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Automation is no longer a buzzword or a novelty in the business world. It has become a critical tool for companies looking to gain a competitive edge, reduce costs, and improve their bottom line.
Automation involves using technology to perform tasks or processes that were previously done manually. By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, businesses can free up their employees to focus on more strategic work and reduce the risk of errors.
As such, Business Process Automation (BPA) software is currently in high demand, with businesses exploring how they can be used for digital transformation, boosting customer satisfaction, and more.
In this blog post, we'll explore the best business processes to automate and how they can benefit your business.
Onboarding
Onboarding new employees is a vital part of any business, but it can also be a time-consuming and complex process that involves a lot of paperwork and administrative work.
As a result, it’s becoming a standard operating process to automate this aspect of HR. Through this, businesses can save time and reduce the risk of human error during employee onboarding. This means new employees are less likely to have disruptive gaps in their knowledge and can find it easier to confidently adapt to their new environment.
For example, companies can create digital forms for new employees to fill out or a pack of training manuals and videos for them to click through. Managers can also track the progress of the onboarding process, and automatically receive reminders when tasks are due. This can help to streamline the onboarding process and ensure that new employees have a positive experience from the start.
You could also try onboarding new customers using automation to increase the efficiency of your customer service.
Sorting Support Tickets
Support tickets are a common part of many businesses, especially in the world of tech. However, they can quickly pile up, making it difficult for teams to manage and respond to them in a timely manner.
By using workflows or AI to sort and route of support tickets, companies can streamline the process and ensure that each ticket is sent to the right person or team. For straightforward but commonly occurring problems, the ticket may also be able to be fielded by a chatbot or direction to a how-to video.
Automation can help to categorise tickets based on their priority or type, route them to the appropriate team, and even assign them to specific individuals based on their skills or workload. This can help to improve response times and reduce the risk of tickets falling through the cracks.
More advanced artificial intelligence may even be able to predict common user issues or see a new influx of tickets coming before they actually appear in the system, allowing managers to prepare their workforce ahead of time.
Automating Lead Nurturing
Nurturing leads should be an element in every company’s marketing strategy, moving potential clients down the buyer’s journey to becoming qualified leads. This is often done through sending targeted emails and texts which respond to areas of the service the prospect has shown an interest in through downloads or web page views.
By using automation tools, such as Hubspot and Mailchimp, businesses can ensure that their leads are receiving the right information at the right time. For example, automation can help companies to send automated emails to their leads based on their behaviour, track their progress through the sales funnel, and even schedule follow-up calls or meetings with the sales team. This can help to improve lead conversion rates and increase revenue.
Payroll Processing
Payroll processing can involve many time-consuming and repetitive tasks and it's often extremely time sensitive, which makes it a perfect candidate for automation.
Effective business process management through automation can help to calculate employee wages, deductions, and taxes, generate pay stubs, and even make direct deposits to employees' bank accounts.
This can help to ensure that payroll is processed accurately and on time, which can improve employee satisfaction and reduce the risk of compliance issues.
Automating Approval Processes in Business
Approval processes are a necessary part of many businesses, but they can also be a bottleneck in the workflow, especially if your company finds itself continuing to use legacy processes. By automating approvals, businesses can reduce delays and the amount of paperwork required day-to-day.
Recent technology such as Power Automate can help you set up automated approval workflows for different types of requests which trigger when a document is created. These can also notify approvers when new requests are submitted and even send reminders when approvals are overdue. This can make a vast difference in improving efficiency.
Deciding Which Automations to Prioritise
When it comes to automating business processes, it is essential to prioritise the processes that will have the biggest impact on your business. This can be done by assessing the potential benefits of each automation, such as time savings, cost reductions, improved accuracy, and improved customer experience and comparing them to the resources required to implement and maintain the automation.
It's also important to involve key stakeholders in the decision-making process to ensure that the automation aligns with the company's overall strategy and goals. This can include managers, employees, and even customers who may be affected by the automation.
Ensure you have a specific goal in mind for each automation and know how to measure whether the business meets it over time. While some automations will have quite an obvious, immediate impact, others (such as marketing automations) may take longer to take effect.
Conclusion
The best business processes to automate are usually those that are repetitive, time-consuming, and prone to errors. By automating these processes, companies can enhance their team’s productivity and satisfaction, as well as leaving less room for error and ultimately increasing their revenue. Automation also makes all processes extremely trackable, which can give managers a better idea about what’s really happening within teams and allows them to make improvements.
From onboarding new employees to processing payroll and managing support tickets, there are many areas where automation can make a significant difference to a business.
As technology continues to evolve, companies that embrace automation will be better positioned to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
If you’re looking to update your business processes with AI or automation, the experts at SpiderGroup can help. Our team have a deep knowledge of valuable business tools such as Power Automate, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics which can make automation easy and effective.
Get in touch to consult with us to find out how these can best be integrated into your business, receive training, or let us help you with a full, supported migration.
