At VoxDirect, our goal is always to help small businesses work smarter, not harder. Our platform allows our community of clients to stay connected with their customers and team members through phone and text messages. 

In an effort to help more businesses communicate effectively while simplifying workflow processes, we recently announced our integration with Zapier, a leading cloud-based online automation tool that connects over 2000 apps without a single line of code.

Why did we launch the integration?

Small businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, representing Over 90% of the business population. These small businesses are responsible for a large number of jobs and because of COVID-19, many have had to scale back and reexamine finances. That means scaling back on necessary technologies that often help add more customers and enable better culture.

We wanted to find a way to help small business owners get more done each day, which means finding a way to be more productive without the extra costs.

We're all frustrated with repetitive tasks in our day. But these tasks are costly as well, accounting for $5 trillion in lost productivity annually. When business owners switch back and forth between tasks, this can take away precious time as well—continually changing tasks accounts for 40% of lost productivity.

Inefficient processes can cost organizations 20-30% of revenue every year! VoxDirect is helping you solve this process inefficiency through automation. In fact, 60% of jobs could save an incredible 30% of their time with automation.

Automating processes through integrations helps small businesses and solopreneurs work better throughout the day, increasing productivity and output. 

Our text message and phone services already allow small and micro businesses to connect with customers and teams. We wanted, however, to take it a step further and also provide a way to integrate commonly used platforms such as Slack, Zendesk, WordPress, Trello, and more to automate repetitive workflows.

We chose Zapier because they have over 2,000 applications that can integrate with our platform, allowing entrepreneurs, coaches, shops, agencies, and more to work faster and more efficiently despite their size.

What is Zapier

Zapier makes automation easy. This tool helps automate everyday tasks by connecting apps that are used on a regular basis. These automations are called "Zaps."

Zapier addresses the pain point of moving from one app to another throughout the day. By allowing these apps to talk to each other, they make workflows seamless. 

There is no coding knowledge required to use Zapier, and they already have over 2,000 apps connected (and add more each week). SMEs can cut their manual work in half using this tool.

The tool works using a set of triggers and actions. Simply set the trigger, and once it's completed, an action takes place. For example, if you have a new subscriber (trigger), you can have each person receive an automated welcome call (action).

Benefits of a Zapier integration

There are numerous benefits for VoxDirect customers using Zapier. 

We're all forgetful at times. Let's say someone registers for your event, and you want to email login details. But your event isn't for months. Remembering to manually email each person or manually move the list can end up with some people not getting the details they need to attend. 

Using Zapier, you can set up a trigger (event registration) and action (add to my VoxDirect event list). You can set it and forget it! You can rest assured because your Zaps are consistent and reliable. Now you can use VoxDirect to send a reminder Text message 2 days before, 1 hour before and five minutes before the event.

With Zaps taking control of mundane tasks like manually adding every one of your event attendees to a text notification list, you can focus on other business initiatives. You can work on overall growth strategy and operations instead of spending the day on menial tasks.

How Zapier works with VoxDirect

It's easy to get started with VoxDirect and Zapier. Take a look at our instructions here to help you with the following.

  • Connect your VoxDirect account to Zapier
  • Setup a trigger
  • Set up an action

Our step-by-step guide is easy to follow and will get you up and running with Zapier in no time! And once you are connected, it’s time to create Zaps.

Ideas for VoxDirect and Zapier integrations

Now that you're ready to use Zapier, here are some ideas on how to make your day easier.

Organize subscribers

Your small business probably has a subscriber option. Whether you collect emails for a newsletter or gather phone numbers for promotions, you probably want an easy way to track subscribers.

Try these Zaps to make this process simple.

  • Push a message to Chrome when you receive a new subscriber on your website.
  • Collect phone numbers on your WordPress site (using Gravity Forms) and send the numbers directly to a VoxDirect list when a new one is added.
  • Notify Mailchimp and tag the user in your Mailchimp audience when a new subscriber joins your list.
  • Send phone numbers of new contacts (from HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Sheets, or Mailchimp) to one of your lists in VoxDirect.

Connect with customers

Customers love a personalized touch. As your SME grows, it becomes more and more challenging to reach out to each new customer individually. Our new integration can help you stay in touch without the extra work.

Try these Zaps to personalize marketing efforts.

  • Send contacts a "happy birthday" text on their birthday. Create a Zap to look for birthdays from a Google Sheet (or wherever you have the data), and whoever has a birthday on today's date will get a personalized text from you wishing them well.
  • Send a follow-up text to anyone who completes a purchase with an offer that complements the order. A simple "thank you, we thought you'd like the following products" text could result in even more sales.

Stay organized

As a small business, you have to do so much in so little time and wear multiple hats. Mundane tasks can eat up a lot of time, but our new integration can help you stay organized.

Try these zaps to stay on top of tasks.

  • Send the team a text message reminding them of meetings. Connect your Google Calendar to Zapier and use keywords from the meeting invite as triggers, so the team makes sure not to miss an important call.
  • Automatically send a list a blast text five minutes before a recurring scheduled webinar on your Google calendar.
  • Create a Zap that sends a text to a private Slack channel. 
  • Configure a Zap to add leads to Trello and get a notification that there is a new entry. This will make sure you stay on top of sales.

Get more from VoxDirect

We are thrilled with our new Zapier integration because it means you can get more done in less time. Our customers are incredibly busy, so we want to make it easy to manage your small business.If you haven’t tried text message marketing yet, read about the top nine industries that can truly benefit from this tactic (and why).