Custom tools boost performance across any area

Nearly all businesses are using digital technologies in some way to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge. 

Off-the-shelf software can be an affordable, quick and easy solution for a lot of business problems. However, strategies that rely on standardized tools can lead to frustration and great unrealized potential.

The truth is, every business - and every person in it - is unique with their own specific workflows, challenges, and goals, and they should get systems with their functions tailored precisely to those unique attributes. When they do, performance and productivity soar.

That's where the power of customized work tools comes in.

What exactly are ‘custom work tools?’

Custom tools are tailored digital solutions built to address the specific needs of an organization and its people. They come in a few different forms, all designed to work seamlessly with a business’s existing systems and empower their employees and customers. 

Think of them as the perfect set of tools in a digital toolkit, designed precisely for the exact tasks at hand. 

Here's a closer look at the different types of custom tools:

Interfaces

Imagine your existing systems speaking the same language, tailored precisely to the individuals who use them. 

Custom interfaces achieve just that. 

They can either customize your current system interfaces or create a brand-new interface that integrates all your systems, making them more intuitive and user-friendly for the people using them.

Work tools

These are the nimble problem-solvers – scripts, mini-apps, extensions, plugins, and small models designed to handle specific work functions. 

Need Excel to connect to a unique database, run a query, transform the results, and then distribute different parts to different people and systems? 

Want Salesforce to automate a complex data collection and analysis process that notifies the right people of the results and pushes them for next steps? 

Work tools can make it happen.

Apps 

Combining the power of interfaces and work tools, custom apps are more comprehensive solutions for more complex business demands. 

They bring together various functionalities into a single, unified platform tailored for all your specific needs.

Chatbots 

These conversational assistants can be integrated into your interfaces and apps to automate workflows and provide instant support to customers and employees alike. 

They’re trained on all the relevant business data and operational processes, and they fit right into any workflow in the right way at the right time by conversationally managing all your integrated systems and data.

Guides & training systems

Onboarding new employees or rolling out new processes or systems? Custom guides and trainers offer interactive, step-by-step assistance directly within your systems. 

Trained on your processes and integrated with knowledge bases and FAQs, they empower users to rapidly learn and master new things or complicated tasks with ease.

Customer apps 

Designed with your customers in mind, these apps prioritize ease of use. Often requiring no download or login, they ensure a seamless and convenient experience for your clientele. 

Better yet, they’re designed precisely to enhance your product or service offering to maximize value ensuring optimal customer outcomes.

At their core, all custom tools are powered by automation and seamlessly integrated with your data systems and intelligence. In some cases, they can even leverage the power of AI to further enhance their capabilities.

Why custom tools are necessary: Common pitfalls with standard tech

While off-the-shelf software is a great place to start, it often falls short when it comes to meeting the unique demands of any particular business. 

The reasons are simple: service providers make systems that apply to everyone, and it would be impossible to tailor things without alienating a large segment of their user base.

While it’s an understandable problem, here's why relying solely on standardized solutions can keep a business from realizing its potential:

Smothered productivity

Standardized tools might not offer the flexibility needed to support your unique approaches, potentially stifling your ability to get things done and respond to new market opportunities.

• Workers toggle through an astonishing number of applications daily, with some switching between as many as 35 different applications per shift, with over 1,100 application switches each day.  
• Employees switch between approximately 22 different applications and websites about 350 times per day, at times spending more time switching than working on primary tasks.  
• Frequent context switching leads to a substantial cumulative loss of productive time, with studies indicating it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully refocus after switching tasks.  
• Approximately 20% of an individual's cognitive capacity can be lost each time a context switch occurs.  
• Employees who regularly use 30 or more applications experience a 28 percent higher error rate. 

Lack of customization

Standard software is built for a broad audience, meaning it usually doesn’t align well with specific workflows and requirements. You might end up adapting your processes to fit the software (more often than not), and this leads to inefficiencies and compromises.

• Employees may waste up to 1 hour per day navigating between different work-related systems.  
• This can result in approximately 1-2 entire days of work wasted per month per person.

Limited flexibility and scalability

As your business evolves, standardized software might not easily adapt to your changing needs, potentially leading to performance bottlenecks and costly upgrades and workarounds.

Integration issues

General solutions often lack necessary integrations with your existing systems, creating data silos or causing process oversimplification that hinders overall operational efficiency.

Vendor dependency

Using vendor partners force businesses to become reliant on the software vendor for updates, support, and future development, limiting control over critical processes. What’s worse is that the vendor necessarily provides solutions for one specific system; this will miss the fact that other systems may be cheaper and better suited to handle certain tasks.

Hidden costs

Beyond the initial purchase price, there are ongoing licensing fees, costs for premium features, and expenses for training and support. And then you have to talk to “vendor partners” to implement the limited solutions they can provide.

Many businesses wind up using systems in a way that blindsides them with high costs and a newfound dependency of their products. There is usually an optimal way to integrate and leverage your different systems to reduce these costs.

Some digital solutions providers can save businesses up to 98% of their overhead costs with a more optimal systems architecture to exploit these efficiencies.

The strategic advantage of custom work tools

Custom work tools, like interfaces, apps, chatbots, and guides, offer a powerful solution to these limitations. They provide a strategic advantage by enabling businesses to:

Tailor solutions to specific needs

Custom tools are built specifically for your unique business goals and operational needs, eliminating the often necessary compromises with off-the-shelf software.

Enhance efficiency and productivity

By automating repetitive tasks and streamlining workflows, custom tools free up your employees to focus on more strategic and creative work. Studies show that businesses using custom software can experience a 74% improvement in business efficiency.

Improve scalability and flexibility

Custom tools can easily adapt and expand as your business grows, without the heavy costs associated with modifying standardized products. Companies using custom software report a 71% increase in scalability.

Ensure seamless integration

Custom tools are designed to integrate perfectly with your existing systems, ensuring smooth data flow and enhanced information sharing. Custom software can expand what your systems can do by enhancing the ways they integrate together.

Boost employee satisfaction and engagement

When employees have tools that are specifically designed for their roles, it leads to a more intuitive and productive experience.

Gain a competitive edge

Custom tools allow you to create unique features and functionalities that differentiate you from competitors using generic software. Top innovators using custom software are 62% more likely to outperform their competitors in revenue growth and profitability.

Real-world impact for all areas of operation

Custom tools aren't just theoretical concepts; they deliver tangible results across various job positions and industries. Here's how they can benefit common horizontal operations:

Sales

Custom dashboards provide tailored views of KPIs, enabling data-driven forecasting and improved pipeline management. Automation of tasks like lead scoring and follow-ups frees up sales teams to focus on building relationships and closing deals. Sales teams using automation tools have reported a 3x better conversion rate into sales.

A medical supply distributor reimagined their sales pipeline with a custom app to track inventory, automatically generate proposals and contracts, and even do research on to streamline their sales pipeline. They saved over 80% of their time, while accelerating customer acquisition by well over 2000% in less than 6 months.

Management

Business owners expect a lot from management, navigating ongoing communications, oversight on projects and operations, handling administrative duties, while mitigating issues and pushing work along. 

Custom management dashboards are an excellent fit because they excel in areas of complexity and managerial tasks. Management apps help manage so much that they will have time and resources to focus on adding value and driving work to exceed goals.

One company that used custom apps increased their average service value by over 110% to their clients.

Human Resources

Custom HR portals and work tools streamline onboarding/offboarding, automate payroll processing, and provide self-service options for employees, leading to significant time savings. 

• Companies using payroll software have observed 37% time savings. 
• Automated onboarding can lead to a 50% reduction in time to productivity for new hires.
• Efficiency improvement by 62% for HR operations that work with employee data.
• 80% lower error rates by automating data entry, and 60-70% faster payroll process time by automating invoices, receipts, and tax information.

Operations Management

Custom interfaces provide real-time visibility into processes, enabling quick decision-making and improved efficiency. 

Automation in operations can lead to a 10% reduction in changeover costs and an 80% decrease in administrative time for production planning. 

One company saved $50,000 per month by avoiding production mistakes through a custom operations management interface.

Project Management

Custom project management apps integrate task management, collaboration tools, and reporting features, streamlining project planning and increasing success rates. 

There are many ways this can happen, in some cases PMs achieved a 15% faster project turnaround time by creating custom apps, and others used custom tools to be 30% more likely to complete projects on time. 

One company reduced their kick-off time by 60% using a custom project management app.

Finance

Bespoke finance applications integrate accounting, budgeting, and reporting functionalities, providing a comprehensive view of financial operations for better decision-making. 

Companies have been able to accelerate processes by 98% and achieve an 80% reduction in annual work-hours on financial tasks. 

One company streamlined its onboarding process from weeks to an average of 24 minutes using a custom work app for finance. 

Customer Support

Custom chatbots provide 24/7 support, answer FAQs trained on business data instantly, and improve the efficiency of human agents. 

Companies using AI-powered chatbots report a 37% drop in first response times. One company automated 66% of its customer queries and saved more than $14,000 per month. 

Custom tools using AI have been able to save 50% more time on customer tickets.

Marketing

Custom tools can provide control systems to marketers to help them automate marketing their campaigns. They can come ready-equipped to personalize customer interactions, and provide valuable insights into campaign performance by simplifying their complex tools. 

A home services business boosted customer retention by over 120% with a marketing app to control their WhatsApp communications for automated targeted reselling.

Benefits await ANY business area: 

• Planning and strategy
• Research and analysis
• Administrative
• Compliance
• Legal

Across all these roles, custom tools can automate tedious tasks, centralize information, improve data analysis, streamline complexity and facilitate better planning and strategic decision-making. 

Research shows businesses who use data analytics are 5 times more likely to make faster decisions.

Consider what it’s like to have a custom tool automate key capabilities for various roles; a few examples:

Embrace Customization for a Future-Proof Transformation

While a lot of software might offer an initial short-term convenience, the true power of digital transformation lies in embracing customization of those systems. 

Customization does not need to be a huge, complex undertaking that breaks the bank and costs irrevocable time. These can have very low, even negligible, on-going operating costs, have a reasonable cost to set up and relatively simple systems can be finished in a matter of a couple weeks.

Custom tools, including interfaces, work tools, apps, chatbots, guides, and customer apps, provide tailored solutions that address your unique business needs, enhance efficiency, improve customer experiences, and ultimately give you a significant competitive advantage. 

Don't settle for a one-size-fits-all or out-of-the-box strategy when the costs to invest in custom tools can be so low and readily available. Unlock the full potential of your systems and get them to work for you in the best way possible.