Every business owner or manager already knows there is a great difference between productive and business work. The first produces more meaningful results, benefiting a business organization and satisfying workers. And the latter is a repetitive time-sink, which needs little talent or thought.
Most entrepreneurs would rather spend their days on the first rather than the second. Your workers may feel this way as well.
As a matter of fact, better engagement often drives productivity. In this case, business automation is an intelligent digital workforce you can rely on.
Plus, it is the only means businesses can transfer their busy work to tools/machines and consider empowering workers to flex their problem-solving and creativity skills. Some of the best ways to achieve this may include the following:
1. Create SOPs
How many business processes have you documented? Whether your business has a small team or it is just a solopreneurship, having SOPs (standard operating procedures) is important to run a healthy organization.
SOPs are basically detailed instructions, which outline how to finish tasks in your business. As it grows bigger, having standard operating procedures in place will make it easier to delegate tasks and onboard new workers.
2. Empower Your Workers
Automation ultimately works well, especially when users’ needs drive it. Your team needs to know where the pain point is and what they spend most of their time doing. This way, they are going to have a clear vision of where things should improve and grow.
Involving your team in everything related to automation from the start will serve your business needs more effectively.
Automation tools make it possible for everyone to set up a sophisticated workflow, not just people with a computer science degree. Instead of working with expensive programmers to create cutting-edge systems, you can directly use automation tools to carry out the task.
3. Opt for Digital Transformation
It is not a must you spend thousands on coding software that AI drives to automate processes in your business. There are a couple of intelligent digital workforce solutions that can help you automate and design business processes.
Companies such as Comidor, Process Maker, Signavio, and Appian specialize in delivering low-code automation technology and management software. Consider asking for a demo, and then explore how they may support the objectives of your business.
If the implementation of RPA sounds too difficult to handle, you may explore automation options in your existing tech stack. For instance, project management software, such as ClickUp, Basecamp, Trello, and Asana, all have helpful information which can help you achieve your goals.
4. Choose Tasks to Automate
If that sounds like a no-brainer, then you have to think again. Choosing tasks to automate is important. And that is where many businesses mostly get off. So you shouldn’t make this same mistake.
To get started, first understand how the process of automation really works and what it is capable of since most of the tasks you automate, you shouldn’t.
You can use numerous tools to automate web design, translation, and content writing. However, most of these need to be revised.
For instance, translation technology is only helpful for some business purposes. Not to mention, it is hard to determine whether the technological advancement will replicate complex cognitive processes that translators can handle.
Now the question is, what type of tasks do you need to automate?
Basically, you can automate every task, which is easy for an algorithm, time-consuming, and repetitive to handle completely without your input. Some of the tasks you may automate are:
- Analytics reports
- Optimization
- Bulk image resizing
- Publishing blog posts to Twitter
- Contacting existing customers
- Automating emails
- Scoring leads
- Sending invoices
5. Note the Key Area Where Human Workers Are Required
It may sound terrific to turn things over to automation and then sit back to watch more profits rolling in. But this is basically a hot mess waiting to explode. Some tasks need a human touch, and standard operating operators are likely to bring these to light.
For instance, some of your top customers require a more personalized client experience. And human resources staff may need help to outsource hiring to computers. However, this doesn’t mean that part of these processes is not ready for automation initiation.
6. Use Digital Advertising
While digital advertising can be the most expensive way of automating your marketing tasks, it is among the simplest methods to get you going. And if done well, it might be a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website.
If you have a budget to spend on Google, Twitter, and Facebook ads, then it will be worth the salt to drive traffic to your site.
For years, these marketing platforms have become sophisticated. And now, they allow business owners/managers to retarget automatically and target businesses and customers using a vast of criteria.
7. Make Use of the Best Appointment Scheduler
A small business owner must automate appointment scheduling through calendar integration tools. Well, tools such as Picktime and Calendly are affordable options.
Using some apps to schedule appointments may also minimize the need to speak to clients who contact you. Not to mention, they will eliminate the need to hire more workers to manage appointment settings.
With the right appointment scheduler, you may gain invaluable insight by adding questionnaires to the tool. With this, you know what customers need help with, allowing you to prepare for a meeting.
8. Streamline Task Management and Communication
Automation is all about offloading competitive and time-consuming tasks from humans to machines. As a project manager, automation can help eliminate task duplication among workers working from home and in the office.
For instance, when graphic proofs are checked into a management system, tickets will be generated automatically to have one of the approvers take a look. This saves you from manually requesting reviews and, even worse than that, sending emails.
Final Say!
Business automation is a vital technology that may enable your business to grow. Automating business processes will help free up more time so you and your workers can concentrate on more important tasks. Not to mention, it will reduce the number of mistakes and improve customer service.