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Automation has been a popular form of technology that many businesses have been using in recent years to help streamline business operations and improve efficiency. As a business in the digital era, you can’t deny the help and support that automation technology can provide you, especially if you’re a small to medium-sized business.
Even big businesses are making use of automation to cut costs and help support overworked staff members who are wasting their time on monotonous tasks every day.
With that being said, what ways can a business embrace automation for success this year? Here are several efforts that should be made to make use of what automation can offer your business now and beyond the year ahead.
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1. Utilize chatbots and self-service portals for improved customer experience
One way in which you can cater to your customer’s experience even when you’re not open as a business is through chatbots. Chatbots are a great solution for businesses that require additional customer service support for their customers around the clock.
There’s no guarantee a customer will land on your website during the times you have staff in the office. So in order not to miss out on any potential opportunities to convert leads to customers, you’ll benefit from exploring the option of chatbots for your website.
Chatbots are easy enough to implement into a website and offer a great service if you have a rich knowledge base from which the chatbot can gather information. The more knowledge you fill your database with, the more helpful the chatbots will be to the customers asking the questions.
The benefit of chatbots is that they alleviate some of the load that your customer agents have to cope with. Repeated questions can be answered automatically through chatbots, leaving the more complex questions that can be answered by your customer service agents quicker.
2. Analyze data for better decision-making
Data can tell us a lot about what is working and what isn’t for the business. Analyzing this data is helpful to do, which is where automation plays a key role.
With automation technology, data can be analyzed much quicker than the average human can undertake and produce the results you require with efficiency. Not only that but computers don’t make mistakes. Unless that is, the data assets are incorrectly applied by humans.
Analyzing data is a crucial strategic approach to building your business and can make for better decision-making as a result. With better decisions made for the business, the more likely success will be had. Where large datasets require analysis, automation has already helped many businesses sift through the data to reveal crucial insights.
3. Automate internal processes for quick completion
Internal processes across the company as a whole can result in delays depending on the efficiency and productivity levels of your staff or the platforms in place.
To help speed up internal processes for quick completion, make use of platforms that offer workflow automation. For example, platforms like Zapier are a great way to identify what current processes are repetitive and could be actioned or managed by automation.
In order to make your internal processes an automation success, identify what repetitive tasks there are and choose an automation platform best suited for your needs. Design visual workflows to define the sequence of actions required, as well as approvals and outputs. Integrate the data and pilot test these automated workflows to catch out any issues.
Automation is being used across all facets of a business, from route and delivery optimization to automated wiring for improving productivity. There’s no end to what automation can do for your business.
4. Integrate AI technology
AI technology has certainly become a popular form of technology for the purpose of making work life more efficient and productive.
Integrating AI technology is a great way of making use of automation. Leveraging artificial intelligence to help perform the more complex tasks that could be automated is definitely something that benefits from being partnered up together.
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Complex tasks like predictive analysis for example or creating personalized recommendations for each of your customers. Artificial intelligence is a great way to make use of clever computer technology that not only does the work for you but can learn from the work it does and the data assets you provide, to improve the effectiveness of the work itself.
5. Make use of collaborative tools to improve communications
Collaborative tools are great when you need to improve the communications within your teams and any of the wider network of staff and collaborators externally to the business.
Automated features within collaboration platforms are the standard, which is helpful when you’re looking to streamline project management, assign tasks, and ensure communication is prioritized.
With collaborative tools, it keeps your employees connected with one another so that wherever they might be or the type of working hours they do, they’ll be able to keep in touch with one another when required.
6. Enable your employees to get more creative by lightning their workloads
Empowering your employees is an important part of improving workplace efficiency and productivity. There’s nothing more challenging than employees feeling overworked and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work they’re having to do.
Enabling your employees to get creative and more strategic can be achieved when you help lighten their workloads. There will likely be some unnecessary work on their plate and alleviating this with automation is a great way to give them more free time.
It’s important to take a look at what tasks and workloads need addressing. Speaking to your employees is a great way to discover the needs and wants of employees who require less work on their plate and more time on the important stuff that’ll help them grow.
With these tips, you can ensure automation is leveraged in the best possible way to not only improve efficiency in the workplace but to also keep everyone happy within it. Use these tips as a reason to embrace automation this year.