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7 Areas in Your Business You Should Consider Automating
Are you noticing that tasks are taking too long and becoming monotonous in your business? If you’ve been in business for some time, there’s a good chance that some of the processes you follow are now outdated. And when processes are outdated, you’re not making the most of the time, money, resources and human hours that you have available. If you’re looking for something that’s going to save you a ton of time and energy, then you need to start looking into automation.

It might sound techy and intimidating, but it really isn’t. In fact, once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t jump on the bandwagon sooner. The whole idea of automation is to remove those repetitive, soul sucking tasks off your plate so that you can focus on tasks that will help move your business in the right direction. So, if you’re fed up with doing things the old fashioned way, you’re in the right place! Let’s look at some areas in your business where automation could really help.
Emails
Ugh, the dreaded emails. They never seem to stop coming in, and even when you do get around to tackling them, they seem to come in faster. While those emails are important, they take up way too much time if you’re handling them manually. The good news is that you can fix that and clear a job off your plate. You can now set up email sequences that will do things like follow up leads, send reminders, and even answer common questions asked by customers. Most platforms offer this kind of service these days and it really does all of the heavy lifting for you. Imagine not having to sift through hundreds of emails at the end of the week and actually be able to go home on time? Sounds amazing, right?!
Social media
Social media shouldn’t take up much time – in theory that is. However these days, you need to make sure the content you’re posting is optimised for each platform. For example, a post on Instagram wouldn’t work on TikTok or LinkedIn, for example. So much has to go into social media these days that it almost becomes a second job. Luckily, there are countless amounts of scheduling tools like Crowdfire and Buffer, where you’re able to line up your content ahead of time and get on with your day. You can even use helpful tools like Tage to generate hashtags and captions for you. Or, you could even use other forms of AI to help you come up with content ideas, which frees up even more of your time. While you’ll still have to generate the content, these tools can help take the need to be available at the right time to post out of the picture.
Managing deliveries
If you do deliveries, or your business manages a fleet of vehicles, you’ll know all too well that managing the whole process can be a nightmare. Thankfully, corporate fleet management software can take a huge load off your back. It will allow you to track things like vehicle maintenance, fuel usage, and even the behaviour of your drivers. You can easily see that everything is running as it should be without having to get yourself involved. Not only that, it cuts down on unnecessary costs by alerting you of when vehicles need to be serviced or how much fuel your drivers are using.

Track finances
If there’s one thing that pretty much all business owners would benefit from, it’s tracking their finances. Nobody actually likes sitting down to crunch numbers, and if you’re still doing everything manually, you’re making a rod for your own back. There are so many apps like QuickBooks that can handle your invoicing, track expenses, and even remind those pesky clients that haven’t paid to pay up. Some apps will even categorise your expenses so that when it comes to tax season, you’re fully prepared.
Customer support
If you deal with customers regularly, then there’s a good chance you find yourself answering the same questions over and over again. If this is sounding familiar, then it might be worth setting up some sort of automated customer support. You can use chatbots on your website to handle simple questions without you needing to monitor the system. But don’t be put off by the thought of losing that human connection with chatbots – you can jump in at any time and chat to your customers. It just really helps free up even more valuable time when all the customer wants to know is how to reset their password.
Hiring and onboarding
Bringing in new hires is always exciting, but the whole hiring process takes a lot of time and can be a real headache. You’ve got to post the job in multiple places, check applications, schedule interviews and then onboard – it takes a lot of time! Luckily, there are lots of tools that can make the whole process a breeze like Workable. They completely streamline the hiring process and can even look through resumes for you! Not only that, they can help with scheduling interviews and when you’ve picked the right candidate, onboard them too. Why not save yourself some time the next time you hire and use one of these tools?
Manage inventory
Managing inventory can be an absolute nightmare. Between bits of stock going missing and then discovering too much of another stock, it can be hard to know where to start to rectify the problem. That is, if you’re still doing it manually. There are loads of inventory management software platforms to choose from that help keep track of stock, and will even reorder items when stock is running low. Perfect if you’ve got a small team or even running the show solo – one less thing to worry about.
Automation is a scary word, but it’s not designed to eliminate the need for humans. It’s designed to take monotonous tasks off your plate so that you and your team can put your skills to good use.