The lockdowns in the previous months have caused disruptions in many industries and businesses. Safety protocols and health restrictions had companies rethink how they operate and do business.
To comply with the safety protocols enforced by health authorities, managers have adapted different working setups. Many have resorted to skeletal working structures to ensure the safety of their employees. Some have opted for working shifts to minimize and limit the interactions between employees. Many functions were delegated to work from home setups. This allowed many companies continuity despite the pandemic.
Business Process Automation
One of the biggest worries, when people had to work from home, is how administrative and business processes that cater to employees’ and customers’ needs can be delivered. How can employees apply and process for loans and financial assistance when they can’t go to work? How can HR process these applications efficiently?
How can managers keep track of their team’s milestones and achievements in one glance? How can you deliver excellent customer service in the face of a pandemic?
All of these were made possible because of automation. Business process automation uses technology to automate different day-to-day processes, routing the tasks to specific teams, following a certain set of rules. Repetitive and tediously manual processes can be done by a machine more efficiently than any human worker can,
One of the benefits of implementing business process automation is that processes become more streamlined, cost-efficient, and standardized. It helps organizations achieve operational efficiency, even when stakeholders are working remotely and at home. You can choose a platform where you can digitize your tasks. Third-party service providers, such as ServiceNow implementation services, can help you in your transformation initiative. You can automate functions such as HR onboarding, customer service management, contract management, and payroll accounts.
Bots Are Transforming Customer Engagement
Gone are days when you need hundreds of customer support agents. Messaging bots are now making it easier for companies to improve their customer engagement. Standard queries and registrations can now be handled by messaging bots, without the need for your human interaction.
Bots have evolved far more than answering simple Yes/No inquiries. They can pull data about the customers, so they can customize the options based on the profile of the customer. In banks, for instance, a customer can check his credit balance or apply for a loan.
Of course, this does not mean that the human workforce will be eliminated. There are still processes, such as complaints that still need human intervention and interaction. However, bots can help ensure high availability, even if some of your workers cannot report to work due to health reasons. Your reporting customer service agents can focus on more pressing and serious complaints and problems.
Automation Can Help You Focus on Selling
With a skeletal workforce in place, it is essential to let your people focus on more important matters. With the process automation to take care of the ordering process, your people can focus on selling your products and services. Collection of orders, processing of orders, checking of stocks, and generating billing statements can be done by robotic process automation (RPA). Of course, you may still want to do some validation checks at the end. However, automation is less likely to incur any errors compared to doing it manually.
Automation can also generate a proposal based on the customer’s requirements and product SKUs. An RPA can be designed to generate simple to more complicated proposals. Your customer does not need to wait for an appointment to get a proposal for the services that he needs. Once you have generated and sent the proposal, an alert can be sent to an assigned sales representative. Your sales personnel can then call and follow-through with the customer in case of questions and clarifications. All this can be done without the need to meet several times with the customer, ensuring your clients and your employees’ safety.
Automation Increases Availability and Reliability
You can tell your clients that no one is available to assist them with their concerns because of the pandemic. But how would that sound? People are already stressed as it is. One of the main benefits of automation is high availability and reliability. No matter what restrictions are implemented, you can rest assured that your customers’ concerns will be taken care of.
Removing your dependency on a human workforce allows you to be more effective in serving your customers’ interests.
Investing in automation for your business process can significantly increase your efficiency, productivity, and reliability. It is not without costs, but the benefits of automating your processes can greatly transform the way you do business.