When running a business, it can be easy to spend most of the day stuck doing busy work. Monotonous daily tasks require no thought and can take just as much time as doing something more productive and innovative. Automation will help you save time and streamline tedious business processes so that you can focus on growth. Implementing automation solutions in these four areas is the best way to maximize the desired growth for your business.
Customer Service Automation
Automating customer service sounds counterintuitive to its purpose, but it will actually help your employees and your customers. It allows your customer service staff to manage large volumes of customers efficiently and effectively without lowering the quality of one-on-one human interactions that customers appreciate.
Implementing an artificial intelligence chatbot on your customer service page can immediately answer basic customer questions and inquiries. This frees up your human workforce to handle more complex issues and enables your business to give customers support outside business hours. An automated customer service database can give employees quick access to product data or a customer’s purchase history so that they have accurate information to solve a problem.
Sales Automation
Automating the processes in a sales funnel can help your business close more sales faster. Set up a system to automatically send a follow-up when a prospective customer shows interest in your business. Your website can upsell or cross-sell by showing recommendations at checkout for similar or matching items, and send email reminders if a customer left the checkout page without completing a purchase. The entire transaction process can be automated to process payment immediately and send receipts or invoices afterward. Automation tools used to synthesize sales data and track sales progress can help give insight into how your sales match up with your business goals.
Finance Automation
The high volumes of numbers and data required to calculate finances make it the perfect place to integrate some automation. One area in which this can be particularly useful is automated invoicing, where a program extracts important data from invoices to send through the accounts payable system. This streamlines and speeds up the entire process by reducing the time and costs spent on manually poring over numbers, as well as minimizing any errors that can take place. Invoices can also be integrated with other areas of your business, such as supply chain data or shipment receipts. Automating multiple financial processes in the same system makes it easier to compare multiple types of financial data in order to provide new observations about the effectiveness of your company’s business strategy.
Marketing
Marketing automation can ensure that your business is increasing its visibility and creating leads. This is especially important in the age of the internet that requires a frequent stream of marketing material to maintain the attention of a potential customer. With marketing software, you can synchronize an entire campaign or promotion to appear across multiple social channels, email, and paid advertising. There’s also an option to make sure that you follow up with a customer by scheduling contact after a certain amount of time or when they might need your business again. Automation makes it easy to reach your consumer base, no matter what method of communication they use.
Implement Time-Saving Business Automation Tools with Team Wasch
Team Wasch understands the challenges of fast-growing businesses, and we know what it takes to get your business to the next level using business process design and business IT systems. To learn more about reducing costs, easing your growing pains, and improving efficiency through working with our team, contact us today at 703-407-8020 or by emailing info@teamwasch.com.
