Research from Yahoo reveals that well over 543,000 companies start every month. With customers having more choices, your business should continue to innovate to stand out. One way to do this is to automate your processes.
Automation is technology that controls and oversees the production and distribution of products and services. More than half of these processes could be automated by 2022, according to a recent study by Redwood Software and Sapio Research.
However, applying automation can be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. So start automating only processes that need it the most, like the following:
Menial Production Floor Tasks
Musculoskeletal diseases (MSD), like strains, tendonitis, osteoporosis account for over 33 percent of workplace injuries. MSDs are often caused by repetitive motions from assembling and monitoring items in the production line.
Automation with computer-programmed robot arms take away these rote tasks from your employees. This reduces workplace injuries, which shield you from potential risks; you could avoid legal problems. Fewer if not zero injuries also means not having to deal with downtime, ensuring you meet production deadlines. The technology also lets your workers focus on tasks that require human creativity to solve. Automation also reduces human error, so you can expect the same level of quality for each product.
Customer Service
Whether you’re running a small restaurant or an established franchise for a commercial cleaning service, you should always put customer service as one of your priorities.
Over 96 percent of worldwide customers say that customer service significantly influences their loyalty to a brand, according to Microsoft. HubSpot’s 2019 customer service report also found over 60 percent of customers rank fast issue resolution as important or very important in their customer service experience.
You can automatically solve minor customer questions with an AI chatbot. These can be programmed to respond to simple customer concerns instantly with a pre-written answer. More complicated questions can be automatically directed to a human representative. This makes customer service easier and more efficient for your company, as it lets your employees respond to more important and critical concerns, rather than repetitive and simple questions.
Employee Task and Performance Tracking
If you still use manual methods to monitor your workers’ performance, you’re wasting precious time. Software and web applications, like Trello, Monday.com, and Airtable let you assign and schedule tasks to workers. They also allow you to track an assignment’s progress and how much time an employee has spent on it.
These applications also have reporting features that let you assess your employees’ productivity within a certain period. Every piece of data is automatically recorded, processed, and presented. With these products, your performance tracking will also be easier. You’ll not only have adequate data to use during evaluations, but also have sufficient documentation to support your assessments.
Automation can improve your company’s overall productivity and product quality. But it’s not essential for every task, especially if the project needs critical thinking and creativity. Use automation for the processes mentioned, and you’ll surely catch up, or even surpass, your competition.
