But, despite the ever-growing list of automated tools, there are many businesses that have yet to get on the automation train. Studies show notable benefits of using automation. One study found that of the companies that are outgrowing their competitors, 63% of them are using automation. If your company has yet to embrace automating operations, now is the time! Continue reading to learn how automation can save you time and money.
Which Processes Are Worth Automating?
Before we discuss how automating operations can save you time and money, let’s start by determining which business processes are worth automating. There’s an endless amount of business processes and tasks that must be completed on a daily basis, but not all of them can or should be automated. Some questions to ask when determining which processes to automate include:
Is the task repetitious and repeatable? Does the task require a lot of data entry? Is there room for human error?
If you answer yes to more than one of these questions, odds are the process in question would likely benefit from the use of an automation tool. The fact is that automation tools are designed to take over repeatable tasks that are heavy on data entry. With automation, you can greatly minimize the risk of human error.
Cost Savings
When using the right automation tools, one of the biggest benefits that companies of all types will enjoy is cost reduction. All businesses face the pressure to increase their profitability, and one way to reach that need is to reduce the cost of operations. But, reducing the costs of the wrong business operations can have serious impacts. Using automation software for accounting, marketing, bookkeeping, and other operational processes is an effective way to meet cost reduction and containment needs. This allows your company to increase customer service while reducing costs internally.
Increased Business Efficiency
In the workplace, we can often be our worse enemy. Humans are prone to making mistakes, especially when the work we’re doing is tedious or, dare we say it, boring. An accountant doesn’t want to spend hours each week drafting invoices when a program can do the same work in half the time. Your marketing team shouldn’t have to manually post social media updates each day when there are tools available to schedule posts to be released on an automated set schedule. One of the most significant reasons why employees waste time is that they get very little satisfaction from the work they do and the work they’re provided isn’t challenging. By automating operations, can you eliminate these tedious tasks and allow them to take on skill-related activities. This, in turn, will allow employees to be more productive which means less money wasted.
More Efficient Managing
Business managers are in charge of leading employees and the company in the right direction. But with overly complicated and cumbersome processes, managers often find themselves putting out fires and trying to identify ways to improve processes so that they take less time. Managers who are in charge of steering the ship and making sure that each employee is on target and engaged is no easy feat. With operations and workflow automation, managers can have better insight into what daily tasks employees are working on along with bottlenecks and potential issues. This subsequently allows managers to help make sensible business decisions with the assurance that employees are challenged, well-tasked and working on projects and tasks that actually matter.
Improved Customer Satisfaction
Automating operations not only benefits your company internally, but it can also have a lasting impact on your customer satisfaction ratings. Automation fixes many of today’s most common customer complaints including:
Slow communication response times Slow invoice processing Lack of customer service rep availability
Thankfully there are all sorts of tools that can be used to quell these frustrations. You can use a virtual customer service representative or live chat to improve communication times and availability. Your company can use automated emails that allow you to keep in constant contact with leads and past customers. Invoice generators can provide timely and 100% accurate invoice processing.
Conclusion
Don’t let the fear of changing operations stop you from bringing automation into your everyday business processes. While change can be scary, especially when it involves business operations, the benefits of automation far outweigh a few weeks of uncertainty.
