Complete Guide to Workflow Automation
In the past, we knew that automating some tasks would save significant time and effort.
But today, we have more information, a more connected world, and more opportunities to automate.
Today, automation is fundamental to the success of most organizations. And our ability to automate is only growing as new tools and technologies emerge. However, while it's clear that automation can save a lot, there are quite a few people who don't see the need to automate their business processes.
If you're one of them, this post is made for you to consider workflow automation.
What is Workflow Automation?
Workflow automation is exactly what it sounds like: automating simple, repetitive tasks in your day-to-day job.
It can be automating your social media posts, creating a newsletter or a blog post or expense reports, generating sales leads, handling business processes, taking care of customer journey conversion, handling the recruitment process, assisting with your personal task management, and a lot more other things on your daily life.
Simple, repetitive tasks are the perfect things that are in real need of automation.
Why?
Because they don’t require a lot of brainpower or much thought to accomplish.
And they’re not terribly complex.
The beauty of workflow automation is that it frees up your productivity to focus on more important and/or complex matters.
It also makes you more efficient. So not only do you get more done, but you also get more done faster.
In my own case, workflow automation saves me about an hour a day. That’s not only an hour I don’t have to spend doing busy work, it’s also an hour I can spend doing more important things.
The bottom line is that workflow automation = a great way to boost your productivity & efficiency.
But what makes it so important & necessary for any business to adopt right now?
Why is Workflow Automation Important in 2022?
Do you know that
“90% of executives expect their automation investments to increase their workforce capacity over the next three years” - source
It’s the new productivity hack to get more things done simply, easily and effectively.
It’s already taking place in companies around the world.
Those who embrace it and make the change will have a competitive advantage over those who don’t.
Automation can be applied to almost any business process: HR, supply chain, marketing, sales, finance, operations, you name it.
You can even automate your own internal processes.
It’s really a matter of thinking creatively to decide what can be automated.
The possibilities are endless.
There are also a lot of benefits to workflow automation like a great way to boost your productivity, provide a wonderful customer experience, amazing way to build employee morale.
What it comes down to is workflow automation is here to make your business more efficient. The technology is there to make it happen.
If your competitors aren’t using it, you’ll have a competitive advantage.
Now that we explored why automating the workflows is very important, let’s take a look at a few examples to understand much better about it.
Workflow Automation Examples:
Small business owners & their hustles:
Let’s say you’re a small business owner with small staff counts.
You have a lot to do and not much time to do it.
You have customer leads coming in through social media. You need to follow up with them, nurture them, and convert them into clients.
You’re doing all this manually.
You have to log into every social media platform, check for new leads, follow them up, and so on.
You’re wasting a lot of time doing it.
Instead, you could automate this process. You can set up workflow automation to automatically follow up with leads and nurture them. You could create a workflow on KonnectzIT to post on various social media channels.
You can automate the workflow of sending out a welcome & onboarding email to every new lead. You can have a workflow to automatically send out a newsletter every time you publish a new blog post.
The possibilities are endless.
Insurance Agents’ Routine:
Let’s say you’re an insurance agent with a few small businesses as clients.
You have to send them a monthly invoice.
You also have to send them a monthly statement of account.
You’re doing this manually.
You have to log into your client’s account and then send out the invoices and statements.
You’re wasting a lot of time doing it.
Instead, you could automate this process of sending out a monthly invoice and statement.
Sales Rep Processes:
Take any sales rep job for a car dealership as another example.
You’re doing a lot of sales calls and you’re wasting a lot of time driving back and forth from client to client.
Instead, you could automate this process.
You could build a workflow that will automatically schedule sales calls for you and handle the client follow-up process in a more personalized way. Also, you can handle the appointment job with ease and can receive a text or email as a reminder when it’s time for you to meet with your next client.
I can go on and on and on with multiple examples with real-time scenarios because many things in our daily job can be automated easily with platforms like KonnectzIT.
Without writing a single line of code.
Now, a question might arise in our mind “Does everything on my work have to be automated? Or do I have to automate certain tasks on my job?”
Well, it depends on your automation requirements.
For that, you have to know one simple but very important difference between a process & workflow automation.
Process vs Workflow Automation
On the surface, they both look similar and work the same as the other ones.
Yeah, they are the same at certain points and are being utilized by businesses to achieve dame goals like saving time, energy, and money as well as increasing efficiency, productivity and profits.
It’s a very slight thing that differentiated both process & workflow automation processes.
Workflow automation is all about automating simple and specific tasks and process automation has a set of workflows to take care to automate.
Let’s say workflow automation is handling a specific task like signing & uploading a document.
Where process automation is handling the whole set of all tasks that need to be taken care of during an onboarding process.
So automating a small job or the whole process totally depends on your need and one or the other way KonnectzIT will be a suitable tool for your requirements.
Hope you got a clear understanding of what should be automated in your daily life.
Before jumping into other important topics, let's take a look at some misinterpretations about automation over the years in the industry.
Misconceptions about Workflow Automation:
Expensive:
The reality is that the costs associated with workflow automation are not higher due to advanced technology and good resources. Instead, the benefits of workflow automation can lead to significant reductions in costs and improve a lot of factors in your daily life.
Limited to certain sectors:
There is no doubt that some sectors are better suited to workflow automation than others. However, as technology evolves and becomes more sophisticated, it is becoming applicable to a wider range of industries. Now every business is shifting towards online & internet, automation will be suitable for almost all businesses these days.
Short-term Solution
While the technology associated with workflow automation is evolving all the time, it is not a short-term solution. It is a technology that will continue to evolve and improve over a period of time, with the goal being to maximize the benefits of the technology for contact centres.
Complex Technology
While workflow automation can seem complex at first, it is actually a relatively simple technology to implement and administer. This is one of the reasons why it is often a good fit for small contact centres.
So now when someone says that automation is not a piece of cake for growth, don't take it into consideration instead try our cool workflow automation tool like KonnectzIT to take care of time-sucking tasks like a pro.
Benefits of Workflow Automation
Tasks at work can be tedious to do day in and day out.
With workflow automation, you can free up your time to do more important tasks.
Not to mention, it can also save your organization time by making sure tasks are completed correctly.
Workflow automation is the process of creating the workflow rules that the system should apply to any item that meets the system’s criteria.
For example, an organization might have a workflow that tells the system to automatically convert all incoming mail to PDF format.
This not only helps keep the data safe but also helps keep it searchable, making it easier for staff to find things they need without having to sift through everything. You can set up workflow automation.
Scheduling workflow automation allows businesses to create plans for their projects, helps them organize their workflows, and helps them manage the different functionalities they need to focus on.
With the help of workflow automation, you can focus on different workspaces with ease.
The beauty of automation is that it can be applied in a multitude of ways and in a myriad of industries and in companies of all sizes and in all locations.
Automation can increase productivity and efficiency and cut down on the amount of time and money spent on repetitive and generally drudgery tasks.
From setting up appointments with clients to automated income tax calculations, automation can be fruit for your daily grind.
A business that does not use workflow automation is not only wasting its time but is also risking losing clients and causing its own value to deteriorate.
Steps to Automate Manual Workflows:
Here are a few important things to consider while automating the workflows. These are important to make sure you are implementing the right strategy to automate the workflows.
Step 1: Identify if there are manual activities in the workflow.
Step 2: Identify if the workflow is going to be executed again and again.
Step 3: Identify if the workflow is going to be executed on varying platforms like Gmail, Zoom, HubSpot, and other applications.
Step 4: Identify if multiple people are working on the same workflow.
Step 5: Identify if a human is going to be part of the execution of the workflow.
Step 6: Identify if the workflow is going to be executed on a scheduled basis.
Step 7: Identify if there is a need to track the execution of the workflow.
Then, start building the automation with our no-code automation builder in minutes.
No matter how complex your automation is and how long your workflows are.
You can develop them in minutes without any hesitation and difficulties using KonnectzIT.
Here is a sneak peek picture of what you can do with our visual builder feature:
Conclusion:
Now is really the time to adopt automation to be finally free and happy from your busy days.
Businesses that utilize this wonderful technology will reap the benefits for sure, and there is nothing to deny that.
I hope this guide will help you get an idea about workflow automation and how essential it is for your business’s growth.
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