In today’s modern workplace, automation has become the key to impacting performance, minimizing risk and driving sustainable business processes. Automation makes working more efficient and can help the organization save time and money.
I know a lot of business owners are nervous to automate their systems because they feel it takes the emotion or care out of the customer experience. The actuality, however, is that it gives employees more time to do just that—focus on their customers.
So which processes can and should be automated? Here are four that can maximize performance, mitigate risk and allow you to focus on the work that actually matters to your business and your customers.
Emails and phone calls can be impossible to keep organized around a repeated, strategic process. How many times have you erratically scrolled through your inbox searching for a specific chain? You can eliminate, and automate, this mess through a simple, streamlined communication process with one dashboard.
This communication process can mean an intranet for those who can afford it, or something that can be developed with a click, like Basecamp or Teamwork. Each initiated workflow has its own line of communication to keep people accountable and can be used for both internal and external use. This also helps manage and address errors more efficiently because all communication is in one, easy-to-access thread. Businesses who want something more custom should look into building what they need on Podio.
You don’t connect to the Internet using dial-up anymore and your website no longer sits stationary like an ad. Your website is more like a machine, handling traffic, converting prospects and storing data 24/7. If your server folds in or your website suffers a security breach, it’s the last thing you want to deal with. Websites need tender love and care as much as your customers. They need constant maintenance and attention. Managed hosting will give you more security, speed, automatic updates and daily backups. Your website is almost as valuable as your customers. It offers credibility, support and branding. If you automate anything, automate the backbone of your business.
This doesn’t mean you have a robot creating social media posts for you – but scheduling posts for specific days and times can be a 24/7 job. Let services like Hootsuite or Sprout Social take that off your hands. While you’ll still need to devote time to real-time replies and genuine conversation with your followers and customers, having your posts taken care of far in advance will open up time to focus on creating share-worthy content and post text, or for other aspects of running your business.
There are also automations out there for engagement, such as Paper.li, that can identify and respond to your followers. You need social media for support, but that doesn’t mean that you should be spending your days managing it. Allowing a service to automatically thank others who follow you will allow your team to focus on meeting their goals and growing the organization.
Just as automating your social media can take a weight off, so can automating your email. While social media is more current with today’s age, email marketing is still just as effective as it’s always been. If you can’t afford the big marketing players Oracle’s Eloqua platform, email service providers like Mailchimp or Constant Contact can give you everything you need to automate your email marketing. Schedule your “first touch,” your follow ups and your thank you email all on the same day. While your marketing emails run themselves, you can use your own inbox for sending out personal and essential emails.
Automation doesn’t dehumanize your business, it supports the features that are essential to maintain while you’re busy growing your business. If you worked through every email, Facebook post and website inquiry you would never have the time to step back and evaluate your progress. Automation mitigates errors while giving you the ability to focus on what’s most important—your customers.
If you’d like to hear more about automated applications that help your business run, look to All Systems Grow. Our passion for progress through process will help you find the tools that your business needs most. Contact us today and allow us to share our experience while our systems keep running.
