Automation is about simplifying tasks. And, when it is about business, automation helps accomplishing such tasks that are repetitive, monotonous, and often requiring similar action.
And, due to this ease of use, automation is now a thing that not just facilitates the workflow of large corporations, but also is quite useful in small businesses.
For this very same reason, automation today has become a part of many small business’s many monotonous tasks, starting from sales to regular administrative tasks.
Automation: Definition
Before digging deeper into the details of automation, it is important to make it clear about what automation means.
In simple words, automation is about utilising tools and programming them to perform tasks on your behalf.
These tools here are programmed to respond to triggers. Yes, whenever some kind of action takes place, these tools respond in a pre-set way.
And, this can happen for one single event and for an entire workflow as well.
Benefits of Automation in Small Businesses
There are numerous benefits that small businesses can experience from automation. Such as,
- Help you focus on tasks that are more important, rather than wasting time on something repetitive.
- Helps improving work-life balance by eliminating tedious tasks.
- Helps increasing productivity of employees, as automation helps employees focus on core business tasks, rather than routine tasks.
- Helps cutting costs by placing software in use, rather than engaging employees to do the same.
- Helps promoting remote work. In this COVID-19 pandemic remote work is important, and automation is possibly the best solution.
Things You Should Consider Automating
To make sure that the workflow automation in your small business is working perfectly, you need to set up a series of automations which can be of several types.
But, the kinds of automation should be included, depends on the type and nature of your business.
However, there are certain tasks that can benefit any type of business and you can definitely try considering them.
Let’s check these out.
1. Send An Immediate Response To Contact Forms
When users submit a contact form through a business website, they expect a fast response. If they hear nothing, it can feel like the message has been lost in a void.
Even if you do answer eventually, the likelihood of converting the lead has already dropped irremediably.
An easy solution is to send a thank-you message that assures the user that someone from your team will be in touch soon.
You can also use this type of automation to deliver premium content after a user fills in a form.
There’s no need to manually send things like ebooks, infographics, and links to webinars.
Better still, your automation software can register where the lead originated from, which will be useful to know for nurturing later.
If the “contact us” email address listed on your website really means contact you, you’ll be overwhelmed by the number of emails awaiting your reply. And responding days later isn’t an option.
With automation software, you can respond immediately every time—without having to think about it. Instead of taking requests via an email address, add a “contact us” form to your website. Smart client management software like.
When a prospect completes the form by entering their name, email address, and comment or question, the small business automation software issues an email reply immediately. The response is a prewritten template, but it can sound like you just fired it off.
Your potential clients will be glad that their “contact us” note didn’t disappear in an online black hole. Meanwhile, the software assigns you or another team member to follow up with a phone call.
2. Onboarding New Employees
Every worker requires some onboarding — even outsourced professionals who will only do a small amount of work for you and highly experienced employees who have held similar positions in the past.
Since every business is unique, onboarding is essential for ensuring workers have all the information they need about your company, know how to carry out tasks to the standard you want, and are clear on what processes you use.
The problem with onboarding is that it may be spread out over the course of several weeks and it requires your continuous involvement. However, automation enables you to set up onboarding for every new person you hire or outsource.
You can automate processes like sending documentation, approving permissions, and providing workers with the relevant training.
Automation also reduces the chance of errors — if you do find any mistakes, you can easily correct them in time for the next person you onboard.
3. Reimbursing Work-Related Expenses Of Your Employees
If your employees travel for work, need to take potential clients to lunch, or have any other expenses they charge to the company, a large amount of extra work falls on your plate. Plus, it’s a hassle for employees — no one likes dealing with expenses.
Automation allows employees to input information into a digital form — when the form has autofill fields, it’s faster to do each time and the risk of mistakes is much lower.
The appropriate person then automatically receives the form and approves the reimbursement using an electronic signature.
Finally, the employee receives a notification of the approval. Workers can also check the status of their reimbursement requests at any time without needing to talk to anyone.
4. Adding Leads To CRM
If you receive a large number of leads, a great deal of your time is taken up with adding them to your CRM and updating their information as they move down the funnel.
A marketing automation system can add leads for you, categorizing them according to actions taken and other behaviour.
The software will also record all the communication you have with leads to show their progress toward becoming sales-ready.
A sale isn’t the end of your relationship with a client. In fact, it’s only the beginning. Make a great first impression by sending a series of welcome emails to show new customers that you care about supporting them and let them get to know you and your business.
Staying in touch is effortless with automation software. Set up your software so that a purchase triggers an email series. In the first email, sent immediately after a purchase, include a thank you and an introduction to your company—whether that takes the form of answers to frequently asked questions or an overview of what your services entail.
Consider sending a thank you gift, like a discount on their next purchase.
Check in again shortly after the client has started using your product or services to see how they’re doing. Include helpful content, like tips about using the product or a how-to video, or suggest complementary products that may be of interest. A few days later, ask for feedback by sending a link to a survey or asking how your business could improve. If the client is dissatisfied, you’ll want to take action sooner than later. If they love your product, publishing positive reviews can help to convert other leads who may be on the fence.
5. Following Up With New Contacts
After you attend an event, what do you do with all the business cards you receive? If you put off reaching out until later, people may forget who you are and you’ll have lost the chance to make a valuable connection.
A better option is to scan the business cards using software that will automatically upload the contact information.
The software can then use the details to send each contact a brief message, perhaps offering to set a time to talk later. You can automate the entire process, including scheduling appointments.
At a conference or other events, networking efforts can pay off in the form of a big stack of business cards. But collecting business cards isn’t the goal. Start communicating with your new contacts immediately—before you both forget about the conversation you.
Transfer contact information from the business card to your CRM tool, tagging each person as a conference or event contact. Then use automation software to schedule an email to be sent, whether you want to follow up an hour later or the next day.
Writing even a brief “nice to meet you” email to each new contact can drain your time. Streamline the process by writing an email template that feels personal but could apply to any new contact from the event.
6. Capture Leads By Offering Free Content
No matter how brilliant your products or services are, don’t expect potential clients to invite you into their inboxes. The average person already receives 88 business emails a day according to The Radicati Group, a tech market research firm. So, when it comes to collecting email addresses, you might have to give in order to receive.
Content is a gift that keeps giving. By offering free content—like an ebook, PDF, video, or another type of resource—to those who sign up for your emails, you gain new leads and show off your expertise while you’re at it.
Spare yourself from manually mailing resources by automating the process. Add a web form to your site that allows people to raise their hand to receive your content. When a lead enters their name and email address into the form, automation software delivers the requested resource.
Another benefit: Automation software can identify which leads were generated when the content was requested. Later on, when those leads make buying decisions, you’ll have data to help you measure the effectiveness of your lead magnet. If you’re paying for ads on any of your social media platforms, or considering starting to, this reporting will let you easily choose your most effective lead magnet.
7. Set A Framework For Your Sales Pipeline
The road from prospect to paying client includes a few stops. Mapping the route—and adding automation to the journey—helps your sales reps guide prospects from one destination to the next, ensuring no one gets lost along the way.
Automation software organizes the existing process that sales reps follow to close a deal. When the process is clearly defined, sales reps can move leads from one stage to another, creating consistency and providing visibility into where each lead needs to head next.
Define the sales process by four basic stages
New opportunity
A lead has been identified. When a lead is tagged as a new opportunity, the software assigns a sales rep to contact him.
Contacting
The lead moves into this stage when a sales rep calls him. If the sales rep reaches him, the lead advances to the next stage. If the call goes to voicemail, an automated email is sent as a follow-up.
Engaging
The sales rep is talking with the lead to learn about his needs and how your product or services can benefit him.
Qualified
The lead moves into this stage when the sales rep determines that he’s qualified, meaning that he has the budget and authority to make the purchasing decision. The rest of the sales process plays out from here, with different automated actions set up for wins and losses, as well as leads who aren’t yet ready to make a decision.
8. Remind A Customer About An Abandoned Shopping Cart
In your email promoting a new product, you conveniently included a link to an order form to inspire on-the-spot purchases. A customer read the email. They clicked to place the order. And then…no sale.
That scenario plays out more often than not: studies suggest two-thirds of online shoppers abandon shopping carts. Maybe the customer decided not to buy. But maybe they weren’t ready—or simply got distracted and forgot to complete the purchase.
Either way, don’t give up. When automation software detects that a customer visited an order form without making a purchase, it can remind customers to follow through. You can schedule one reminder email to be sent 30 minutes later, with another reminder sent the following week.
If you were ever just a single click away from buying shoes before you had second thoughts, you know that big retailers employ this strategy all the time. And for good reason: According to tech research service BI Intelligence, 63% of abandoned merchandise may be recoverable.
9. Make It Easy For Clients To Ask For Help
When a client needs help, nothing is more frustrating than a hard-to-find contact link and a slow-to-respond company. Six in 10 consumers have decided against an intended purchase or business transaction because of poor customer service, according to a report prepared for American Express. Make sure your business meets—and exceeds—the client’s expectations every time by automating a process for responding to help inquiries.
Include a “contact us” link in every email to spare clients the task of locating it on your website. When a client clicks the link, automation software tells you, or a predetermined staff member, to follow up.
With an automated process, the client receives a better, faster, and more personalized answer than they would have by contacting a general phone number or email address. In the software, employee names can be added to a contact drop-down menu to ensure that to-dos are routed to the appropriate people. By assigning certain staff members to certain types of requests—a support rep for a technical issue, a salesperson for a prospect inquiry—you immediately connect the client to the person who can help the most.
10. Clean Up Your Email List
Continuing to email your subscribers, can hinder you from reaching the people who want to hear from you.
That’s because email providers like Gmail measure engagement—how often people open, click and otherwise interact with emails—in order to detect spam. High engagement tells Gmail that people want your emails. Low engagement suggests that they don’t—especially if some people mark your emails as spam. If that trend continues, Gmail might label you a spammer and block all of your emails from inboxes.
With automation software, you can prune your list by targeting inactive subscribers. Because software tracks engagement metrics like opens, clicks, orders and web form opt-ins, you can single out subscribers who have been M.I.A. (120 days is a good measure).
Once the low-engagement crowd has been identified, schedule a series of three automated emails asking, “Do you want to keep receiving my emails?” Because you’re targeting known non-responders, use an arresting subject line like, “Hey!” (It worked for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign). In the email, give readers the choice of two links. If they click “yes,” the software will remove the “inactive” label. If the answer is “no,” they’ll no longer receive your emails.
Spam reasons aside, email list hygiene is important for your marketing efforts. Realistically, your target demographic isn’t everyone on the planet. Paring down your list allows you to better understand your clients’ needs and interests, helping you craft more precise messages.
Bottom Line
Automation simplifies all areas of a business by automatically accomplishing tasks that you or an employee would otherwise have to do manually. You don’t have to look any further than your inbox for automation examples.
It’s the “sorry I missed you” email from a salesperson who just left you a voicemail. The birthday coupon from a restaurant. The reminder from a retailer that you added a product to your shopping cart but never clicked “buy.”
But, as we said earlier, automation isn’t reserved for big corporations anymore. Small companies can, and should, incorporate automation in every aspect of business.
And, you should give it a try too.
