Everything You Need to Know About Website Integrations
Building a beautiful website is about more than visual appeal. It’s about the outcomes created through intentional design.
That means implementing features that not only lend to a positive user journey, but enable your business to become as streamlined and efficient as a whole.
The secret to achieving these outcomes? Integrations.
What Are Website Integrations?
Website integrations are features that allow your website to talk to other platforms.
By adding integrations to your website, you remove the extra steps or manpower required to complete a certain action. This works for both the user and your team.
Some of these include:
- ERPs (enterprise resource planning)
- CRMs (customer relationship management)
- Logistics or Warehouse Management Systems
- Accounting Software
- Chatbots
- Media players
- Tracking and analytics tools
- Email sign-ups
- Payment gateways
- Marketing automations
- Sales trackers
- Social media follow, like or share buttons
- Calendars
- Document readers
- Maps
- Google and Microsoft suites
To name just a few.
There are many kinds of integrations that serve all sorts of different purposes, but the one thing they all have in common is that they work by allowing your website to talk to other platforms.
The two main types of integrations we roll out for our clients are ERPs and CRMs. These help to streamline operations and maintain data accuracy through various automated processes.
For example, you could add a CRM integration to your website that keeps track of leads, accounts, and sales without needing to reference multiple information points or input data manually.
This helps to create a positive user experience thanks to features like automated touchpoints along the user journey.
But these integrations deliver far greater benefits than their intended purpose, and that’s exactly where their true value lies.
How Integrations Provide Benefits to Your Business
There’s more to integrations than what they can do for the user.
Integrations don’t just create a more positive user experience. They have a marked positive impact on multiple aspects of your business, from staffing costs to service turnaround windows.
It’s all about the flow-on effect.
“The more precious time and resources you save through integrations, the more you can commit to making your business more efficient, streamlined, and cost-effective.”
Let’s say you install a chatbot integration on your website. This integration is programmed to answer common queries your website visitors might have through automated responses.
The benefit to the user is plain to see: they get 24-hour, on-demand support. So what about the benefit to your business?
Having an integration designed to respond to your customers’ most common queries means you’re not allocating staff hours to answer the same questions over and over. Not to mention the costs that come with having support staff available around the clock.
Being available to respond to customers 24 hours a day also does wonders for your brand reputation.
This is just one example. Even integrations that the customer can’t see — for example, ERPs — provide efficiencies that have huge flow-on effects for your business.
The more precious time and resources you save through integrations, the more you can commit to making your business more efficient, streamlined, and cost-effective.
Basically, integrations are the key to making your digital presence more powerful and growing your offering for the benefit of both the customer and your team.
How to Get Started With Integrations
There’s no limit to the potential to be uncovered through the right integrations. The trick is choosing the ones that will best serve you and your specific business needs.
The number of integration products available to purchase can be overwhelming. Some of these products are single integrations, while others are suites of many integrations packaged together.
In fact, you might already be using integrations on your website without even realising it. Here are the integration products we work with— do any of these sound familiar?
- Klaviyo
- Mailchimp
- Salesforce
- Oracle
- Netsuite
- Zoho
- HubSpot
- Sap Business One
- Emarsys
You can even create custom integrations to serve specific purposes that are unable to be met by existing integration products.
Granted, it can be difficult to know which integrations are best suited to your business needs. And things can get even more complicated if you’re seeking a custom solution purpose-built for your website.
“The benefit to the user is plain to see”
The process is similar to building a house. While you might have an idea of what you want your house to look like and some of the features you need it to have, you probably don’t know the specifics. Like, which materials are best for tiling and sealing the laundry? How do you wire a heated towel rack? Which method do you want to use for insulating the top floor?
There’s a reason people hire builders to take care of all these details for them. They know the experts will know the best possible materials, methods and design choices to create the perfect outcome.
The same logic applies to choosing integrations for your website. Whether you want a custom-built solution or are overwhelmed by the number of products on offer, working with an expert team of digital designers is essential to creating an amazing website.