As a small business owner, you always want to find ways to streamline your business processes.
The faster you get things done, the more customers you get to serve in a day. In some cases, however, faster doesn’t always mean better. Quality can suffer if you rush your employees with their work. To have a good balance between speed and quality, look no further than automation.
This is a technology that performs your business process with little to no human assistance. It’s been used by a variety of industries for decades now, primarily manufacturers with robots that assemble and package products automatically.
Benefits of Automation
With today’s advanced computer and artificial intelligence tech, you can automate administrative tasks, accounting tasks, IT tasks, and more.Automation is favorable for everyone involved.
For the business owner, it improves productivity while also reducing human error. Programs and machines can do the same thing over and over with consistent quality. Their performance isn’t affected by sleep or hunger, unlike humans.
For employees, automation just makes their tasks easier to complete. The faster they can do something, the more they can contribute. When a computer takes care of menial tasks, they can move on to ones that require skills that only humans possess like creativity and problem-solving.
Repetitive tasks can also lead to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which are injuries that affect the nerves, tendons, muscles, joints, spinal discs, and cartilage. MSDs cost the US about $45 to $55 billion annually, according to a report by EHS Today. It also found that MSDs are a common cause of physical disability and long-term pain, often leading to surgery, and ultimately lost time at work. Because automation reduces repetitive tasks, you reduce the risk of your employees developing MSDs at work.
Which processes can you easily automate?
Accounting Tasks
As a small business owner, you’re probably wearing a lot of hats, including the role of the accountant. If you don’t have the education or experience for the task, it’s very difficult to figure out. You have to get it right every time, too, as you don’t want to miscalculate your employees’ payroll and benefits. Plus, you don’t want government auditors and regulators to think that there’s something wrong with your books.
Fortunately, you can use cloud-based accounting applications, like Freshbooks and Quickbooks inventory software, to automate your accounting work. You can use them to create, send, and receive invoices easily. You fill out a form on the app using your computer, smartphone, or tablet, edit it for possible revisions and submit it. The program sends the invoice automatically through email. These applications also let you monitor your invoices, so you see if customers and clients have paid or if there are payment issues.
Accounting programs also let you calculate your employee wages and benefit deductions. They also create and send payslips for you. Plus, with cashflow forecasting capabilities, you can adjust your expenses and your investors’ expectations.
IT Tasks
If you’re not well-versed in information technology (IT), you’ll have a variety of problems managing your business in the digital age. You can automate a variety of IT tasks for your business. One way to do this is to hire a PBX provider to install a modern phone and internet system, which you could enhance with the best wifi extenders.
With a private branch exchange (PBX) system, you can monitor and record customer calls automatically. Some PBX systems also come with interactive voice response systems that let callers use their dial pad or voice to find the right department and employee to call.
Customer Service Tasks
If you only have a few employees in your small business, you may end up overwhelmed with all the customer inquiries you’re getting. You can handle these with chatbots.
A chatbot is an artificial intelligence software that can simulate a natural human conversation through messaging applications like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viberand more.
Chatbots are great for customer service, as they can provide prewritten answers to simple customer questions, like prices, your company’s contact details, and more. They direct customers to a representative when the concern is too difficult or complex to answer. This frees up you and your customer service employees of unnecessary calls and chats conversations with customers. You can focus on inquiries that need actual empathy and problem-solving skills.
One of the best ways to streamline your business operations is to implement automation. Fortunately, this technology is available even for small enterprises like yours. Use them properly to get quality work done as fast as possible.