Four Methods for Automating Manual Office Processes. People on your staff are complaining that they have too much paperwork. Additionally, you may have observed that your to-do list is filled with monotonous tasks. Because you keep going through the same processes, it takes so long to make progress. There isn’t enough time for you to talk to clients and plan the next step for your business.
Time is money, as any business owner quickly learns. And automated manual processes can make everyone in the office less tired of doing the same thing over and over again. You can save a lot of time by automating things, but you might not know where to begin. Let’s examine four effective methods for automating manual processes that occur in the background.
1. Identify Cross-Functional Opportunities
Most businesses have several departments that each do different things. Among your employees, you may have 10 in sales, 20 in IT, and a few who work as lawyers. The tasks of the departments overlap, although these staff members may have different areas of experience. Sales persuades customers to agree to pay for website development, while IT ensures the business fulfills its obligations. The law staff is helping to write the agreements at the same time.
Within this overlap are several processes that depend on each other. And that’s where opportunities to speed up time-consuming tasks are frequently found. For example, salespeople might be excellent at setting up meetings with possible customers. From the perspective of developing leads, they know what to look for. But they aren’t excellent at seeing how these possible partnerships will affect technology and the law.
It takes too much time for everyone to be in meetings and pass around different versions of papers. Using manual editing and review processes increases the possibility of errors. This is a chance to automate the processes for managing contracts in several different departments. Instead, cross-functional teams can work together better when they use tools for managing contracts. Everyone can work out the details of a customer deal faster and more correctly.
2. Target Client Pain Points
If you ask your customers for feedback, you’ll probably find themes that come up a lot. Some of the comments will be positive, pointing out the good things about your business. But some polls will show that people have similar issues and solutions. The most likely reason for these irritations is that the back-end processes are not working well.
Because of this, the average customer happiness scores for internet service companies are very low. For 2021–2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index did a study on 45 different businesses, and internet service providers came in last. There has also been a 1.5% drop in the general rating for these providers compared to last year.
The persistently low scores are a result of not meeting customer standards. Mistakes like not telling people ahead of time about planned downtime are one example of this. If the system automatically notifies customers when something goes wrong, their anger may not escalate. When repair work is required, the system can notify affected clients via emails or texts. Service reps can handle peaks in call volume better because they don’t have to send alerts manually.
3. Ask Employees About Inefficiencies
Opportunities and issues can sometimes appear unexpectedly. Although workers may observe that processes aren’t always smooth, they eventually adapt to them. To change, they don’t say what worries them. There is also the possibility that staff members have spoken up but had their opinions ignored.
Consider a worker who sees that the business’s customer info isn’t clean. There are numerous duplicates, issues with system connections, and errors in data entry. The main cause of the issue is manual data entry across numerous departments. Furthermore, none of the systems work together right. But it’s up to that person to send different email messages to customers and leads.
Using the right software to automate database management could solve the problem. Getting the systems of the different departments to work together would also be a beneficial step. A company can fix simple mistakes and duplicates with automated tools without the need for manual labor. The employees who divide contacts into groups based on certain traits will have clean data to work with. Thereafter, they can be sure to send their email campaigns on time.
4. Eliminate Redundancies
You frequently find redundancies when looking at manual processes. Take the time off that employees get as an example. Is there more than one system or form used in the request process? If you said yes, it’s probably giving you a headache for no reason.
Office workers say they waste 4.5 hours per week on tasks they think should be automated. One of these tasks could involve requesting time off in multiple systems. Adding paper forms results in increased waste. Filling out a form for a boss’s signature causes more than one person to become stuck. An admin assistant must also check the forms against another system, which is more work.
All those steps increase the risk of oversights, including incorrect paychecks. Converting to one system is the ideal solution. But if such an arrangement isn’t feasible, automated platform integrations are the next best thing. Time-off requests entered in one system are automatically routed to others. Redundancies like paper forms and manual entries go away, freeing up everyone’s time.
Finding Ways to Automate the Routine
Office work isn’t always seamless. What starts as a useful process can become cumbersome over time. As companies grow and embark on new initiatives, redundancies and inefficiencies creep in. Employees spend more time on additional steps when they shouldn’t have to. Client service and staff productivity suffer, eventually impacting revenue.
By uncovering overlaps and points of frustration, business owners can identify processes to automate. Duplicate tasks are ideal targets, as are those prone to many errors. Tools that streamline these actions help companies leverage resources more efficiently. Employees can then prioritize what impacts the bottom line.
