Process automation is here to stay. It’s the backbone of many organizations in a post-COVID world. Businesses needed an efficient way to operate their usual processes while remote, and they have seen firsthand the time saved and efficiency gained with automation tools.
Simply put, automation is liberation. It frees your teams from time-consuming tasks so they can spend more time on the projects that matter.
But where do you start? What are the most important processes to automate?
Believe it or not, there’s an automation solution for every broken process. Process automation possibilities are endless.
Before you start…
Knowing what to automate is simpler than you think. With a process discovery tool, which can recommend the best tasks for automation, you’ll uncover opportunities for process automation more quickly and eliminate time-consuming data collection.
In fact, finding the right tool can reduce automation implementation time by 80% and increase ROI by 352%.
Automation can be applied across different applications in different business departments, such as HR, marketing, sales, and more. Let’s look at some process automation examples in these areas.
Customer service
Out of all the process automation possibilities, was this the first one that popped into your head? Great customer service is vital to maintain relationships with your customers. When people think of your brand, they’ll likely think about their last interaction and experience. Communication and efficiency are key to a good customer experience.
That’s where process automation can help, or more precisely, automated workflows. They help to simplify communication so processes can go from person to person, system to system, without delay or issue. Eliminating paper-based tasks and improving processes around the knowledge base ensures that staff record, research, and resolve relevant issues quickly. Overall, it can improve communication and experience for customers.
Another key pillar of customer service is feedback. With automated surveys, you can
capture essential customer feedback quickly and react accordingly without choosing paper-based surveys or manually sending each one out. This significantly reduces time that can be spent on other valuable tasks.
But if you want to reduce your customer service team’s workload by almost 50%, then you need to use Robot Process Automation (RPA). This can resolve simple issues and questions that a customer has so teams can put all their attention into paramount issues.
Hiring processes
Hiring and onboarding new members of staff can take weeks. Discovering, interviewing, and integrating talent requires completing many processes online e.g. putting up job descriptions, toiling through numerous CVs, penciling in interviews, etc. It’s not for the faint of heart. But process automation can reduce this long-winded process from weeks to days.
Automated workflows are key to simplifying the whole hiring process. You’ll be able to automate repetitive and dull manual tasks like collecting CVs, follow-up emails, schedule interviews and more in the initial stages. Later in the process, the workflows will enable contracts to be signed electronically, saving on paper resources and keeping documents all in one place.
Marketing campaigns
Launching a new marketing campaign involves numerous tasks and departmental overlap. When creatives need approval from the creative directors, and creative directors need approval from C-level executives, it can all get very convoluted. Miscommunication between departments brings campaign delays, which drives up budgets.
Automation is your opportunity to simplify the whole creative marketing process so you can get to market faster. Automated workflows bring clearer briefing to teams, allocate tasks effectively, and further optimize the review and approval process. This enables teams to easily execute marketing initiatives, implement feedback, work together efficiently, and hit deadlines without incurring delay.
Sales operations
Sales is all about hitting targets: driving client communication, generating contracts, and getting that signature on the dotted line. Keeping up the pace and maintaining an efficient sales cycle is pivotal to building client relationships and hitting the commissions.
Automation can generate contract templates in minutes, saving time in building the template and gathering all the customer data that’s needed. A quick and accurate automated process. Getting that signature on the line can be made super simple with an e-signature too.
What about the discount approval process? This can be automated too with a simple workflow. Add checks and balances that ensure sales reps generate quotes that adhere to your discounting guidelines without jeopardizing the deal.
Procurement processes
Obtaining goods and maintaining supply chain relationships is not always easy. Many processes can make or break this vital sector. But automation is the key to streamlining processes to improve cost efficiency.
Automating your purchasing request with digital workflows and forms takes out dull manual tasks so you are free to focus on high-value work. By completing tasks more quickly, requests can be fulfilled in days, not weeks. Delivering orders on time, budget, and without human errors becomes standard and takes the stress out of procurement.
Financial operations
Numbers, finances – inputting data, reviewing costs, and tweaking invoices really can sound like a chore.
Automation in financial services enables faster decisions, more accurate data, and less repetitive tasks – more so than ever before. Say goodbye to long hours of spreadsheet data collection and focus on the long-term financial goals that will drive your future success, all thanks to automated workflows, form generation, and more.
But if you’re not sure of where to start with fixing inefficiencies in the financial department, then process mapping is a great way to identify the area you need to focus your efforts on. Uncover issues in payroll and expenses reporting, invoicing and more so you have seamless financial transactions throughout your business.
Unlock process automation possibilities with Nintex
Your road to automation starts and flourishes with Nintex. We have process mapping tools, automated workflows, process analytics, and more that will help you to unlock and measure your automation journey.
It’s never too late to transform your business with the power of automation.
Now you have you all these examples, get in touch so we can get you started today.
