When To Use Automation In Business

New technology is constantly allowing businesses to get more done in less time. Adopting this tech is important for keeping up with competitors – if you don’t take advantage of this tech, your competitors will.

Automation is one of the latest innovations in technology. It involves outsourcing entire tasks to computers. When implemented correctly, automation can save huge amounts of time. A computer won’t just do the task for you, but it will also do it at a quicker pace. Computers are also more accurate, meaning less time wasted fixing errors.

Of course, you shouldn’t automate every task in business. There are some tasks that robots aren’t good at such as writing an engaging blog post or handling customer complaints.

Instead, automation is best reserved for repetitive tasks that don’t require empathy or innovation. Below are just some of the instances in which automation can be beneficial.

Bookkeeping

If you still do all your bookkeeping manually, it could be time to start automating it with accounting software. Tasks such as invoicing clients, paying employees and calculating tax can all be automated – which can save you a lot of time. It could also ensure accuracy, which can be important when it comes to taxes and payments.

There are lots of different accounting programs out there to choose from which you can compare at PC Mag. While some can only automate the basic tasks, others are capable of automating much more complex financial tasks. It’s unlikely software will be able to handle all your accounting, but with the right software you can free up a significant amount of it.

Registering new customers

Manually registering new customers can also be time-consuming – it could involve reading through a long series of questions. Handing out a paper form can speed up the process, but a much more efficient option if to use a digital form. Using automation software, you can quickly build a form that allows features such as auto-fill as well as hiding and display specific information relevant to specific customers. This can make getting registered a much easier process for both you and your customers.

There are many different automated form-building programs out there that you can use, which you can check out at Tech Radar. These could be used in conjunction with ecommerce tools or customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Sending customers reminders

There are times when it can be beneficial to send customers reminders. This could include reminding a customer of an appointment, reminding a customer of a bill payment or reminding a customer to check out their abandoned shopping cart online. Without such reminders, customers may forget (and this could cost you time and money). However, you may forget to send these reminders, which is why you should automate this task (robots don’t forget).

Many CRM programs are able to send reminders to customers automatically. If you’re just using a standard calendar app, consider upgrading so that you can make use of this feature.

Creating copy templates

There are times when it can be worth setting up templates to speed up copywriting tasks. If you’re writing a newsletter, this could save time having to add headers and signatures each time. You may not be able to automate the entire content itself, but you may be able to automate some of it.

There are specialist tools that can help you set up templates easily and maintain a brand consistency. Such tools may even be able to automatically change dates and other information for you. Most email servers can meanwhile allow you to set up an email signature that automatically appears with each email, as well as an out of office reply.

Sending bulk messages

Emailing or texting 500 recipients individually is not a task anyone wants to do. Modern bulk mailing programs can automate this task – even offering a degree of personalization.

There are many of these programs to choose from, some of which can also be used to set up email templates and manage mailing lists. It’s worth doing your research to find the best tool for you. You can compare some of the top choices here at Hosting Facts.

Cold calling

When it comes to sales calls, it’s also possible to integrate automation. This can save you a lot of time on the phone.

Auto-dialing technology as found at Call Cowboy can reduce the time spent dialing by ringing multiple contacts simultaneously with the press of a button and putting you on call with the contact that answers first. This can be a valuable tool if you do a lot of telesales and are often dialing up and ringing people only to get no reply. It is possible to take things further and use automated voice messages in sales calls, but this will likely irritate most recipients and not get results.

Directing incoming calls

It can also be beneficial to use an automated operator to direct callers to the relevant person. This could save you having to hire a receptionist to transfer callers.

There are many automated phone attendant systems that you program yourself. This could include choosing the voice, writing the script and deciding which buttons callers press for which options. It’s unwise to automate the entire phone answering process – most callers want to speak to a human eventually and will get frustrated if they spend too long talking to a robot.

Identifying sales trends

You can also use automation to identify trends in sales. This could include identifying popular products or even recommending specific products to specific customers.

There are a number of CRM programs that enable you to do this. These may be possible to link up with bookkeeping software and other tools. In fact, it’s now possible to integrate many forms of software and automating entire sales decisions such as identifying a product that is not popular, limiting orders and creating promotions of that product all without the need for human intervention.