What is Automation, and What Impact Can it Have on Your Business?

Most business deals with repetitive tasks; be it welcoming new customers, accepting applications, or simply notifying clients of upcoming appointments. These tasks take up valuable time, especially in the context of small startups with a very lean team. As a business owner or manager, you don’t want to be spending the majority of your time dealing with repetitive tasks when you should really be focusing on effectively growing your business.

Automation

That’s where automation comes in. Automation (when configured properly) can take much of this time away, allowing you to focus directly on your business. More importantly, it can even give you added value - a good example would be sending a welcome email to your new members.

Most early startups send their clients a typical email, on the founder’s name, using standard text, and only changing the recipient’s name for personalisation. While it’s true that the founder/CEO should be focusing on higher level things, such a personalised email can be automatically sent on his behalf - not only that, but you can probably also check how many people are reading and interacting with this welcome email. This gives you additional data regarding your customer, such that you may personally contact a client who has disregarded your correspondence. Over a few months, this automated email on behalf could easily save (and repurpose) over 10 working hours.

Personalisation

At this point, you will probably be questioning (like many others before you have) if automation and, to an extent, personalisation can make a company less knowledgable about its customers.

Well, it really depends on what steps in your process you do automate, and how that automation actually works. If you are used to calling up your customers and chatting in the most casual manner, a web form or email will most likely not get you the same level of detail. However, if what you need is some simple questions answered and these can be put in a questionnaire or multiple choice format, automation might just be the way to go.

Personalisation and automation can also be brought together effectively to generate a sales funnel, unlike any singular person would be able to. This is simply because it is now possible to know the products and interests of your customers, as well as the frequency of their visits to your website. Therefore, communication can be tailored for each client, providing them only with the information and products which are relevant to them, increasing your likelihood of closing a sale.

Where Else Can I Use Automation?

Here is a list of things, although it is by no means exhaustive, which tend to be automated:

• Welcome emails
• Salesflow / funnel
• Lead Nurturing
• Event attendance / RSVP
• Appointment reminders
• Invoice generation
• Book keeping
• Digital signatures and/or proxy forms
• Newsletter updates (summary of articles/blogs/events)
• Conversion of an email to an actionable task

Let’s Talk

Do you use automation in your business? If so, how has it impacted your business on a day-to-day basis? If you’re new to the concept, do you think it could help? Get in touch for a consultation to see if and how automation can bring more success to your business.