Master efficiency through business process automation

Your business’s growth is the result of your hard work and focus. But what if there were some growth tasks that could take care of themselves? Automation and outsourcing can be the answer to handling manual and inefficient tasks to free your team’s time and creativity so they can focus on more strategic assignments. That’s when growth can really take off.

Automation can help small and midsize businesses (SMBs) save time and reduce errors while also building stronger customer relationships.

You may be surprised by the breadth and depth of current automation opportunities in your business.

• What business processes to automate

• When human involvement is best

• Which automated tools to consider 

• How to avoid common problems when integrating automation

When deciding which types of tasks will reap the highest return on investment (ROI) when it comes to automation, look for the following:

• Repetition: Manual tasks that humans would consider monotonous and repetitive, such as data entry or invoice generation

• Error risk: Activities that introduce a higher likelihood of mistakes or miscounts, such as monthly inventory tallies or complex product assembly

• Time intensity: Drawn-out jobs that require converting data into a new form, such as transcribing audio files or summarizing content from multiple sources

• Urgency: Time-sensitive projects that can benefit from streamlining, faster speed and reduced missteps are prime candidates for automation

As businesses look for automation opportunities in the name of speed and efficiency, there are still activities where humans have the advantage. Make sure to consider:

• Customer experience: Will your customers’ experiences be enhanced or degraded by removing humans from the process? No one likes endless chatbot loops.

• Empathy: Some situations hinge on human judgment, as in the case of a complex problem or a desire to maintain a long-term customer relationship. If a relationship is at risk, don’t cut humans out of the process.

• Volume: A task that comes up infrequently is less likely to be an automation candidate than one that happens regularly or is a bottleneck in your operations.

Until you begin to consider all the automation tools at your disposal, you may not realize how much can now be handled by technology. Just some of the applications include:

• Outbound marketing lead generation

• Nurture funnels and email sequences for prospect follow-up

• Custom sales offers based on previous customer purchases

• Quality control monitoring and reporting

• Employee time tracking

• Expense report processing and employee reimbursement

• New-hire onboarding and training

• Payment reminders and invoice generation

• Chatbots for frequently asked questions

Take a look at your internal processes to identify tasks that don’t need human involvement or could be more efficient without it.

Despite the huge potential for automation to help businesses work better, faster and more profitably, there are downsides. Automation is not always the best solution to a problem. Be sure that you’re not:

• Making a bad process faster: Before going all in on automation, audit and optimize your existing internal processes. Be sure that your current workflows are effective before trying to make them more efficient; some may not need to exist at all

• Choosing tools that can’t be integrated: You’ll get the best results if you select automation tools that can be seamlessly connected to and integrated with your existing systems. Don’t add new tools that can exist only in silos

• Overlooking staff training: Automated processes are designed to operate without reliance on constant human involvement, but typically there is a need for input, monitoring or analysis along the way. Make sure your team knows how the new tools work so you can get the most benefit from them

The good news about automation is that you can start small and build as the company expands. For example, you could invest tens of thousands of dollars in a complete customer relationship management (CRM) system, or you could dip your toe in the water with a smaller-scale email automation platform first. The same goes for appointment setting; test a software system before overinvesting.

You may also reach a point where it makes more sense to overhaul your entire technology system as you upgrade one piece of it. Adding on new features and functionality to an outdated platform may end up holding you back.

By automating more tasks, you can free up staff to spend time on higher-value initiatives related to strategic growth, customer acquisition and cost containment. Be sure that what you’re handing off to technology doesn’t reduce the quality of your product or service delivery.

Make sure your financial tools are working as efficiently as your team by comparing all the Capital One business credit card options.