As a small business owner, managing repetitive rote-based tasks manually is tedious and time-consuming. Not only does manual automation affect your productivity, but it is also a sheer waste of time and money.
Thanks to automation tools, we can now put grunt repetitive tasks like data entry, data collection and accounts payables on autopilot mode.
Even if you appoint multiple employees on a shift basis, it would drain your money and energy both. What if you hand over all those works to automation tools which will be of great help. In the long run, you will also be saving a lot of your funding. Let’s find out how.
Workflow Automation for Small Businesses
If you want your business to acquire exponential development, you can choose workflow automation. It automates various areas of your business and you no longer have to run behind repetitive ardent tasks. This provides you with enough headroom to concentrate on important things.
The tasks that are not yet automated in your business might take up numerous hours of work. So, instead of spending your valuable time on those, you can just explore the automation tools and choose the right software which will automate those difficult time-eating tasks.
You can manage and build your marketing team efficiently by using e-commerce automation. Read further to get your mind soaked in ideas about workflow automation.
Types of Workflow Automation
The money you have could either be spent or invested. The difference between these two is that the former will never provide you any more money but the latter will. You can consider workflow automation as an investment as it assists in the growth of your firm.
When you are thinking about whether to use workflow automation or not, the small businesses around you have already started using automation in their firms. What is stopping you? There are various areas in your business that could be automated. To know more, read further.
Customer Service Automation
Your company’s reputation mainly relies on your customers’ mindset about your firm. When you keep your customers satisfied, your sales would show a drastic increase. Being an obvious area to work on, most of the firms spend a lot of time and energy on customer care. But while doing so, they might miss out on other departments. When such an imbalance is created inside the company, the tension will show up in the customer care services.
To avoid such backfires, you can bring in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). It will be your resource for providing the best customer care service. It manages the data, information, and interactions related to your customers.
If a certain response is needed to be given to a particular customer, a perfectly placed CRM will do that effortlessly by giving the right information and solutions. CRM has been only used by large businesses in the past few years.
So you might think that it is not suitable for small businesses. Nowadays, the software providers of CRM have shifted their focus on small businesses. So, use CRM to automate your customer care service and you can expect the highest amount of accuracy. Another perk of CRM is that it works 24/7
Collaborative Automation
Whatever be your business, you would surely be expecting a good collaboration among your team members or workers. As a business owner, one of your primary tasks is to create an environment where good communication ensues. Collaboration is mandatory for any business to travel in the success path. So, for your business to grow exponentially there should be a good interaction between your employees.
How can the process of collaboration be automated? It’s in the hands of some of the workflow automation tools which will improve the efficiency of a team. Your team’s work progress can be tracked with the help of project management boards. You could even track the progress of remote team members since most of the tools are cloud-based.
It is suggested to do some research and learn the depths of tools so that when you install them, you can choose the best suitable one for your firm. When your business already manages a good collaboration, it will help you maintain a better atmosphere which will result in more productivity.
There might be instances when you don’t want to risk conducting public meetings because of the confidentiality of the work. You might need to sign contracts, plan investments, do negotiations and discuss some important future plans, and during those times, you will be worrying about keeping the sensitive documents safe.
So, you can create a virtual data room that will make sure that the important files are safeguarded. Access control, copying and printing permission can also be managed by the collaboration tools that help you with virtual data rooms. It also provides you with numerous options to view, edit and delete the files.
Payroll Automation
Managing the employee payroll is a task which, irrespective of the kind of business, you should always have to worry about. Bringing automation into your payroll will clean off the burden from your shoulders. Also, it is one of the areas which are easy to automate. A lot of attractive offers are offered by payroll vendors for you to use their service. But before you choose, be aware and careful because you do not want any issues happening in this department.
Do the research, find the most suitable vendor for your firm and let them maintain your payroll. Some things you should remember while choosing is that good payroll software, in addition to running your payroll, will also manage payroll taxes and work in accordance with current payroll guidelines. Make sure that your employees are paid at the right time when you automate your payroll.
Repetitive Task Automation
A lot of your departments are covered with the above-mentioned tools but still, the most important one is mundane task automation. You might be spending tiring hours doing repetitive tasks that drain your energy and time. In your business, there will be tedious tasks that couldn’t be ignored.
The first thing you have to do is make a list of the mundane and repetitive tasks and then use a tool that automates such works. There are some special workflow automation tools available that will assist your company in sending reminders to the workers. They are also well-versed in managing various kinds of recurring information.
Spend some time to formulate which area of your workflow demands most of your time, labour and resources. Then find the best way to automate it at a cheaper price. The common mundane task in most small businesses is the process of manual keying.
For example, QuickBooks has been used commonly by small businesses. The application helps business owners by doing the number-crunching works but still, you need to appoint someone to manually enter the numbers into QuickBooks.
If you are struggling with that too, then try the automation tool PayTraQer to automatically enter online payments into QuickBooks. Such tools are efficient and cost-effective too. As a result, you’ll have saved a lot of time and resources.
Marketing Automation
Marketing is another important area where automation can be a great asset. In the fast-forwarding world, it is hard to survive without coping up with the rapidly growing tools of media. The social media platforms kept increasing, so as the opportunities for marketing.
The best way to let your products reach new customers is by spending on online marketing since it is the cheapest and most cost-effective method. There are various marketing automation tools that generate ads, emails and other things which will pull the attention of customers. As soon as you install those tools, you’ll start thinking of ways that bring more customers to your company.
Purchase Order Automation
Let’s say that you are buying stocks from a supplier and your business is running without any problems. But there might be a situation when you need to seek the help of automation. For example, if your sales are increasing suddenly, you have to spend your time talking to the supplier. If this process is automated too, it will be of great assistance to your growing firm.
What happens when you use an automation tool is that the purchase order will be automatically increased according to the sales. With the help of the tool, you can also set a limit. If the stocks go below that limit, the order can be automatically placed. You can also select different suppliers for different items. You no longer have to follow the availability of stocks, install a single tool and it will take care of everything related to placing purchase orders.
In Conclusion
These are the only major areas and you can innovate your new ways of automation in any department of your business. When automation is there in your firm, you could see exponential growth. The boring tasks are no more under your responsibility. You can start thinking creatively. In the past few years, automation has been helping big firms. Now it is helping small businesses. Be the earliest to use the benefits of automation and let your business go to the next level.
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