to your tablet to your computer, making editing on the go a simple task – wherever you happen to be at the time.
Enabling your team work remotely
As you can see, when you have access to the right technology and tools to enable productivity, working from home doesn’t seem so complicated. You can still communicate, work as a team, generate positive business results and provide the best possible customer service for your prospects and customers.
If working from home is a big challenge and you want to understand how HubSpot can help, reach out to us and we’ll be happy to talk you through it.
