Business automation tools and tips to streamline processes

Business

With over 27 million small businesses in the United States , it’s no wonder that leading-edge technology companies are coming up with new ways to support small business

Whether you’re piloting a new startup or you’ve got a business with a history of success, the savvy business owner  will always be on the lookout for new ways of improving productivity, boosting profits, and streamlining processes.

That’s where the new generation of automation tools comes into play. Automation tools are technology-smart ways to increase value for both your organization and your customers and they can often be applied to entire business functions. 

And, since many business functions are easy to automate – like social media posting, customer onboarding, lead acquisition, and calendar synchronization – adding automation to improve processes is a no-brainer.

Four business automations that save time

Automation tools not only make doing business easier by saving time and money and reducing overall expenditures, but they can also help you reach your sales and marketing goals and grow your business.

Let’s look at four powerful ways you can leverage automation tools to increase your company’s competitiveness across the board.

1) Employee onboarding 

Gallup conducted a recent study which found that only 12% of employees believe that their employer does a good job of onboarding new hires. 

Starting a new hire off with a negative impression of your organization is a recipe for issues with employee retention and productivity. Employees are most engaged when they feel recognized and supported. 

This is why companies should leverage automation to systemize and streamline the onboarding process to ensure new team members get all the information needed without the process feeling laborious and taxing. 

Here are critical steps to automate the onboarding process:

  • Pre-boarding workflows: Once an applicant has been chosen as a new hire there needs to be a job automation kicked off that has their accounts created with IT service management, team leads and management.
  • Account Access & Setup: The new team member should receive an onboarding email notification with access to a checklist which will walk them through accessing their company email and setting up their accounts with software they will be using daily. This could include:
  • Training Protocols: Once their accounts are set up, the new employee should receive an invitation for an orientation meeting where they will meet and connect with colleagues who they will be working directly with. 

2) Social media 

Automating social media sharing and posting allows you to schedule posts across all social platforms used by your organization for maximum efficiency. 

Scheduling posts in advance will allow you to share across multiple networks — and consistent sharing can help drive more traffic, making your business more visible in search engine results. 

So, what are some of the things can you do with social media automation?

  • Curate content from other sources
  • Schedule posts and optimize them for engagement
  • Generate reports to show insights across networks
  • Integrate chatbots

While human interaction is still essential for meaningful conversation and to keep content fresh, automation can take some of the burdens off of your staff so more emphasis can be placed on these other functions. Good choices for social media automation include Hootsuite, Buffer, and SproutSocial.

3) Customer relationship management

The cornerstone of most businesses, your relationship with your customer is a critical element to your long-term success. It’s easier and more cost-effective to nurture – and keep – an established relationship than to build a new one. That’s why automated customer relationship management (CRM) tools are so popular. 

By making automating client information as easy as scanning a business card or importing a spreadsheet, automated CRM systems help sales team stay organized across all devices. This means conducting business on-the-fly just got easier than ever.

Automation also makes it simple to setup appointments with clients and send appropriate reminders to all parties. This feature can be used to set invoice payment reminders, so sales team members don’t have to make that awkward phone call. 

A good choice for CRM automation is Keap, formerly InfusionSoft, a full-featured automation system for all your CRM needs.

4) Data analytics

Data is literally everywhere. If you can harness it, your business can tap into the insights on consumer trends and customer behavior that can make a real difference to your bottom line. 

Leveraging this data allows you to see how your organization functions in real-time, monitor the effectiveness of your marketing plan, and helping to forecast growth for the future. 

While you can process data the old-fashioned way, automating it keeps processes running 24/7, removing the chances of gaps in data. Additionally, analytics automation makes compiling data over several sources easy and accessible to anyone on your team who needs it. 

Streamlined data means you’ll be able to target business opportunities more easily, contributing to your company’s agility and giving you a competitive edge in the marketplace. 

Companies like Ca.com can help set up an enterprise-level automated analytic system, but smaller businesses who want to track simpler data can get their toes wet with Google Analytics.

Choosing your automation toolkit wisely

With all of these powerful tools at your fingertips, you may be tempted to dive right into automation so that you can start reaping the benefits immediately.

However, it might be more prudent to automate one part of your business first to acclimate your team gradually. 

Products like MixMax are multi-functional, so it’s easy to begin with their customer onboarding drip series and then add-in more automation as you and your team get familiar with their purpose — and benefits.  Social media tools like SproutSocial can help marketing efforts while requiring little time. And, automating data analytics can help uncover actionable ways to grow the business or reduce costs. 

Even if you only automate one aspect of your business processes, you should begin to see time- and cost-savings quickly. With staff freed up to attend to other, more critical, functions, automation can help you steer your business toward exceptional customer service, customer retention, and profitability.