Microsoft Excel is one of the core apps in the Microsoft 365 suite and is quite familiar to many small and medium business (SMB) users. But are you getting the most out of Excel?
Excel can do much more than create and edit spreadsheets
Customers who explore Excel’s features a bit more find that they can apply it to many tasks. You can quickly learn to use it as a data analytics tool, and it’s also great for building quick custom dashboards. You can also design a custom template so that your work is always on-brand. Excel can do a lot, by being a little inventive in how you use it.
Bandido Solutions uses Excel to talk to customers
Jimmy Davidson, owner of Bandido Solutions and Bandido Woodworks uses Microsoft 365 to support his business. He’s found that Microsoft Teams is key for working across three locations and Microsoft OneNote helps his team make sure that punch lists are continuously managed and up-to date, but most of all, he looks to Excel to run across his business and directly communicate about complex projects with his customers.
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“If I had to pick one app in the Microsoft 365 Business suite, it would be Excel,” Davidson says. “It’s the root of our organization.”
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Davidson stands out because he not only uses Excel for its core spreadsheet features, he also uses it as a communication channel with his customers. And he especially values how Excel allows his work to be transparent to his customers. By sending breakdowns that list the tasks and timelines for a kitchen or bath remodel to customers in Excel, Davidson can show them how their estimates were built, line by line. Since many of his customers are already familiar with Excel, using it allows Davidson and his customers to discuss the work together and quickly clarify any concerns or adjust schedules. The openness of communication builds rapport and trust and helps move projects along more quickly.
By using Excel’s template capabilities, Davidson can design a reuseable document format that lets customers see their breakdowns visually, using dashboard graphics to make the project schedule easy to understand and act on. He can still include the source spreadsheets in supplementary tabs, but what the customer sees first will be an easy-to-consume summary of the project that they are looking to his company to do for them. That new kitchen or bath now seems like a reality.
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